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Customer Reviews of The Return of Martin Guerre

Not only Entertaining, but a New Genre of History
Natalie Zemon Davis' book The Return Of Martin Guerre is a finely detailed, readable and well-researched account of the famous Martin Guerre and his impostor, Arnauld du Tilh. But even more than simply outlining the facts of the story, Davis also uses her research to enlighten us on the roles of different family members in 16th Century rural French life, the politics of family life and peasant life in general, and the role of the growing shift from Catholicism to Protestantism among the elite as well as the peasant classes. In relation to family and marriage life, Davis uses Bertrande de Rols, Martin Guerre's wife, as an example of a strong, virtuous woman with familial duty and an obstinate nature. Davis uses this characterization to explain how de Rols was not a weak-minded woman who was so easily duped by her missing husband's impostor, but was rather a woman who was in love and used her strength in order to fascillitate her new relationship with Arnauld du Tilh: 'Either by explicit or tacit agreement, she helped him become her husband.' Bertrande de Rols, according to Davis, is an example of the more broad-minded and less misogynist peasant society of the village of Artigat in 16th Century France. Through Bertrande de Rols, learn about how surprisingly fair the law was towards women: 'The testaments in the area around Artigat rarely benefit one child but instead provide dowries for the daughters....(If there are only daughters, the property is divided equally among them)' (11) Natalie Zemon Davis' The Return Of Martin Guerre is also a deeper historical chronicle of changes in the shift from French Catholicism to the 'new religion' of Protestantism. She uses the 'new Martin Guerre' and Bertrande de Rols' entire relationship to characterize the relaxing religious laws that were seeping into courtrooms and the higher classes as well as the fields and the peasant classes. Davis argues that the new religion might have been of interest to the new Martin Guerre and Bertrande de Rols because it supported their illicit relationship more than Catholicism. (48) When doubt about the new Martin Guerre's real identity began to unsettle the village of Artigat, Davis writes that the local supporters of the new protestant religion would have tended to believe the new Martin Guerre, whereas the Catholics sided with the accusations of false identity from his uncle, Pierre Guerre. Changes in religious affiliation, however, are no clearer than in the case of the Jean de Coras, the reporter and judge with respect to the accusations brought under the new Martin Guerre. Jean de Coras was proven to have had Protestant ties, and was eventually killed for them. (100) However, he was also a very learned, educated, and passionate man with an upstanding career in law and, after the case of Martin Guerre, the literary world. The idea that someone of so high a rank embraced the new religion shows that its influence at the time cannot be ignored. The film version, because it is told through images rather than words and documents is much more a dramatic story that leaves us wondering about the true identity of Martin Guerre until the very end. The film is a more diluted, less fleshy chronicle of the same story told by Natalie Zemon Davis in her book and in terms of the new religion, the role of women in married life, and peasant life in general, the movie is much less informative than the book. The film is a love story between Arnauld du Tilh and Bertrande de Rols and less a backdrop against which one can place the dramatic changes in religion taking place during the late 16th Century. Bertrande de Rols is less of a strong feminine figure and more of an ingenue and her role as a weak-minded housewife is almost believable. The religious aspects of the book are almost left out entirely, except for a Catholic priest who is depicted as a gambler and later accuses Arnauld du Tilh of being possessed by the devil. In respect to peasant life, however, the art direction in the film and the costumes match the descriptions by Davis in her book. The working tools, the gray household, and the older (though clean) dresses accurately support the terms of a woman's dowry outlined by Davis (17) It is interesteing to know that Natalie Zemon Davis' book was actually a forum for her to supply the exhaustive research and theories that were left out of the film, on which she worked previously to writing the book. Her work as a historian spans across media and is always interesting and refreshing.

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A look at Joe Everyman from southern France in 1560
Davis gives us the story of how in the mid 16th century, a man named Arnaud du Tihl impersonated the long departed well-to-do peasant named Martin Guerre, took over his identity, his wife and family, and his property.

In itself, the story is interesting enough. What makes Davis's book special is her concise presentation of everyday life in the early renaissance (1560 is not in the Middle Ages, which ended about the time of Christopher Columbus 1492). We see village life, village institutions, we get a feel for what businesses the people ran (e.g. sheep for wool) we learn of legal procedures, of "dangerous new ideas" on marriage (from protestant influences) as well as inconvenient old one (secret marriages made without priests, nevertheless legitimate). We learn of differing customs on inheritance among different regions (the Basque and Gascon customs) of the role of women in public life.

The only problem I find with the book is that it is incomplete. We know what end Arnaud du Tihl meets, but we do not learn what happened after the trial to the real Martin Guerre or to his wife. Of course, the records are probably lost so we cannot fault Davis for this. But while we learn much of Jean Coras, the court official who published one of the two contemporary accounts of the case, a more detailed account of what befell him following the Martin Guerre case would have been interesting.

But that's a lack, not a flaw. Recommended!

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Interesting Way to Write History
This book is VERY interesting. Davis writes it as something between a novel and a serious historical text. As such you do have a narrative arch and a good consideration on the quality of the text; but at the same time she spends her time in placing caveats to the story she is writing. So we have at times "alternate" possibilities to what happened, and she certainly accepts a lack of climax in explaining some important later characters which historians have been better able to study.

Davis also seems to assume you have seen the movie of the same title (to which she consulted), and wrote the book as an appendix to the movie. Very fun.