Finlay on Martin Guerre

Oxford University Press American Historical Association The Refashioning of Martin Guerre Author(s): Robert Finlay Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 93, No. 3 (Jun., 1988), pp. 553-571 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1868102 Accessed: 23-10-2015 19:15 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Oxford University Press and American Historical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Historical Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 142.103.183.129 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 19:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions AHR Forum:The Returnof Martin Guerre The Refashioningof MartinGuerre ROBERT FINLAY WHILE MOST RENAISSANCE POPES AND PRINCES HAVE BEEN FORGOTTEN by everyone but the historicalspecialist, one peasant of the sixteenthcentury, from a village near Toulouse in the foothillsof the Pyrenees, remains well known. Martin Guerre-or rather the impostorwho took his wife and birthright-has entered history.This is a remarkablefact, for generally the world of peasants lay outside what the elite of Europe in the past considered significant.Peasants were viewed withinthe comfortingcontexts of proverbialwisdom and pastoral buffoonery.' The personalitiesand perspectivesof rural people usually were recorded only when peasants ran into trouble with the law. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's reconstructionof rurallife in southernFrance in thefourteenth century and Carlo Ginzburg'sexamination of peasant religiousbeliefs in sixteenth-centuryFriuli rely on legal records.2These workshave been acclaimed forrevealing the motivations and values of ordinarypeople of the past, hithertorendered mute by both their illiteracyand ignoble status. Even withinthis select company, however, Natalie Zemon Davis's Returnof MartinGuerre is exceptional.The eventsshe examineswere never lost to sightbut instead became famous immediatelyand eventuallyinspired a play, two novels, and an operetta.The storywas irresistible:the impostor,Arnaud du Tilh, posed as MartinGuerre, the husband of Bertrandede Rols, forover threeyears, thereby gaininga wifeand propertyand fatheringa child,only to be exposed by the true husband when he was on the verge of refutingthose accusing him of deception. While Davis's book carried thisdramatic story to an English-speakingaudience, a film,Le Retourde MartinGuerre, the product of collaborationbetween Davis and the moviemakers,presented it to an internationalone. No doubt because of the excellenceand wide distributionof thefilm, Davis's book reached a more extensive I wouldlike to thankElizabeth Anne Payneand Donald E. Quellerfor their encouragement and criticismin thewriting of thisessay. ' NatalieZemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), 1-2. 2 EmmanuelLe RoyLadurie, Montaillou:ThePromisedLand of Error, trans. Barbara Bray (New York, 1978); Carlo Ginzburg,The Cheeseand theWorms: The Cosmosof a Sixteenth-CentutyMiller, trans. John Tedeschiand Anne Tedeschi(Baltimore, Md., 1980); see also his TheNight Battles: Witchcraft and AgrarianCults in theSixteenth and SeventeenthCenturies, trans. John Tedeschi and Anne Tedeschi (Baltimore,Md., 1983). 553 This content downloaded from 142.103.183.129 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 19:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 554 RobertFinlay audience than does the usual historicalstudy. It has been hailed in the popular press as a vividsupplement to the filmand in academicjournals as a "realisticand brilliantlyscholarly monograph," an "imaginativehistory which is nevertheless solidlybased and intelligentlyargued," a "major workof historicalreconstruction ... performedwithout any kindof ideologicalbias."3 It is the consensus,then, that TheReturn of Martin Guerre is a genuine rarity,a workof sophisticatedscholarship with general appeal, a study that remains faithfulto academic standards while conveyingall the color and drama of a famous tale. DAVIS WAS DRIVEN TO GIVE THE STORY OF MARTIN GUERRE itS "firstfull-scale historicaltreatment" because she came to feel that the filmdid not adequately address "themotivations of people in thesixteenth century." She was troubledthat "thefilm was departingfrom the historicalrecord," especially because "the double game of the wifeand thejudge's innercontradictions were softened."She wanted to make room for the "perhapses" and "may-have-beens"that the historianuses to explain inadequate and perplexingevidence. She tellsher readers that "what I offeryou here is