Like most 16th-century French peasants, Martin Guerre’s life seemed likely to be lost to history. But a strange series of events took place that would so cement the legend surrounding him that we’re talking about him still today, 450 years later.
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Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant and this is Stuff you Should Know, featuring Yarry. That's right, interesting history a dish, Yes, man, I remember hearing this story back as an undergrad. Okay, a hot sexy undergrad boy. Were you um in learning my history? Yeah? I can't remember what class. Must have been a European history class, but this this book just always stuck with me. The The Return of Martin Geare by Natalie Zimon Davis. Did you read it back then? Yeah? Yeah, it was assigned as part of the class. It was a great, great book. But did you read it? Yes? Okay, I was very eager, um, hot sexy undergrad history major. Well, I mean that's why I majored in English because I like to read. So anytime I assigned a reading assignment, I was like, great, I can do that. Yeah. That was one reason I chose histories because I really enjoyed reading history stuff. So I was like, well, if that's what we're gonna be sitting around doing, let's do it. I don't know what we'll do with it after we're with that degree. But we'll we'll roll the dice and find out you envisioned the future career. Were two lunkheads with no previous broadcast experience could become Dare I say noteworthy by talking into a can? Yeah? Yeah, I was gambling on lucking out to an astounding degree. Yeah, me too. Sort of that weird. Yeah, it's funny how life work. Well, it all worked out, and here we are, all these years later to tell the story h of Martin. Is it pronounced a gear? I've always pronounced it Martin Gear, But we're talking. We're gonna go to sixteenth century France, so it's probably Martin Gear. Okay, but we're not going to say it like but not Richard Gere. No, which is ironic because Richard Gere was the lead in the movie summers Be which was see you Look at your improp skills? Yes, ending me uh. It was a sort of a not necessarily a remake, but a an adaptation on the story of Martin Gearre and the movie that starred Gerard de Pardu from the early nineteen eighties. Yes, and yeah, I think that's it. No, but exactly end. Yeah, had you heard this story before the story of Martin Gere, Yeah, a little bit. I certainly didn't know it like I know it now, but I did see the movie Summers Be back then I knew it was kind of based on that. And uh, you know, there have been other versions of stories like this, um, I mean not, the least of which is a story told in animation form about a man young man off to war named armontans Arian. Oh yeah, yeah, I didn't even put tune two together. Sure, when Principal Skinner took someone's identity during the war, and uh, it's sort of a common story, but this is I think the o g Yeah, thanks for that too, because we would have gotten myriad emails telling us what utter failures we are in life for missing that Simpson's reference. Yeah, that was his name, right, armontans Arian. Totally. Man. Can you imagine how fun the writer's room was that day trying to come up with what his real name would be. You know, I have said it before, I'll say it again that that's Matt Graening's least favorite Simpsons episode was at the time years ago. Yeah, Red that one. I don't know why. Al Right, I love it too. It's good. So we're talking about a man named Martin Garret who was like born a peasant in sixteenth century France in the Long Doc region, in this like little area just above Spain, just below to loose, if that makes sense for you. And like, typically, Chuck, when people live and die in areas like this, unless they do something spectacularly interesting or noteworthy or important, they just kind of get lost to history. Sure, and this guy, Martin Garrett, actually didn't do anything spectacularly interesting or important or noteworthy. Um, and yet we're still talking about him, like four hundred and fifty issue years more than that later because his life. Something happened to his life that was so interesting that it's worth doing an entire podcast episode about all these years later. Uh greed. Uh. He was born in Spain to a Basque family, and pretty quickly as a toddler was brought over to France to how would you pronounce such art a got or arta jatte or is it got? I think got? Yeah, because cake is ghetto and it begins with G. Look at you, all right, So arty got and his family got there and they got to work pretty quickly, um, setting themselves up in different trades like farming eventually tilemaking and merchant ng and did. Okay, like they didn't have any kind of money, but they worked hard and sort of rose through that um lower tiered status to the point where they could marry off young Martin to another family, the jar Rolls family, who you know, I think Dave Rouse, our our buddy who put who put this together for us. He said that they were well off, but I think they were well off for their lower class though, right, yeah, they were up and coming, he puts in. I think like they were peasant farmers figuring out how to enter the merchant class, which at the time was the very beginning of the middle class. Okay, all right, well that makes sense then. Yeah, so they were working their way up into the middle class. So