The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes

WHAT BECAME OF MARTIN GUERRE by Elliott O’Donnell

No murder as such (at least, no murder that was ever proved) but two trials and a hanging. Quite whether any actual crime was committed is also a moot point. But there was certainly a mystery in the case of Martin Guerre’s disappearance, and the mystery was never solved to anyone’s satisfaction. The setting is sixteenth-century France, making this (historically) the oldest story in the present collection. Most modern readers will know the name of Martin Guerre as the eponymous hero of the hit musical by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, the duo behind Les Miserables and Miss Saigon. This version of the story appeared in 1927. Elliott O’Donnell (1872-1965) was a stage and film actor as well as a writer. He wrote mainly about unusual phenomena and the supernatural, his first book For Satan’s Sake appearing in 1904. In all he wrote over sixty books, several radio plays, and hundreds of articles for newspapers and magazines.

Sometime, during the sixteenth century, there lived in the little town of Artigues, in the district of Rieux, a young couple named Guerre, [15] about whom very queer stories were told. The reason was this.

Bertrande Rols, when little more than thirteen years of age, was married to her playmate, Martin Guerre, a youth of about sixteen; but, despite the fact that they were both strong and healthy, Bertrande possessing, in addition to a sound constitution, considerable physical attraction, they had no children.

Hence, the good citizens of Artigues, who like the majority of people at that time were very superstitious, came to the conclusion that the Guerres were bewitched; and consequently extraordinary rumours soon got into circulation concerning them. It was said, for instance, that they had gathered flowers in a certain woodland glade reputed to be fairy haunted, and that, as a result, they had come under a spell; and, again, that they had offended an old itinerant mendicant believed to possess the evil eye, and that he, in revenge, had cursed them.

Their friends and relatives, believing either one or other of these stories, and anxious to deliver the alleged sufferers from the charm or curse, as the case might be, recommended all sorts of supposed antidotes, such as consecrated cakes, the branch of an elder tree, a horseshoe (nailed over the entrance of their abode), and the red flowers of the hypericon or St John’s wort (to be worn round their necks), [16] while the priests of the district composed special prayers for their benefit, and nearly drowned them in holy water. However, it was all of no avail; the enchantment continued: no children would come.

Now among the many admirers of Bertrande Guerre were several young men, who, being envious of Martin, combined with Bertrande’s friends and relatives in trying to persuade Bertrande to divorce him and marry some one else, attributing her being childless to him, and declaring him to be a thoroughly worthless and abandoned character, capable of almost any wickedness. But Bertrande, who was devotedly attached to her husband, indignantly repudiated all these charges, and refused to be separated from him.

Then an event happened, which for the time being, at all events, led to the total discomfiture of Martin’s accusers. Bertrande gave birth to a child, a boy, who was subsequently christened Sanxi [17]; and this, of course, rendered any attempt at divorce extremely difficult, if not impossible. However, not long after the birth of this child, a robbery took place one night on the farm belonging to Martin’s father (who, though of Biscayan origin, lived in Artigues), and owing to the discovery of certain tell-tale clues, suspicion at once fell upon Martin; and, whether he could have exonerated himself or not, no one could say, for while his wife and father, who believed him to be innocent, were waiting for him to take that step he suddenly vanished.

He left his cottage one summer morning and set off down the road, in the direction of his father’s farm, and, after that, all trace of him was lost. His enemies, naturally, spread the report that he had absconded, remarking that if any sure proof of his guilt had been needed, he himself had now furnished it. Fearing arrest and the severe punishment meted out to thieves, they said (in those days no matter how small the theft hanging was the penalty) he had simply fled.

“You are well rid of him,” they told Madame Guerre. “If he hadn’t robbed his father, you may depend upon it he would have robbed some one else.”

But again they were nonplussed; Bertrande stolidly refused to be set against her husband. Moreover, she declared, in public, her absolute belief in his innocence, and was ceaseless in her efforts to trace his whereabouts. In this she was helped by Martin’s father, who, although somewhat dubious now as to his son’s innocence (the circumstances, it must be remembered, appeared to be dead against him), was still fond of him, and only too willing to welcome him back to Artigues.

However, despite the exhaustive inquiries made by these two, no tidings of the missing man could be obtained. He had not been seen in any of the neighbouring villages, nor apparently had he been encountered by anyone in any of the roads or lanes round and about Artigues.

