On September 12, 1560, the “Parlement of Toulouse” sentenced one Arnaud du Tilh to hang and four days later, the same body of power forced me to witness his execution (Davis 91-93). For all I know, du Tilh might have been the only man who has ever cared for my person. Now he is gone. The penning of this entry comes at a time when the people of Artigat look at me with contempt and most of my family, especially my husband Martin Guerre, appear disgusted with because of the whole Arnaud du Tilh affair. See, in 1548, Martin “stole a small quantity of grain from his father” and with that single thoughtless move, my dear husband risked the older man’s wrath (Davis 24). Rather than stay and face his father’s anger, Martin ran away and left me behind. That is where Arnaud du Tilh’s story as an impostor began. He showed up in 1556, eight years after Martin Guerre’s departure, claiming he is my husband. Naturally, it did not take long to discover his deception, and instead of reporting the treacherous man to my family, I went with the ruse. My writing of this piece stems from my need to explain why I knew Arnaud du Tilh was not my husband but went along. Interestingly, the same people who are judging me now played the most significant role as far as the reasons for my actions go. Arnaud du Tilh was the respite I needed in the suffocating position in which my being a woman placed my person.
First, there is the Guerre family. If anyone is up to date with news about The Return of Martin Guerre, then he or she should also know that our marriage was an arranged one. A read of the “Rols-Guerre contract” under which I, Bertrande de Rols, married Martin Guerre will reveal that I was aged between “nine [and] ten years old” while he was only fourteen (Davis 16). Nonetheless, my people adhered to the customs and I left my father’s home with a considerable dowry. Aside from a cash payment, my father bestowed upon the Guerre family a title to a “vineyard west of the Leze called Del-bourat” and a household goods including “bed with feather pillows, sheets of linen and wool, [and] a bedcover” (Davis 17). With so many valuables, one would think my union was something akin to a matrimonial bliss. I do not blame anyone who presumed so because I was among them: until I learned of Martin’s impotence (Davis 19). The Guerre’s knew yet they lied to the house of the Rols and without any thought to my well being, they pushed for a wedding.
I was a girl propelled into a woman’s role without any means to fulfill the same. I was angry and discontent for the longest time and the humiliation did not help matters. I remember uncountable “charivari” scenes in which men from the village “darkened their faces [and] put on women's clothes” only to dance in front of the house while “beating on wine vats, ringing bells, and rattling swords” (Davis 21). That racket almost drove me mad! My husband continued to box and fence with that insufferable lot. However, society dictated patience, and I stayed even when my parents asked me to go back home. My patience paid off and after the counsel of “a local wise woman,” the priests gave us “sacred hosts and special cakes to eat” to lift Martin’s impotence (Davis 21). Has everybody forgotten that I was the one who realized the lack of a child was subject to “the charms of a sorceress?” My husband certainly did since he left even when I birthed our son Sanxi (Davis 21). I felt cheated when I discovered I might not be able to have a child and his departure made everything worse.
The “charivari” taunts targeted the whole family, but Martin’s departure affected me, his wife. It was as though I was living in limbo and my “reputation as a woman” was at stake (Davis 28). Was I wrong in trying to salvage myself in the eyes of the community? On the one hand, the Guerre heir had up and left without letting anybody know of his plans. No female wishes to remain without a man’s protection in a village that places the fathers and husbands on the highest pedestal with actions that include “[summoning] male villagers to their deliberations” while leaving the women to take orders based on decisions they did not make (Davis 30). I was that woman. Suddenly, I was unprotected even after following my peoples’ traditions and agreeing to marry at a young age. After all, my obedience proved worthless when my in-laws died, and Pierre Guerre inherited the Guerre properties before marrying my widowed mother (Davis 33). I was not only living under the same roof with my parent but was also without a husband; in other words, I was “neither wife nor widow” (Davis 33). I could not remarry because there was no proof of Martin Guerre’s death. On the other hand, there was Arnaud du Tilh, a man who provided me with an escape route after my husband’s antics. Otherwise called Pansette, du Tilh was a talented “trickster,” and he made a very impressive show while portraying my husband (Davis 39). I fell for it before realizing he was an impostor. Still, I finally had what I always wanted: a functioning marriage. We were “like true married people” who were happy enough to be “eating, drinking, and sleeping together” without any qualms (Davis 44). The man even sired two daughters with me, one died, but the other is Sanxi’s little sister, Ber-narde (Davis 44).
In conclusion, my actions defied the dictations of Christianity but were the outcomes of pure human instinct. There was no way of knowing whether Martin Guerre was alive or dead and I was a woman left without both a husband and the option to remarry without proof of Martin’s death. The societal and religious expectations aside, what would any other woman have done?
Works Cited
Davis, Natalie Zemon. The Return of Martin Guerre. Harvard University Press, 1983.