um, it was it was a like kind of a coup. I take it for the gay family to marry off Martin to Bertrand drawls um because her family was a little better off. But yeah, they were really young. Apparently later on Bertrand recalled that they were married at age like nine or ten. Apparently that doesn't add up, and that was probably more like thirteen or fourteen, So you know, that's fine. Right. Uh, still very young. But this is the sixteenth century after all. Uh. So they got married, and you know when you get married back then, you want to start having babies pretty quickly. And they had a hard time having babies because for the first eight years of their marriage they did not consummate their marriage. Uh. And no one knows exactly why. There were rumors maybe that Martin wasn't or Martine just wasn't into it. Um. They were thirteen after all, so maybe you know, they were normal children who kind of thought that wasn't the thing to do yet I don't know, or he was like, how do I work this? He just sounded like David Byrne and once in a lifetime. Uh. Some people blamed it on a witch's curse. Uh. They eventually consulted with a wise woman who said it go to these series of masses at church because mass is always guaranteed to make you randy. Uh. And he eat a special cake that would sort of get him going downstairs and apparently it worked. Crazy as they had a baby. They had a little son, like right afterward it was a kick made of fireplace ashes I saw. But you know, they're in the early twenties at this point, by the way, Yeah, like the appropriate h for that kind of thing. Right. It makes you wonder though, like was it self you know, self imposed and like he was able to to feel like this curse or whatever was lifted off of him from eating that cake. But regardless, it happened like almost immediately Bertrand got pregnant and they had a son named Senxi, who was the same name of Martin's father. So um, Martin said, Hey, this is really amazing. I've really turned a new corner in life. I'm really interested to see what life brings me now and just got back to work with now with a son and wife. Right. Yeah, But here's the thing, and I think there's really no other way to describe Martin. Uh, everything I read, basically it sounds like he was a real a hole. Yes, that was the impression I had to He was not a nice guy. He was not a nice husband. I didn't see anything necessarily about like overt abuse. But he just seemed like a real jerk, uh, sort of to his family and around town, and he was kind of looking to get out of town. And his father accused him of stealing grain from the family stores. And then selling it for a profit, which was not cool. Even if it's your own family, it's probably more uncool that it's your own family, and so never trust family that's on the shirt. But instead saying like, wait a minute, I want to defend myself, he just took off, and he's like, sorry, wife and young son, but I don't really like you guys that much anyway, so I'm out of here. I see him as like an early twenties gen xers, like whatever, man, I can't deal with this at all. I'm out of here. And you get the impression that he was just looking for a reason to leave, and he did. He got it. He didn't defend himself, which I mean in sixteenth century France or Basque culture, um, that is something you would want to do if your honor was being impugned. That was one of the few currencies you had, so you would want to defend yourself. So I think it says a lot about somebody at that time who didn't even bother defending himself. He's just left, and he left his wife and child um without providing for them in any way. Like sure they had like his his you know, inheritance, his money, um his share of whatever the family owned, but he didn't like set them up in any way. Before he left, he just put down his plowshare, put down his tile making tongs, and just laughed. That's right. He ended up in Spain. He went back to Spain, Uh settled in b U r g o s Burghos and became a servant for a noble family. And they noticed, like, hey, dude, you're pretty good fencer. You're good with a sword. You should get you armied up. So he joined the Spanish army, who was at war with France at the time, and he fought for five years before and this is a very key detail I think before we go into our first break, that he was hitting the leg with a bullet and had his leg amputated. Yes, so we'll take a break. Hang on to that, put a pin in it, and we'll be right back. So let's zero in on Bertrand for the while, shall we the wife if you don't remember Bertrand, Yes, Bertrando Rolls, who became married to Martin Garrett, maybe aged nine to fourteen, depending on who you ask. Seemed like a savvy young woman. Yes, now this is new. We gotta say this so, like Natalie Zimon Davis, Um, you mentioned that film The Return of Martin Gere, Sorry, Gerard Depardiu, that Summers b was partly based on right correct. She was the um consultant on that historical consultant film, and she was so put off by the retelling of this story that she published her book two years afterward. Part of part of that book, part of her big contra abution. She made tons of contributions to the to the historical record, turned up a lot of great documents and everything, but subjectively, her big contribution was completely altering the way people saw Bertrand up to this point she was a loyal, chast devoted wife who