The years passed by. Martin’s father died, and to prove that he bore Martin no ill will he left the bulk of his property to him. In the absence of any positive proof of Martin’s death, the legal view of the matter was that he was still alive, a fact Martin’s father, of course, would be well aware of when he drew up the will.

In Artigues, however, the opinion that Martin Guerre was dead prevailed, and great therefore was every one’s astonishment, when, at the expiration of eight years from the time of his disappearance, the news was suddenly spread that he had returned. What actually happened was this.

One morning, a sunburned, weather-beaten man called at the house where Madame Guerre was living in solitary retirement, and asked to see her. Now the moment Madame Guerre caught sight of the stranger, perceiving at once that his features and stature were identical with those of her lost husband, with a wild cry of delight she threw herself into his arms. Later, the Guerres’ friends and neighbours, becoming acquainted with the news, came crowding to the house, and as soon as they saw the stranger they also unanimously expressed the opinion that it really was Martin come back, and straightaway greeted him with the utmost cordiality.

The stranger, whom I will now call Martin, then chatted away with them, gossiping about old times, various escapades in which he had participated as a boy, and numerous adventures that had befallen him in more recent years, until finally, when they left him and returned to their respective houses, there was not one among them who was not fully convinced that he was and could be none other than Martin Guerre.

And it was the same with Martin Guerre’s four sisters. They had no sooner set eyes on the stranger than they hailed him as their missing brother, while their uncle, Peter Guerre, following suit, acknowledged him to be his nephew, and subsequently made him his heir. So far, then, all was well. Martin Guerre had come back to life, and since, naturally perhaps, bygones were allowed to remain bygones, he was soon comfortably ensconced in the home he had left so abruptly, and under such a cloud.

And no one could have been happier than his faithful Bertrande, who, in course of time, presented him with two more children. One of them, it is true, died in its infancy, but this apparently was a mere detail, apart from which everything seemed to be going on quite swimmingly in the Guerre household. Nothing, in fact, of an unpleasant nature seemed in the least degree likely to happen, when one day a startling report concerning Martin was suddenly launched forth and spread throughout the village. It originated thus.

A soldier, arriving in the village from Rochefort, upon being told the story of Martin’s disappearance and return, electrified his informers by declaring that the man whom they had welcomed, open armed, as the lost Martin Guerre was an impostor, and that the real Martin Guerre, whom he knew intimately, was still alive, although he had lost a leg in the recent war in Flanders.

The story was variously received. While some were inclined to believe it, others did not, arguing that, if it were true, the one-legged man would assuredly have come forward long ago and claimed his pretty wife and not inconsiderable property.

Now, it was while the citizens of Artigues were thus engaged in a somewhat heated controversy that the harmony in the Guerre household was threatened with a serious rupture.

Although Peter Guerre had handed over to his nephew the property he had inherited from his father, and of which he had been appointed trustee, he had not rendered an account of his trusteeship, and this omission gave rise to an incessant wrangling, which soon led to a violent quarrel. Martin brought an action against his uncle, and his uncle, losing his temper one day, knocked him down with an iron bar and would have killed him, had not the devoted Bertrande opportunely interfered and prevented him. Henceforth, however, Peter Guerre became Martin’s inveterate enemy, and, with the intensity of feeling which was characteristic of him, gave himself up entirely to thoughts of revenge. Nor did he have to wait long for an opportunity to gratify such thoughts.

Martin, who seems either to have become suddenly aggressive or to have developed the unfortunate idiosyncrasy of arousing other people’s animosity, quarreled with a man named Jean d’Escarboeuf, who, somehow, managed to get him put into prison. Here, then, was the opportunity Peter was looking for. Taking advantage of Martin’s ignominy and absence, he did his level best to persuade Bertrande to desert her husband, declaring him-although he had up to that time unhesitatingly accepted him as his nephew-to be an impostor, and even going so far as to threaten to turn them out of their house if she refused. Bertrande, however, did refuse. She said the story told by the soldier from Rochefort was untrue, merely another device on the part of Martin’s old enemies, and that she was positively certain the man she had welcomed back as her husband was her husband.

“If it isn’t Martin,” she said, “then it is the devil in his skin.”

This sentiment found an echo in the minds of many, including one Jean Loze, a highly influential person living near Artigues, who, upon Peter’s applying to him for a loan to commence proceedings against Martin, indignantly refused to advance him a sou, at the same time remarking:

“If I part with any money, it will only be to defend Martin Guerre against those who are once again trying to deprive him of his good name.”

