Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant and this is Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know, featuring Yarry. That's right, interesting history a dish, Yes, man,
Speaker 1: I remember hearing this story back as an undergrad. Okay,
Speaker 1: a hot sexy undergrad boy. Were you um in learning
Speaker 1: my history? Yeah? I can't remember what class. Must have
Speaker 1: been a European history class, but this this book just
Speaker 1: always stuck with me. The The Return of Martin Geare
Speaker 1: by Natalie Zimon Davis. Did you read it back then? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was assigned as part of the class. It was
Speaker 1: a great, great book. But did you read it? Yes? Okay,
Speaker 1: I was very eager, um, hot sexy undergrad history major. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean that's why I majored in English because I
Speaker 1: like to read. So anytime I assigned a reading assignment,
Speaker 1: I was like, great, I can do that. Yeah. That
Speaker 1: was one reason I chose histories because I really enjoyed
Speaker 1: reading history stuff. So I was like, well, if that's
Speaker 1: what we're gonna be sitting around doing, let's do it.
Speaker 1: I don't know what we'll do with it after we're
Speaker 1: with that degree. But we'll we'll roll the dice and
Speaker 1: find out you envisioned the future career. Were two lunkheads
Speaker 1: with no previous broadcast experience could become Dare I say
Speaker 1: noteworthy by talking into a can? Yeah? Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: gambling on lucking out to an astounding degree. Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: Sort of that weird. Yeah, it's funny how life work. Well,
Speaker 1: it all worked out, and here we are, all these
Speaker 1: years later to tell the story h of Martin. Is
Speaker 1: it pronounced a gear? I've always pronounced it Martin Gear,
Speaker 1: But we're talking. We're gonna go to sixteenth century France,
Speaker 1: so it's probably Martin Gear. Okay, but we're not going
Speaker 1: to say it like but not Richard Gere. No, which
Speaker 1: is ironic because Richard Gere was the lead in the
Speaker 1: movie summers Be which was see you Look at your
Speaker 1: improp skills? Yes, ending me uh. It was a sort
Speaker 1: of a not necessarily a remake, but a an adaptation
Speaker 1: on the story of Martin Gearre and the movie that
Speaker 1: starred Gerard de Pardu from the early nineteen eighties. Yes,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I think that's it. No, but exactly end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: had you heard this story before the story of Martin Gere, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a little bit. I certainly didn't know it like I
Speaker 1: know it now, but I did see the movie Summers
Speaker 1: Be back then I knew it was kind of based
Speaker 1: on that. And uh, you know, there have been other
Speaker 1: versions of stories like this, um, I mean not, the
Speaker 1: least of which is a story told in animation form
Speaker 1: about a man young man off to war named armontans Arian.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I didn't even put tune two together. Sure,
Speaker 1: when Principal Skinner took someone's identity during the war, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's sort of a common story, but this is I
Speaker 1: think the o g Yeah, thanks for that too, because
Speaker 1: we would have gotten myriad emails telling us what utter
Speaker 1: failures we are in life for missing that Simpson's reference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was his name, right, armontans Arian. Totally. Man. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine how fun the writer's room was that day
Speaker 1: trying to come up with what his real name would be.
Speaker 1: You know, I have said it before, I'll say it
Speaker 1: again that that's Matt Graening's least favorite Simpsons episode was
Speaker 1: at the time years ago. Yeah, Red that one. I
Speaker 1: don't know why. Al Right, I love it too. It's good.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about a man named Martin Garret who
Speaker 1: was like born a peasant in sixteenth century France in
Speaker 1: the Long Doc region, in this like little area just
Speaker 1: above Spain, just below to loose, if that makes sense
Speaker 1: for you. And like, typically, Chuck, when people live and
Speaker 1: die in areas like this, unless they do something spectacularly
Speaker 1: interesting or noteworthy or important, they just kind of get
Speaker 1: lost to history. Sure, and this guy, Martin Garrett, actually
Speaker 1: didn't do anything spectacularly interesting or important or noteworthy. Um,
Speaker 1: and yet we're still talking about him, like four hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty issue years more than that later because his life.
Speaker 1: Something happened to his life that was so interesting that
Speaker 1: it's worth doing an entire podcast episode about all these
Speaker 1: years later. Uh greed. Uh. He was born in Spain
Speaker 1: to a Basque family, and pretty quickly as a toddler
Speaker 1: was brought over to France to how would you pronounce
Speaker 1: such art a got or arta jatte or is it got?