would end up being duped, you could say, as we'll see very soon. And under Natalie Simon davis is reading of her, um, she was a very shrewd woman who figured out how to navigate within the confines of a male dominated middle age French society. Yeah. And one of the first things that we can bring up to sort of support this and I kind of like this narrative a lot. By the way, um is the fact that she got married when she was let's say, um, just meet there in the middle and uh, you know, he had Martine had problems, you know, uh, having sex for eight years, and so she was, Um, it's acculated from from Davis at least that she was kind of like, Hey, this isn't so bad. I don't want to be doing that anyway, especially with this kid who was a jerk, and I don't want to have a kid. I'm thirteen years old. So by the time, you know, she's got four sisters, I really love them. Uh, he's you know, his family seems to be doing okay. My family is doing okay. At the time, that was a big deal. And so the fact that she had to wait until she was in her early twenties to finally uh to you know, I expect to lose her virginity to Martin and then have this kid wasn't so bad after all. Yeah, because she could have asked for the marriage to be annulled after three years passed without it being consummated by under French law at the time, I think French Catholic law. Um, and she didn't. She's just she's like so yeah, that definitely substantiates um. Zimon Davis has claimed that like she was just kind of rolling with it. She she was like, okay, I'm I'm kind the happy with this, and she didn't try and get married when he left either. There were a lot of strict laws about remarrying, like if the husband disappears or something, you had to have proof of death with witnesses and all that stuff. And she was basically like, hey, I'm kind of a widow here. His uncle Pierre is married to my mom. Now they're taking really good care of me, got a lot of help with my baby, So I'm pretty cool to just chill here. Yeah. So in this in this reading, she's saying, Natalie Ziemond Davis is saying like she didn't have a choice. Like again, under French Catholic law at the time, like it says, not even when a husband has been absent twenty years or more, can a wife remarry unless she has proof of his death. And it's got to be like like irrefutable proof that this person has died, their husbands died. She didn't have the irrefutable proof, but she didn't. Also, she didn't she didn't like go like take love hers. She didn't ask to have an exception made for her, and so it painted her her her image among the townsfolk and among her family that she was a chase, devoted wife who was just gonna wait for her lousy husband for as long as it took, and then also took on the converse side of that. That just goes to show you just how fully and selfishly um Martin abandoned her, knowing full well that she couldn't remarry because she wouldn't have any proof of his death. So he left her in limbo. Like even more, it wasn't even like I'm leaving. Good luck with your life. You do what you want with it. It was I'm leaving. You have to stick around and wait until I decided to come back, if ever, that's right. Uh. So things are going along like this. She's living her life again, has plenty of help with her baby, and then one day in town at a hostel, a man wanders in it says, Hi, I'm Martine Garre uh and I'm back. Everybody like, check it out. It's been a while. The innkeeper says, you know, oh my god, your wife, Bertrand and your son. It's so exciting to be reunited and heart He breaks down crying, and everyone of course in town comes running up and uh, to see who this person is, including his his wife, and they all went, huh, you look a little different Martin. I think that's how they initially approached it. Well, because he did. Apparently he had gotten shorter, heavier, his nose had changed. Um, wasn't his Drupyuh? Let's read that. There's a description from later court records that would happen of um what Martin Gare supposedly looked like? Can I read this please? Martin Garre was taller and darker than this man who showed up. He was a man thin and body and legs a little bent, carrying his head between his shoulders, the chin cleft like hue lewis a little thrust forward, whose lip lower lip drooped a little, having small teeth, a large and flattened nose and ulcer on his face, and a scar on his right eyebrow. This person was short, thick set, strong of body, having a heavy leg, does not have a flat nose, nor is bent, nor has any of the said scars. So an entirely different looking person showed up and it's like, hey, everybody remember me Martin Gare right? Uh? And it's important to note here that no one in town knew that Martin had lost his leg in the war. Yeah, so that was obviously would have been the biggest red flag. But this guy comes back and he doesn't look like him, but he knows all the stories. He's saying, like, hey, remember when we did this, and he would hang out with the townspeople and he'd say, I remember that time we did that, and this this great time we had over here doing this, and everyone's just like, oh my gosh, Like he knows all the stories. It doesn't look like him, but you know what, this guy's kind of fun and awesome and nice. Yeah, and I don't know what happened to him in the war, but like we'll take him. Yes. So eight years had passed and he apparently physically