The day after Peter Guerre’s application had been thus summarily dismissed-it was said that he went out from the presence of Jean Loze raging-another sensation was caused in Artigues. Peter Guerre, accompanied by his four sons-in-law, all armed to the teeth, went to Martin’s house, while he was at breakfast, and taking him by surprise, before he could lay his hand on any weapon with which to defend himself, marched him off between them to Rieux, where he was once again lodged in the jail which he had only quitted a few hours previously. Intensely surprised though they were upon hearing of this outrage, the inhabitants of Artigues were still more astonished when they learned that it had been approved of by Bertrande herself, and even perpetrated at her request. There seems, indeed, to be little doubt that such was the case, but it is extremely probable that Peter Guerre and his sons-in-law had “got at” her, and that she would not have acted as she did, had they not resorted to forcible persuasion, or what is termed in other words undue influence. There is, however, some uncertainty with regard to what were her real feelings and belief at this juncture. Some are of the opinion that she had long ago discovered that the man she was living with was not her husband, but that she had resolved to say nothing about it, since she had grown really fond of him, a state of affairs that would account for her not having yielded to the previous persuasion and threats of Peter Guerre; whereas others maintain that she still believed the arrested man to be her real husband and, having full confidence in his ability to prove himself such, she considered it advisable that he should have an opportunity of doing so in public. At any rate, as a sure indication, we may take it, that she still had some regard for him, about three weeks after the commencement of his incarceration, she sent him clothes, clean linen and money.

The trial before the Court of Justice took place at Rieux. He was put down on the indictment sheet as Arnold Tilh, commonly called Pansette, a native of Sagias, [18] and charged with having assumed the name, rank and person of Martin Guerre, claimed his wife, appropriated and spent her property, and contaminated her marriage. His chief accusers were Peter Guerre and the latter’s sons-in-law.

The accused defended himself, and the story he told was apparently pronounced with so much candour and simplicity that, if he really were the impostor he afterwards declared himself to be, one can only say he should be classified among the very cleverest and most unscrupulous of criminals. He said that having seriously offended his father (although he was innocent of the robbery) he thought it best for financial reasons and his wife’s sake to leave Artigues, and consequently he went off, without making known his intentions to a soul. Wandering about from place to place-he mentioned them by name and the various people he had come in contact with in each-he eventually enlisted, and served in the French army for eight years. Tiring at length of that, he deserted, and after being a soldier in the Spanish army for a short time, finding he could return to France without fear of punishment, he came back to Artigues, and being instantly recognized by his wife, his four sisters and all his relations and friends, he naturally resumed his old life. He described in detail the instant recognition of him by his wife and sisters, and the welcome they gave him, throwing themselves into his arms, and then said:

“If Bertrande, after thus receiving me back and living with me perfectly happily for three years, is now one of my accusers, it can only be because she has been intimidated and forced to turn against me by my enemies, of whom my uncle is the most bitter. I once had the misfortune to quarrel with him, and ever since then he has sought every opportunity to do me harm. I beg of you to have my wife released from his power and placed under the protection of some reliable and disinterested person.”

The Court granted this appeal and deferred giving a verdict till inquiries concerning the truth of certain of his statements had been made, and more witnesses called. The trial was therefore adjourned for a while. The result of the inquiries having tended to corroborate the statements of the accused, regarding the towns he had visited and the people he had encountered, the trial was resumed, and the accused subjected to a rigorous cross-examination. He neither wavered nor contradicted himself, but spoke easily and naturally about his parents and wife, commenting on the dresses worn by some of those present at his marriage, and recalling an amusing incident that happened the night preceding that event, namely, a serenade given him by a number of young men in the village, all of whom he mentioned by name.

His accusers, however, noticing with satisfaction that he had not made any allusion at all to the rumours that had, at one time, been current in Artigues, with regard to the bewitchment of Martin Guerre and his wife, commented upon this point to the judges, who at once examined him on it, but his replies to all the questions put to him were perfectly satisfactory, and tallied in every detail with a statement in writing, relative to the same subject, made by Bertrande Guerre.

A hundred and fifty witnesses were now called to say whether they identified the accused as Martin Guerre or Arnold Tilh. About sixty of them could not decide one way or the other. Forty drew attention to certain marks on the accused, namely, a scar on the forehead, a misshapen nail on the forefinger of his right hand, several warts on various of the other fingers of the same hand, and a conspicuous mole over one eye, declaring that Martin Guerre, whom they remembered as a youth, had all these marks, and therefore they were convinced that the man they now saw before them in the person of the accused actually was Martin Guerre; whilst, on the other hand, fifty witnesses pronounced the accused to be Arnold Tilh of Sagias, whom they had known as a boy, and who, they thought, might quite possibly have possessed marks on his person similar to those said to have been seen on the person of Martin Guerre.