Speaker 1: I think got? Yeah, because cake is ghetto and it
Speaker 1: begins with G. Look at you, all right, So arty
Speaker 1: got and his family got there and they got to
Speaker 1: work pretty quickly, um, setting themselves up in different trades
Speaker 1: like farming eventually tilemaking and merchant ng and did. Okay,
Speaker 1: like they didn't have any kind of money, but they
Speaker 1: worked hard and sort of rose through that um lower
Speaker 1: tiered status to the point where they could marry off
Speaker 1: young Martin to another family, the jar Rolls family, who
Speaker 1: you know, I think Dave Rouse, our our buddy who
Speaker 1: put who put this together for us. He said that
Speaker 1: they were well off, but I think they were well
Speaker 1: off for their lower class though, right, yeah, they were
Speaker 1: up and coming, he puts in. I think like they
Speaker 1: were peasant farmers figuring out how to enter the merchant class,
Speaker 1: which at the time was the very beginning of the
Speaker 1: middle class. Okay, all right, well that makes sense then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they were working their way up into the middle class.
Speaker 1: So um, it was it was a like kind of
Speaker 1: a coup. I take it for the gay family to
Speaker 1: marry off Martin to Bertrand drawls um because her family
Speaker 1: was a little better off. But yeah, they were really young.
Speaker 1: Apparently later on Bertrand recalled that they were married at
Speaker 1: age like nine or ten. Apparently that doesn't add up,
Speaker 1: and that was probably more like thirteen or fourteen, So
Speaker 1: you know, that's fine. Right. Uh, still very young. But
Speaker 1: this is the sixteenth century after all. Uh. So they
Speaker 1: got married, and you know when you get married back then,
Speaker 1: you want to start having babies pretty quickly. And they
Speaker 1: had a hard time having babies because for the first
Speaker 1: eight years of their marriage they did not consummate their marriage. Uh.
Speaker 1: And no one knows exactly why. There were rumors maybe
Speaker 1: that Martin wasn't or Martine just wasn't into it. Um.
Speaker 1: They were thirteen after all, so maybe you know, they
Speaker 1: were normal children who kind of thought that wasn't the
Speaker 1: thing to do yet I don't know, or he was like,
Speaker 1: how do I work this? He just sounded like David
Speaker 1: Byrne and once in a lifetime. Uh. Some people blamed
Speaker 1: it on a witch's curse. Uh. They eventually consulted with
Speaker 1: a wise woman who said it go to these series
Speaker 1: of masses at church because mass is always guaranteed to
Speaker 1: make you randy. Uh. And he eat a special cake
Speaker 1: that would sort of get him going downstairs and apparently
Speaker 1: it worked. Crazy as they had a baby. They had
Speaker 1: a little son, like right afterward it was a kick
Speaker 1: made of fireplace ashes I saw. But you know, they're
Speaker 1: in the early twenties at this point, by the way, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the appropriate h for that kind of thing. Right.
Speaker 1: It makes you wonder though, like was it self you know,
Speaker 1: self imposed and like he was able to to feel
Speaker 1: like this curse or whatever was lifted off of him
Speaker 1: from eating that cake. But regardless, it happened like almost
Speaker 1: immediately Bertrand got pregnant and they had a son named Senxi,
Speaker 1: who was the same name of Martin's father. So um,
Speaker 1: Martin said, Hey, this is really amazing. I've really turned
Speaker 1: a new corner in life. I'm really interested to see
Speaker 1: what life brings me now and just got back to
Speaker 1: work with now with a son and wife. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But here's the thing, and I think there's really no
Speaker 1: other way to describe Martin. Uh, everything I read, basically
Speaker 1: it sounds like he was a real a hole. Yes,
Speaker 1: that was the impression I had to He was not
Speaker 1: a nice guy. He was not a nice husband. I
Speaker 1: didn't see anything necessarily about like overt abuse. But he
Speaker 1: just seemed like a real jerk, uh, sort of to
Speaker 1: his family and around town, and he was kind of
Speaker 1: looking to get out of town. And his father accused
Speaker 1: him of stealing grain from the family stores. And then
Speaker 1: selling it for a profit, which was not cool. Even
Speaker 1: if it's your own family, it's probably more uncool that
Speaker 1: it's your own family, and so never trust family that's
Speaker 1: on the shirt. But instead saying like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I want to defend myself, he just took off, and
Speaker 1: he's like, sorry, wife and young son, but I don't
Speaker 1: really like you guys that much anyway, so I'm out
Speaker 1: of here. I see him as like an early twenties
Speaker 1: gen xers, like whatever, man, I can't deal with this
Speaker 1: at all. I'm out of here. And you get the
Speaker 1: impression that he was just looking for a reason to leave,
Speaker 1: and he did. He got it. He didn't defend himself,
Speaker 1: which I mean in sixteenth century France or Basque culture, um,
Speaker 1: that is something you would want to do if your
Speaker 1: honor was being impugned. That was one of the few
Speaker 1: currencies you had, so you would want to defend yourself.