changed drastically, but also most notably, his personality had changed distinctly for the better. He was a charmer now, and like you said, he remembered all these stories. So everybody said, let's uh, let's see where this goes. Basically, yeah, and there's another key move here we need to point out, um right away. He didn't just go back to the family farm and to the family house with everyone. He said, you know what I have the pox. I'm not feeling so great, so let me stay here at the hostel for a little bit and recover, which turned out to be a very sort of savvy key move. Yes, one of the other two. One of the other things that he did to that definitely convinced bertrand Um and others who were who were there. He said, by the way, I'm gonna stay here and recover until I'm done with this pox. Um, but can you go fetch my white stockings, my white hose from this particular drawer, in this particular chest where I left them eight years ago? And she went back and went to that particular chest in drawer and found his white sox were there, just as she remembered him leaving them there eight years ago. So like that, and a bunch of other stuff that he seemed to remember that only Martin would know. Um really convinced everybody like, no, this is Martin. He's a little different, but we like him even more now and we're going to get along with him just fine. Right. And bertrand also was like, and the other thing is when you left, you were not very interested in sex from me, and you seem to be really into that now. And so I'll take that as well. Uh, And in fact, I will give birth to two daughters in return. Sadly, only one of them survived infancy. And her name was is it Bernard or bernarda Bernard? Okay, I didn't know that could be a little girl's name, but I think we you add an e on the end it girls it up? Okay, but you don't. You don't pronounce you. No, no, it's all. It's all just for looks, okay, all right. So to catch up, he's back in town. Everyone likes the new and improved Martine gear Uh. He has another daughter, and he's having sex with his wife and everything's going great until who becomes his main foil gets involved, and that would be his uncle Pierre. And remember so Pire gare he's a he's another main character in this He by this time, after Martin left, married Bartron's mother, so now he's Bartron's uncle in law and father in law or stepfather, uncle in law and stepfather, that's right. And at first he welcomed this new improved Martin back with open arms. He was credulous at first, and then he won him over with some memories. The new Martin did and um, and so Pierre said, okay, let's go with it, and everybody was kind of going along and getting along. And then I guess one day Martin said, um, hey, by the way, Pierre, remember my inheritance, my part of the land and my part of the wealth that I left behind that you've been managing. Well, I know you made a bunch of money off of it. I feel like that's my money. So can I have my money, Pierre? Can I please? And Pierre didn't like that idea at all. And it's not clear whether he just didn't like that idea or whether he didn't like that idea because he didn't think this was Martin after all, and this guy was overstepping his bounds. I don't know. But one of the things that he did was assemble his son's to try to beat Martin to death on the road. And had it not been for Bear Trand throwing herself on top of Martin Martin's body, Um, they probably would have succeeded in in murdering him. Yeah, I mean, he it's interesting, like I fill in a little bit of the narrative blanks, is you know someone who's into movies and literature and stuff. It seems to me like Pierre was kind of like, hey, everyone seems to like this guy, so I'm not going to be the one to stand in the way. Uh. He didn't want to rocks the boat until this money thing came up, and that's Martin actually took him to court, and that's when things really changed. And that's when Pierre started talking to anyone who would listen and saying, you know what, he's basque and he doesn't understand these basque phrases. This dude was a great fencer. He's this guy's no fencer. He's not even into it at all. He doesn't look anything like his son. And I think this guy is a fraud. And it's interesting that the town like it seems to be. And we'll get to the court case, but it seemed to be almost divided whether or not people said, no, we think it's him and it's all good, and people have said no, I think he is a fraud. Uh. And it just goes to show sort of the power of those stories's because at the time, in sixteenth century France, how else would you explain something like, you know, hey, remember that time we went and pushed over that cow and I and I did a dance on him on his belly, like you know, that's a powerful thing back then when you don't have photographs and any other kind of shared recollection that you can easily point to. So you know, he fooled a lot of people. Yeah, he definitely did. I wonder how much he was playing on people's propensity to not want to admit a mistake or that they were wrong. That plays into it. I'm sure it's got too. But like you said, the town was divided, and it was divided between Pierre and then this new Martin, and very crucially on the side of this new Martin was Beartrand. She threw she cast her a lot with him and said, no, this man is Martin Gere. I will um anyone who is mad enough to