As a further test, Sanxi, the acknowledged son of Martin Guerre, was brought into Court. The majority of those present decided that he bore no resemblance whatsoever to the accused; but, on the other hand, they observed that Martin Guerre’s four sisters, who had preceded Sanxi in the witness box, bore a very close resemblance to the accused.

Thus the pros and cons in the case seemed to be about equal, and considerable excitement ensued, when the judges, after conferring together for some time, returned to pronounce their verdict. It was to the effect that the accused, being found guilty of all the charges against him, was sentenced to be executed and quartered.

He made an appeal to a higher tribunal, and another trial was consequently arranged before the High Court of Justice, at Toulouse. In due course it took place.

One of the first witnesses called was Bertrande Guerre. Her past life, the fact that for eight years she had remained wholly loyal to her absent husband, resolutely refusing to divorce him or to marry again, had created a very strong impression in her favour, and this impression was enhanced by her extreme beauty, simple air and very modest bearing. It seemed impossible that she could descend to falsehood, or that she would have lived with a man, unless she had been thoroughly convinced he was her lawful husband. Yet, on being confronted by the accused and asked by him in his usual calm, steady voice to tell the Court whether he was or was not the real Martin Guerre, she dropped her eyes, looked confused and declined to give any definite reply. Fortunately for the accused, the judges were of the opinion that this hesitation on Bertrande’s part was due to intimidation on the part of Peter Guerre and his sons-in-law. She was afraid to speak the truth because of them.

Thirty of the people who had figured as witnesses in the previous trial were re-examined, and, as before, they could not agree. While some of them declared the accused was Martin Guerre, others were equally positive he was Tilh. Those who remembered both Martin Guerre and Arnold Tilh as youths agreed that the likeness between Martin Guerre and Arnold Tilh had been remarkable, but that there were certain differences. Arnold Tilh, for instance, was more robust looking and upright than Martin Guerre. I have already referred to certain marks the boy Martin Guerre was declared to have possessed; some of the witnesses who had already affirmed that Arnold Tilh had several, if not all, of those marks, now differed as to the position of some of them, some declaring, for instance, that the scar had been over the right eye, and some over the left. Indeed, no two witnesses agreed intoto. And with regard to other testimony it was just as conflicting. An innkeeper of Rieux in the witness box swore that the accused had once told him in confidence that he was, in reality, Arnold Tilh; and two other witnesses said that, on a certain occasion, seeing the accused out of doors, in company with some of Martin Guerre’s relatives, they were about to greet him as their old friend Arnold Tilh, when he signalled to them to be silent, and shortly afterwards one of them received a present from him with a message to the effect that silence was golden. [19] Also, an uncle of Arnold Tilh, on seeing the accused in Court in chains, at once identified him as his nephew, and burst into tears, which involuntary demonstration on the part of a witness made a great impression on the judges, who regarded it as very telling evidence for the prosecution.

Yet, as against all this and more testimony of a condemning nature, certain witnesses, including the brothers of Martin Guerre, were emphatic in their belief that the accused was the person he purported to be, urging in support of their contention the character of Arnold Tilh. Was it possible, they argued, that such an incorrigibly lazy, mendacious and disreputable individual as Arnold Tilh admittedly had been could have lived for three years in perfect harmony with a woman of such an upright and estimable a character as Bertrande? This was a poser. The judges were perplexed; they did not know what to decide, and it is highly probable they would have given a verdict in favour of the accused, had not the prosecution, at this psychological moment, created a big sensation in Court by producing a new witness in the person of the man with the wooden leg, already referred to, who styled himself the real Martin Guerre.

The accused, on being confronted with this new witness, did not appear in any way startled or disconcerted. On the contrary, he maintained the same calm demeanour which had characterized him throughout. He declared the man with the wooden leg was simply an impostor, bribed to appear against him by Peter Guerre, and that it was all part of a conspiracy to deprive him of his lawful wife and the property he lawfully inherited.

In giving his testimony, the man with the wooden leg, while vehemently denying that he had been bribed, and protesting he was the real Martin Guerre, appeared very flustered, and his evidence struck many of those present as forced and unconvincing.

