The strange case of Martin Guerre transfixed 16th Century France. The
case became a legal cause celebre when returned soldier was put on trial as an
imposter.
Those familiar with the film Somersby will recognize the story retold in
a Civil War setting. An earlier film starring Gerard Depardieu Le
Retour de Martin Guerre was based on the research of Natalie Zemon Davis.
The original Martin Guerre, a Basque farmer left his young wife and patrimony after
a family argument and went off to war.
His young wife was left to rear their child on her own and she waited for eight long
years. However one day her husband returned. After eight years friends and Betrand, the wife herself
felt that Martin had changed considerably however this was put down to the stress of war.
At first the relatives were glad to have Martin home, however after a time he started to sell
parcels of the family land and to demand accounts from his uncle who had been maintaining the
family property in his absence.
It was this cavelier attitude to family property which led to the whispering campaign
which asserted that the returning heir was not really Martin at all. There were small differences
- his feet were smaller; he could not remember some Basque phrases and his son did not resemble him at all.
After an aborted attempt to kill Martin, his uncle Pierre took his nephew to court charging him with being
an imposter.
The family and friends divided over whether Martin was a faker or not. A soldier who had known the
real Martin passed through and alleged that the real Martin had a wooden leg.
