Natalie Zemon Davis’ book The Return of Martin Guerre is not just a narrative relating the known historical record of the true story of Martin, his imposter and the subsequent trial. Davis penetrates beneath the facts as history has recorded them to seek the answer to the deeper and far more universal and resonant mystery lying at the heart of this story. That mystery is not who was the real Martin Guerre and who was the imposter; history has answered that question to everyone’s satisfaction. What the facts of the case and the testimony of the trial left ambiguously hanging in the air is whether Bertrande Guerre—Martin’s wife—really was duped or was she an active and willing participant in the fraud.
The evidence and common sense seems to suggest a rather obvious solution to this mystery: there is no way in heck that Bertrande could possibly not have known the imposter was not really her husband. Such a possibility is beyond all rational comprehension. That is certainly the conclusion made by the author. It just makes so much sense while alternative defies all logic and reason. But if it actually was that alternative which occurred and Bertrande really had somehow allowed herself to believe a lie so deeply that it actually transformed into the truth for her. Would that make her a bad person? Or a guilty person? Or any different, really, from anyone else?
Every single day are examples far too numerous to record that each and every person is at some level susceptible to accepting a fraud as the truth as long as the terms are acceptable. Of course, those daily examples range from the completely understandable to the absolutely stupefying, but the difference between those extremes really just comes down a matter of degree. The terms for accepting a little white lie as the truth is very low while the terms for accepting a public figure telling you that what you saw and heard him say live on national television wasn’t really what you saw and heard is at the other extreme. The divergence is not just the terms, however, but the payoff. The payoff for accepting a little white lie that hurts no one is very low while for Bertrande the payoff for somehow unconsciously willing to accept the truth that the imposter was her husband is incredibly high: basically, the difference between a hard life and much easier life. Perhaps even a choice between poverty and life.
Such a scenario would seem to lend support to the argument that Bertrande must have been an active co-conspirator. Analysis that begins strictly from a point of logic certainly arrives at the point. Try thinking from a starting point of emotion, however, and the amazing thing is that it still makes sense. The Guerre family had money, so the desperation Bertrande felt when abandoned by her husband must have been overwhelming. Martin was impotent so how great might the emotional toll have been upon her maternal instincts. Bertrande was under great emotional strain from all quarters by the time the imposter arrived claiming to be Martin. Would such a psychologically fragile young woman be motivated by logic more than emotion? This question takes on even greater significance if that psychological frailty was so brittle that she had reached the point where even if she did have doubts about the imposter, her emotional need for reconciliation was so powerful that it simply pushed those doubts down so deep that she could not have logically even if she’d wanted.
Davis seems fairly certain in her conviction that Bertrande must have been complicit in the fraud and she’s likely right; that seems to be predominant view. But The Return of Martin Guerre is not really about proving things one way or the other as much as it is about the processing of belief and individual perception of what is the “truth.” The willingness of people to accept a lie in the face of piles of evidence to the contrary is manifested every single day. To come away from the book with the conviction that Bertrande really and truly did managed to convince herself that the imposter was her husband and the lie was the truth is by no means impossible.
