Martin Guerre

The man who had returned as Martin Guerre lived for three years with Bertrande and her son; they had two children together, with one daughter, Bernarde, surviving.

A soldier who passed through Artigat claimed the man was a fraud, pointing out that the true Martin had lost a leg in the ongoing war in Italy.

Pierre initiated a new case against the man by falsely claiming to act in Bertrande's name (only the wronged wife could bring the suit).

The man claiming to be Martin then challenged her: if she would swear that he was not her husband, he would gladly agree to be executed – Bertrande remained silent.

The returnee eloquently argued his case, and the judges in Toulouse tended to believe his version of the story: that Bertrande was pressured to perjury by the greedy Pierre Guerre.

[4] During his long absence from Artigat, the real Martin Guerre had moved to Spain, where he served in the militia for a cardinal and subsequently in the army of Pedro de Mendoza.

[citation needed] Two contemporary accounts of the case were written: Histoire Admirable by Guillaume Le Sueur and the better-known Arrest Memorable by Jean de Coras, one of the trial judges in Toulouse.

In 1983, Princeton University history professor Natalie Zemon Davis published a detailed exploration of the case in her book The Return of Martin Guerre.

Davis noted as evidence for this theory the improbability of a woman's mistaking a stranger for her husband, Bertrande's support for Arnaud until (and even partially during) the trial, and their shared story of intimacy, likely prepared in advance.

The historian Robert Finlay has criticised Davis's conclusions, arguing that Bertrande was duped (as most of her contemporaries believed, including the trial judges) after her husband's long absence.

He thought that Davis attempted to superimpose a modern societal model of an independent woman making her own choices onto the historical account.

[5] Davis published a response to Finlay's arguments, called "On the Lame", in the same issue of The American Historical Review in June 1988.