The next step, however, on the part of the prosecution, and one which had probably been well rehearsed beforehand, was to confront the man with the wooden leg with the Guerres. This proved fatal to the accused. Directly the eldest of Martin Guerre’s sisters saw the new witness, she threw herself into his arms, calling him her dear lost brother. Her three sisters followed suit. Then, amid the most tense silence, Bertrande was called. The moment she entered the Court and saw the man with the wooden leg, she became greatly agitated, and bursting into tears fell on her knees before him, crying out that he was her real husband and imploring his forgiveness.

That, in the opinion of the judges, settled the matter. They at once pronounced the accused to be guilty of all the charges brought against him, and sentenced him to be executed. Four days later, that is to say on 16 September 1560, the sentence was carried into effect.

The condemned man, bareheaded, clad only in his shirt, holding in one hand a burning taper, and with a rope round his neck, was, first of all, made to kneel before the door of the Church of Rieux and ask pardon of God, the King, the local authorities, the presumed real Martin Guerre, in other words the man with the wooden leg, and Bertrande. Then, with a cruelty characteristic of those times, he was taken to a scaffold, which had been erected just outside Martin Guerre’s house, and in the presence of Bertrande and all the Guerre family, he was slowly strangled, his body being subsequently burned.

If Bertrande did feel any pity for him, she certainly did not manifest any, but seems to have remained perfectly indifferent to his sufferings. That he was an impostor should not, perhaps, be doubted, since it is said that he made a full and spontaneous confession of his guilt without any coercion whatever.

But, at the same time, it seems to me quite conceivable that this unfortunate man really may have been Martin Guerre, and that he made a false confession with regard to his identity, anticipating torture if he did not.

The question as to whether the man with the wooden leg was the real Martin Guerre may, I think, safely be answered in the negative. It must be remembered that the soldier from Rochefort had publicly declared, most probably at the instigation of Peter Guerre, that the real Martin Guerre, having lost a leg in the wars, was wearing a wooden one. What an inducement then for an adventurer, chancing to have lost a leg, to pretend to be Martin Guerre, the owner of no inconsiderable property and a pretty wife! Learning, too, of Peter Guerre’s fanatical hatred of the man who had for three years passed as Martin Guerre and was now accused of being Arnold Tilh, he would, of course, bank considerably on Peter Guerre’s support, reckoning that with such an influential ally the risk of exposure would not be very great.

Or, again, and what, I think, is more likely, Peter Guerre may have engineered the whole thing and have bribed the man with the wooden leg to play the rôle of Martin Guerre.

As I have already stated, the man with the wooden leg appeared very confused in Court; his replies to questions put to him were evasive and shifty, and he gave not a few of those present in Court the impression that he was not genuine and merely acting a part he found extremely difficult to maintain. Were he the real Martin Guerre, many argued, he would surely have made known his presence in Rieux or Artigues before his appearance at the trial, and the fact of his not having done so suggested he was purposely kept out of the way, lest he should be asked too many questions.

The fact that Bertrande and Martin Guerre’s sisters proclaimed the man with the wooden leg to be the genuine Martin Guerre the moment they set eyes on him proved nothing, since they had all been just as ready with their recognition in the case of “Arnold Tilh”, so that, if they had been so easily deceived on one occasion, why should they not be on another?

But apart from the fact that their identification was thus proved to be futile, it is more probable than not that, in the case of the man with the wooden leg, they had all acted under the coercion of the vindictive Peter Guerre.

However, if neither the man with the wooden leg nor the man who had been executed was the real Martin Guerre, what had become of him? He was last seen, it will be remembered, that summer morning, some seven or eight years after his marriage, walking along the road leading from his home, through lonely lanes and fields, in the direction of his father’s house. He was well known to have had several inveterate enemies, youths who bitterly resented his prosperity and coveted both his wife and fortune. What more likely, then, than that these envious youths had banded together and murdered him, burying his body in one of the many unfrequented spots all around Artigues?

I can find no definite statement that this explanation of his disappearance was seriously considered at the time, but so obvious is it that there was both motive and opportunity for murder, that were it not for Bertrande’s having been so sure, to begin with, and apparently up to the commencement of his trial, that the man who claimed to be her husband, and with whom she subsequently lived for three years, was her husband, I should say that, without doubt, Martin Guerre was murdered. It is the inconsequent and unsatisfactory behaviour of Bertrande herself that, in my opinion, makes any certain solution to the mystery of her husband’s disappearance impossible.