Speaker 1: So I think it says a lot about somebody at
Speaker 1: that time who didn't even bother defending himself. He's just left,
Speaker 1: and he left his wife and child um without providing
Speaker 1: for them in any way. Like sure they had like
Speaker 1: his his you know, inheritance, his money, um his share
Speaker 1: of whatever the family owned, but he didn't like set
Speaker 1: them up in any way. Before he left, he just
Speaker 1: put down his plowshare, put down his tile making tongs,
Speaker 1: and just laughed. That's right. He ended up in Spain.
Speaker 1: He went back to Spain, Uh settled in b U
Speaker 1: r g o s Burghos and became a servant for
Speaker 1: a noble family. And they noticed, like, hey, dude, you're
Speaker 1: pretty good fencer. You're good with a sword. You should
Speaker 1: get you armied up. So he joined the Spanish army,
Speaker 1: who was at war with France at the time, and
Speaker 1: he fought for five years before and this is a
Speaker 1: very key detail I think before we go into our
Speaker 1: first break, that he was hitting the leg with a
Speaker 1: bullet and had his leg amputated. Yes, so we'll take
Speaker 1: a break. Hang on to that, put a pin in it,
Speaker 1: and we'll be right back. So let's zero in on
Speaker 1: Bertrand for the while, shall we the wife if you
Speaker 1: don't remember Bertrand, Yes, Bertrando Rolls, who became married to
Speaker 1: Martin Garrett, maybe aged nine to fourteen, depending on who
Speaker 1: you ask. Seemed like a savvy young woman. Yes, now
Speaker 1: this is new. We gotta say this so, like Natalie
Speaker 1: Zimon Davis, Um, you mentioned that film The Return of
Speaker 1: Martin Gere, Sorry, Gerard Depardiu, that Summers b was partly
Speaker 1: based on right correct. She was the um consultant on
Speaker 1: that historical consultant film, and she was so put off
Speaker 1: by the retelling of this story that she published her
Speaker 1: book two years afterward. Part of part of that book,
Speaker 1: part of her big contra abution. She made tons of
Speaker 1: contributions to the to the historical record, turned up a
Speaker 1: lot of great documents and everything, but subjectively, her big
Speaker 1: contribution was completely altering the way people saw Bertrand up
Speaker 1: to this point she was a loyal, chast devoted wife
Speaker 1: who would end up being duped, you could say, as
Speaker 1: we'll see very soon. And under Natalie Simon davis is
Speaker 1: reading of her, um, she was a very shrewd woman
Speaker 1: who figured out how to navigate within the confines of
Speaker 1: a male dominated middle age French society. Yeah. And one
Speaker 1: of the first things that we can bring up to
Speaker 1: sort of support this and I kind of like this
Speaker 1: narrative a lot. By the way, um is the fact
Speaker 1: that she got married when she was let's say, um,
Speaker 1: just meet there in the middle and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he had Martine had problems, you know, uh, having sex
Speaker 1: for eight years, and so she was, Um, it's acculated
Speaker 1: from from Davis at least that she was kind of like, Hey,
Speaker 1: this isn't so bad. I don't want to be doing
Speaker 1: that anyway, especially with this kid who was a jerk,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to have a kid. I'm thirteen
Speaker 1: years old. So by the time, you know, she's got
Speaker 1: four sisters, I really love them. Uh, he's you know,
Speaker 1: his family seems to be doing okay. My family is
Speaker 1: doing okay. At the time, that was a big deal.