say otherwise, I will make him die, which is a weird way to to create a death threat, but it was. It was a death threat. And on the asked but um. This was despite m Bertrand's mother, who was Pierre's wife, coming to her and being like, look, you need to get with Pierre here. He's he's on the side of right, and um she still said no. So um. Pierre also he had. There were there were people who backed him up, like the the shoemaker. Right, yeah, there was a little matter of the fact. And this is in somers Bey too, that he came back from the war with a different foot size. That's a big change. That's a very drastic change, it is. And technically he did come back with a different foot size, but in a radically different way. Well yeah, because everything changed in fifteen fifty nine. He had been back a few years at this point, and a Spanish soldier wanders through town and heard about this story of Martin Gierre and said, hey, wait a minute, I knew that guy during the war and he's only got one leg. And it's like that's when it's like Mike Brady throwing the the briefcase in the courtroom. Just a hush falls over the crowd. And he said, no, this effect is uh an impostor an inteloper. And I believe he is Arnold Till, and he is a Spanish man of ill repute. Yes, so Pierre um like I got word out to nearby villages and and and confirm this that it probably was a guy named Arnold de Til who was from a town about thirty miles away called SaHas s A j A S I think I think probably right, that's about a day or two of travel from already got um. So it's far enough away but close enough that you could get you could you could confirm or deny whether somebody was someone from that town. Right, Yeah, this guy, you know, he's a bit of a rough house or he drank a lot and he gambled, and he bedded down with sex workers and had a big appetite. I mean, our departdu played this guy for God's sake, So that kind of tells you all you need to know. All right, So, uh, this guy all of a sudden is seemingly um found out. But the story is is that he went off joined the French army. Uh, this are no guy uh. And the question is like did he meet Martin on the battlefield. What we ended up finding out much later is that a couple of old friends of Martin actually mistook him for Martin uh initially and then where like, you look just like our friend this guy back in uh small town France, who's actually got a pretty good um doubt not dowry, but pretty good prospects monetarily waiting for him back home and this pretty good looking wife, and all of a sudden, the wheels start turning in Arnold's mind. Right, It's not clear whether those two ended up becoming accomplices or else, if he was just able to kind of like work info out of them over time, But that is that does seem to be I think he's He later admitted that's where he got the He's like, how much do I look like him? Right? Exactly? Oh spinning image men? Oh goodness. He also was like really, um, really clever in that, Like he stayed behind at that hostile like he first appeared at the hostel, rather than showing up in town. That was a big one. He stayed behind with the pox I made scare quotes. Um he uh, so he could gather more information just slowly, but surely. He just seemed like the type you could get something out of you without you realizing it, because you were just having a good time hanging out with him, right, Like I wonder if he was like, yeah, because I remember that time we pushed over that cow and I was like, oh, you mean the horse that time when we did this. He's like, oh yeah, that was totally it totally I was so drunk. I remember being a cow and everybody starts laughing. Right, but you didn't drink much back then, Well, I drank on the side. You didn't know it was secret, right, was also on the pills that was German. Yeah, you're really all over Europe right now. So, and this is where Natalie Zeman Davis comes in, Like, it's it's clear that this guy was really good at getting information from people without them realizing that he was extracting information, using that information um with his very very good memory UM to lull you into a sense of security or trust for him that he was to to overcome your instincts against trusting that he's he was who said he was. But that no, no amount of preparation and research in the in the sixteenth century setting could have helped him get away with this so thoroughly without the help of Bertrand. That's Natalie Ziemon Davis is like her thesis is like, there's no way that Bertrand was a dupe, that she wasn't complicit, and that you know, she probably it's tough to blame her because her life improved dramatically after this guy showed up. Yeah, I mean if she would have caused a stink like Pierre did early on as the wife, it would have been a much much different deal, I think than her completely defending him, and Day points out we're never gonna know, like he's in the in the town going to the pub and he's talking with people about the stories, but she's with him as wife full time behind closed doors and we'll never know what went on there. But in my mind, in the movie version, there's a scene at some point where she goes, hey, listen, I know you're not him, but it's okay because you're actually a nice guy and I can make this work. Yeah. I think that Jodie Foster's famous line is, hey, bubs, let's cut the s Missa Chika may n Now I haven't seen Nell in so