in part myinvention, but held tightlyin check by the voices of the past."4The inventiveaspects of Davis's book stem largelyfrom her employ- ment of concepts and methodsdrawn fromrecent innovations in anthropology, ethnography,and literarycriticism, all fieldsthat have had a significantinfluence on what is widelyregarded as the best contemporaryhistorical scholarship.5 The result of Davis's labors is a reinterpretationof the Martin Guerre storythat is imaginativelyconceived, eloquently argued, and intrinsicallyappealing. It is also strikinglydifferent from the versionof the storythat has been accepted since the sixteenthcentury. The traditionalversion of the storyof MartinGuerre derivesfrom accounts of the sixteenthcentury, especially from Jean de Coras's ArrestMemorable, written by the rapporteurat the trial and a judge of the Parlement of Toulouse after the pseudo-husband was executed in 1560.6 In Coras's commentary,the main characterwas Arnaud du Tilh, also known as Pansette,"the belly,"a charlatan broughtto disasterby his own cunningand ambition."It was trulya tragedyfor this fine peasant," the judge wrote, "all the more because the outcome was wretched,indeed fatalfor him."7 In his narrativeas wellas in his courtroom,Coras 3The quotationsare, respectively, from reviews by A. LloydMoote, AHR, 90 (October1985): 943; Donald R. Kelley,Renaissance Quarterly, 37 (1984): 252; and EmmanuelLe RoyLadurie, New York Reviewof Books, 30 (22 December1983): 12-14.See also reviewsby William Monter, Sixteenth Century Journal,14 (1983): 516; Edward Benson,French Review, 57 (1984): 753-54; MichelSimonin, Bibliotheque d'HumanismeetRenaissance, 47 (1985): 286-87; R. J. Knecht,History, 70 (1985): 121. 4Davis, Returnof Martin Guerre, viii-ix, 5. 5 For example,see theworks cited in note2, above. 6 Anothercontemporary work was GuillaumeLe Sueur'sAdmiranda historia de PseudoMartino Tholosae,a pamphletfollowing the genre of a newsaccount. Davis's reinterpretation of the Martin Guerrestory depends on herreading of Coras's Arrest Memorable, and shegives the latter far greater weightthan Le Sueur'sshorter, simpler account (see Davis,Return of Martin Guerre, 4-5, 104,114-15, 153 n. 17). 7 Davis,Return of Martin Guerre, 111. This content downloaded from 142.103.183.129 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 19:15:23 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Refashioningof Martin Guerre 555 unequivocallycondemned Arnaud, yet,as Davis shows, he had a certain admi- ration for the impostor'sabilities. Coras's focus was on the marvelousdeception perpetratedby Arnaud, and in the many subsequent retellingsof the tale, the emphasis was similarlyon the arch-trickster,the sly thiefof sexual favors and property. Davis presents a radically differentinterpretation in which the focus is on Bertrandede Rols or, rather,on her relationshipwith the impostor.According to Davis, Bertrande was in fact Arnaud's accomplice, for she knew that the man claimingto be her husband was a fraud. She accepted Arnaud, theyfell in love, and theyregarded themselvesas having an "invented"marriage. They willfully fabricateda lie, and, when challengedin court,they concocted a strategyof deceit and manipulation: "Bertrande searched her memory for a sexual episode [involvingher true husband]-perhaps even embroidered it-with which they could surprise the court."8 With the return of Martin Guerre, however, Bertrande's"double role" collapsed,and she broughtforth "prepared excuses" for her conduct. For his part,Arnaud remained faithfulto his lover and accomplice, assertingthat she had been duped as thoroughlyas her fellowvillagers of Artigat. Even in his confessionon the wayto the gibbet,the impostor"concealed fromstart to finish"Bertrande's role in theirelaborate collusion.9 These twoversions of thestory of MartinGuerre could hardlybe more different. The traditionalaccount is a narrativeof greed and deception,of pervertedtalents and a duped woman,of greatability in the serviceof fraudand theft.Davis's book tellsa tale of devotionand collaboration,of love and identity,of how an invented marriage was destroyedby a hard-heartedman with a wooden leg. To Coras, Arnaud's abilities-his quick tongue and retentivememory-led a fine peasant into a tragicomedyof imposture.To Davis, the tragedylies in the unmaskingof Arnaud, "a kind of hero, a more real Martin Guerre" than the unsympathetic husband of Bertrande de Rols.10 The sharpest contrastbetween the two versionsis in the characterizationof Bertrande. In Coras's eyes,she was a dupe,

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