long. I never have. I'm just putting mine written together from from previews I saw like twenty five years ago. I think, Yeah, I don't think it was a very good movie, or maybe I'm misremembering, or maybe i'm remembering it. I think we have to watch it. Oh boy, I want to watch this instead. So this this whole idea that bertrand is uh is is a complicit. It's a new idea. It's a modern take for centuries. She was in the storytelling. She was duped. Like, that's how good and wiley this are no do till was that being an impostor. He duped the man's wife. That's how good he was. And when you when you hear that, and then you hear Natalie Zimon Davis's take, you're like, that's a pretty ridiculous idea. But that's how it was. And and and as we'll see, Bertrand was never was never um persecuted or prosecuted for her role in it. She she got out of it as well. Should we take a break, Yeah, let's all right, we'll take our last break, and we'll talk about the first trial of Martin gear right after this. All right, the first trial, I said of Martin Gerre, but we're gonna call it the first trial of our no. Uh. He was put on trial in a town called r i e u x ru ru ru u. Uh. He was put on trial specifically for stealing another man's identity, adultery, taking his property. And Dave points out very uh aptly that this is like in the sixteenth century, how do you prove something like this? You could give him memory test, but uh, you know, you could we already know he has a great memory and kind of did his homework. You could get villagers up there to testify, which they certainly did, but they're biased. You could you know, compare them physically, which they did, but it seems like that didn't matter much because uh, some people knew like he for sure he had different foot size. Uh. And also they didn't you know, have the kind of photographs and handwriting comps and stuff like that that just it was a lot easier to get away with something like this back then. Plus also for just about everybody who said, oh no his long his nose was long and flat, others would say no, no, it was short and pointy like this guy right exactly. Plus I mean, you've got no fingerprinting, no DNA tests, not even like standardized stuff like driver's licenses or passports. There weren't even like wagon licenses at the time, so there really wasn't any way but to hear as many people as possible and then just thoughtfully kind of sort through their testimony and that first trial at you, um Martin gear and at a time or I should say our no do till Um, at a time when a lot of people would have shrunk at the challenge, rose to the challenge, maybe more than anybody ever living would have. Like this guy defended his honor as much as the real Martin gear would have. Probably more. Actually, as we'll see as we saw. The other thing I wanted to bring up to is, like I would say, so much of this was impacted solely on the fact that a lot of people like this guy, you know, and and they like the new Martin, and they're not going to go in there in sixteenth century France and cause a big stink. They're gonna say. No, I think it's him. He knew this story, and he's got that and I remember that knows and what's the foot size anyway? Those those fee can change sizes, right, what do we even know about that? Yeah, this is what this guy said. So he crossed, examined witnesses against him, and for that shoemaker in particular, he said, this man is a drinking companion of Pierre Gare. Let him show his records about the size of my feet. Um. He also confronted a man who was his uncle Um from SaHas, who was our no do Tills uncle, who said, yeah, that's our no do till he's cross examining me right now. He said, I've never seen this man before in my life, and he's my uncle. Why can't he produce other members of my family that say so um so that a confidence person does con Man is like so adamant their beliefs that that's that's what they used to trick you. Yes, and again it wasn't just him um bertrand was saying, this man is my husband. I would rather suffer a thousand cruel deaths than say otherwise. His sisters did too, right, Yes, that was a big one. So all four of Martin Garret's sisters came and testified at this trial that nope, this is our brother, like he's our brother. I don't know what else we can say. And yet just I the um the testimony in favor of him the judge, and you said, now I think you're an impostor and I'm going to find you guilty. That's right, pay to a public apology and a ceremony. Um, pay your wife two thousand francs. And uh, this one other little tidbit, we're going to behead you and quarter you. And he went, oh, how about we is there such a thing as uh appealing to a higher court, and they said, well, unfortunately there is, and so now we will talk about this second trial. Yeah, this was like to the appellate court, this group of like the finest legal minds in France. Um. They were called the what were they called chuck holed Parliament, the criminal chamber of the Parliament of to lose Okay, So they were basically, like I said, the finest legal minds in France who were coming together to hear this story that was pretty much sweeping the not just the nation, but like this part of Europe that there's this guy who's being called an impostors defending himself and this whole town is split about whether he is who he says he is. And one of the judges in the case was Jean de korros Um, who went on to actually write the first and earliest account of this case. He actually wrote two of them. He wrote a sequel that delved a little more into our known dutils life. Um. But the people who came together to hear this case basically got even better UM version of what had happened in Ryu. That's right, uh, And another example here early on in this trial of Bertrand being very savvy with her moves because she was basically like, hey, listen, I'm not going to say that this man is impostor. I think he is my husband. Uh but if he's not, he sure fooled me right exactly, not my fault. Yeah, he also so this is another thing too. He So the judges really wanted to, um, this guy to be the real guy. Uh. Decoras says, um that they put more weight to the affirmative testimony because they want Yeah, they wanted him to be that. Yeah, they wanted to not be an impostor. So they put more weight into affirmative testimony because they felt that, um, it was more positive than say, like negative testimony, which was destructive, which makes sense an illegal like a certain way legally, but but more more than that, the affirmative testimony also affirmed this marriage and this family and this household that was already intact and that didn't want to be split apart. It's not like Bertrand was saying this man is not my husband. She's saying he is my husband, please leave us alone. And the judges wanted to support that and are no de Till gave them heaping mountains folds of stuff to to go ahead and go along on with this, and he actually he stood up to all this testimony, did it again. He survived all these memory tests. Bar Trond hung in there. He got so good, Chuck that he on the stand said, I just want you to know I forgive you for having to testify against me. I know you don't want to, but I can give you. I don't hold it against you, dear wife. That's how much I love you. And those judges were like, swoon, I wish I was bear Tron. And he won them over, Chuck, and they were about to rule in his favor that he was Martin Gear and everybody just shut up about it from now on. Except there was a twist that happened. Huh yeah, And this would be great for an ad break, but we've already done it, so we'll just say, very simply, a man walks in with a wooden leg in the movie version, I'm sure in the movie version that didn't happen quite like that. But the real Martin Gear please stood up and all of a sudden, there he was, Uh, he's back, the real deal. No one knows why he came back exactly. Uh. The speculation is that he heard about this story because it traveled, like he said, kind of throughout you know, this region of Europe, and that he was like, wait a minute, Uh, I'm a jerk and I'm not gonna let this stand, right, So he he showed up like almost the last minute that he could have. I'm sure he's showed up. Later they would have reopened the case, but they hadn't yet ruled, but they were about to rule in our notes favor, like the gable is up and essentially and this guy shows up and says, wait, I am the real Martin Gere basically, and they treated him like he was potentially an imposter. First two they took him into custody. They questioned him separately, and they questioned him and they questioned our note on the same old memories um, and both of them responded like equally. Well. So the judges are like, oh my god, what is going on here. They've never had a case like this before. But the thing that I think clinched everything is when when he came to the court, when he was presented in court, his family all recognized and his sisters all said, oh my god, we were wrong. This guy is the realist, our real brother, and then Bertron said, she gulped very heavily, was maybe heard to say under her breath, well, I guess the jig is up, and threw herself at the feet of Martin Garret and said, I have been duped. I'm so sorry. I can't believe that this impostor got me, but I was fooled. Please forgive me. Yeah, I was desperate. I wanted my husband back and this guy tricked me. And I was willing to overlook the differences because I wanted you back so bad, my dear Martin. And uh, it's really interesting, he said. He was not well. Two things. First of all, during all this are no was like he kept up that con man thing and like went on the attack against Martin, you know, like you're the impostor in a big, big way, which really helped um. But then Martin was basically, you know, as far as Pertran goes, he said, lead and this is a shortened quote, but leave aside these tears. The wife ought to know her husband. No one is to blame but you. Yeah, so he wasn't having it. No, he was not having it, and um, the judges even said, well, hey man, maybe uh have a little heart, like you're the one who left her eight years ago, and Martin said, silence, that is not a crime, and the judges were like, oh, that's true, it's not a crime. So you just go ahead and keep being a jerk. But we just wanted to put one in on your wife's behalf. But um, she got off. She did not. The judges did not rule against her. They just they determined that she had been duped and that the entire blame was was squarely on the shoulders of our no do till who would now yes, be sentenced to death right. And not only was she let off, but they were very kind to the daughter that she had with Martin initially because technically, as far as the law was concerned, that would make her a bastard. Are not Martin, but are no right? I'm confused. Um, that would make her a bastard, which meants she couldn't get inheritance and stuff like that. But they said no, at the time, she thought it was her husband, so we're gonna make an exception here. So they really did her a couple of favors. But when it came to our No, they really didn't know what descendance because they had never done anything like this before. So they said, well, I guess let's kind of go with what the other people were saying. Let's um, let's kill you, but we'll just hang you and burn your body. We won't quarter you and behead you, right right. I also saw that he was sentenced to to um be hanged while barefoot and bareheaded, and I cannot for life and we find what the problem was with that. I think it was just an insult maybe, but probably like see his face, yeah, I guess, But also you see his ugly feet too. Yeah, well it's his feet that are smaller now. And maybe it's also more you need to look upon the people that you have betrayed, right, Yeah, that's a good one. That's good. So um he he his sentence was carried out and already got um and they actually built the gallows in front of Martin Gere's house just to give him like a really great view of the whole thing or something like that. Um, he could he could keep working until the last minute making tiles and then come out and be like all right, let's go and our note was was marched through town. Um and he finally now he was like, okay, I'm just gonna take full credit for this and admitted everything, didn't He Yeah, but you guys like me right right. But he's like, a good job. I got to you guys so good. Yeah, pretty much. He commended the judges for their work. Uh. He walked through town with the news around his neck, as you know, they made him carry his own news around his neck. And I think at the end appealed to Martin like, hey, be nice to your wife, dude, like I fooled her. She's a woman of honor, Like, don't take this out on her. Which was pretty great because he could have out of spide or out of whatever he he could have like out at her or even not said anything, but he from to the very end he declared that she had no idea and had nothing to do with it. And if you go through you know Natalie's emon Davis's lends, that was a really loving gesture and it reminds you of like these two were probably like deeply in love with one another, and and also like it's no short it's no small thing, even like in the time of very high infant mortality rates. Chuck that they lost a child together and that surely bonded them even further. So like the loss that was created at the the return of Martin Gare with this marriage is actual happy, but impostor and illegitimate marriage was torn apart by thegitimate version. But the but how legitimate was it? You know what I'm saying. If it was that unhappy like this, this man, the real man, managed to interlope into something even more real than what he had created with his own wife. Yeah, that's a very confusing statement, but I totally get it. And it also makes it really sad that he that Arnold was was executed, and I'm sure bar Tryan had to watch and pretend like she was happy about it. Yeah. Uh, No, one really knows what happened in the end to Bertrand and Martin, the real Martin. Not a lot of details, but they do know that there were three more sons. But you know, I don't necessarily means I don't think that necessarily means a reconciled we're happy they this was the sixteenth century. He could have forced himself upon her by all I know. You know, I guess, but they did stay together, and I'm sure he could have gotten a divorce even in Catholic French law at the time. But that so his the illegitimate daughter ur Node and Bertrand's daughter, she went to live with the very uncle that our note had said what he had never seen him in his life on the stand. Oh really, yeah, that's that's who went and took care of her. And Chuck. Our version of the movie ends, I think with um little Bernard growing up a little bit and saying, uncle, can you tell me about my dad? And uncle? And Bernard start walking back to the house from the barn and the uncle says, kid, you wouldn't believe it if I tried. That's great. Does she think perfect ending? Okay? Yeah, So since Chuck said perfect ending, I think that means that it's time for a listener mail. Uh. You know what in lieu of listener mail, we do this a couple of times of year when we rarely ask for support in helping to spread the word. Even here in year thirteen. Uh, we still want to grow the stuff you should know, audience and make sure people are tuning in. So uh, tell a friend or a neighbor or a family member about Stuff you Should Know, if you would and review and rate us on iTunes because that always helps iTunes, Spotify, wherever you find podcasts, wherever you find podcasts. We always appreciate it. This is the show that grew very organically because of this kind of thing many years ago, and we, uh, we don't ask for it much, but we continue to count on that for growth. Yes, So thank you to everybody who's ever rated or reviewed us, and thank you just for listening to We appreciate you guys listening even if you don't lift a finger. Amen. Yeah. Uh, Well, since Chuck said amen, that's the end of this episode, which I think I've already done. I'm losing my mind. And if you want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.