Speaker 1: And so the fact that she had to wait until
Speaker 1: she was in her early twenties to finally uh to
Speaker 1: you know, I expect to lose her virginity to Martin
Speaker 1: and then have this kid wasn't so bad after all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because she could have asked for the marriage to be
Speaker 1: annulled after three years passed without it being consummated by
Speaker 1: under French law at the time, I think French Catholic law. Um,
Speaker 1: and she didn't. She's just she's like so yeah, that
Speaker 1: definitely substantiates um. Zimon Davis has claimed that like she
Speaker 1: was just kind of rolling with it. She she was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm kind the happy with this, and she didn't
Speaker 1: try and get married when he left either. There were
Speaker 1: a lot of strict laws about remarrying, like if the
Speaker 1: husband disappears or something, you had to have proof of
Speaker 1: death with witnesses and all that stuff. And she was
Speaker 1: basically like, hey, I'm kind of a widow here. His
Speaker 1: uncle Pierre is married to my mom. Now they're taking
Speaker 1: really good care of me, got a lot of help
Speaker 1: with my baby, So I'm pretty cool to just chill here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So in this in this reading, she's saying, Natalie Ziemond
Speaker 1: Davis is saying like she didn't have a choice. Like again,
Speaker 1: under French Catholic law at the time, like it says,
Speaker 1: not even when a husband has been absent twenty years
Speaker 1: or more, can a wife remarry unless she has proof
Speaker 1: of his death. And it's got to be like like
Speaker 1: irrefutable proof that this person has died, their husbands died.
Speaker 1: She didn't have the irrefutable proof, but she didn't. Also,
Speaker 1: she didn't she didn't like go like take love hers.
Speaker 1: She didn't ask to have an exception made for her,
Speaker 1: and so it painted her her her image among the
Speaker 1: townsfolk and among her family that she was a chase,
Speaker 1: devoted wife who was just gonna wait for her lousy
Speaker 1: husband for as long as it took, and then also
Speaker 1: took on the converse side of that. That just goes
Speaker 1: to show you just how fully and selfishly um Martin
Speaker 1: abandoned her, knowing full well that she couldn't remarry because
Speaker 1: she wouldn't have any proof of his death. So he
Speaker 1: left her in limbo. Like even more, it wasn't even
Speaker 1: like I'm leaving. Good luck with your life. You do
Speaker 1: what you want with it. It was I'm leaving. You
Speaker 1: have to stick around and wait until I decided to
Speaker 1: come back, if ever, that's right. Uh. So things are
Speaker 1: going along like this. She's living her life again, has
Speaker 1: plenty of help with her baby, and then one day
Speaker 1: in town at a hostel, a man wanders in it says, Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Martine Garre uh and I'm back. Everybody like, check
Speaker 1: it out. It's been a while. The innkeeper says, you know,
Speaker 1: oh my god, your wife, Bertrand and your son. It's
Speaker 1: so exciting to be reunited and heart He breaks down crying,
Speaker 1: and everyone of course in town comes running up and uh,
Speaker 1: to see who this person is, including his his wife,
Speaker 1: and they all went, huh, you look a little different Martin.
Speaker 1: I think that's how they initially approached it. Well, because
Speaker 1: he did. Apparently he had gotten shorter, heavier, his nose
Speaker 1: had changed. Um, wasn't his Drupyuh? Let's read that. There's
Speaker 1: a description from later court records that would happen of
Speaker 1: um what Martin Gare supposedly looked like? Can I read
Speaker 1: this please? Martin Garre was taller and darker than this
Speaker 1: man who showed up. He was a man thin and
Speaker 1: body and legs a little bent, carrying his head between
Speaker 1: his shoulders, the chin cleft like hue lewis a little
Speaker 1: thrust forward, whose lip lower lip drooped a little, having
Speaker 1: small teeth, a large and flattened nose and ulcer on
Speaker 1: his face, and a scar on his right eyebrow. This
Speaker 1: person was short, thick set, strong of body, having a
Speaker 1: heavy leg, does not have a flat nose, nor is bent,
Speaker 1: nor has any of the said scars. So an entirely
Speaker 1: different looking person showed up and it's like, hey, everybody
Speaker 1: remember me Martin Gare right? Uh? And it's important to
Speaker 1: note here that no one in town knew that Martin
Speaker 1: had lost his leg in the war. Yeah, so that
Speaker 1: was obviously would have been the biggest red flag. But
Speaker 1: this guy comes back and he doesn't look like him,
Speaker 1: but he knows all the stories. He's saying, like, hey,
Speaker 1: remember when we did this, and he would hang out
Speaker 1: with the townspeople and he'd say, I remember that time
Speaker 1: we did that, and this this great time we had
Speaker 1: over here doing this, and everyone's just like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: Like he knows all the stories. It doesn't look like him,
Speaker 1: but you know what, this guy's kind of fun and
Speaker 1: awesome and nice. Yeah, and I don't know what happened
Speaker 1: to him in the war, but like we'll take him. Yes.
Speaker 1: So eight years had passed and he apparently physically changed drastically,
Speaker 1: but also most notably, his personality had changed distinctly for
Speaker 1: the better. He was a charmer now, and like you said,
Speaker 1: he remembered all these stories. So everybody said, let's uh,
Speaker 1: let's see where this goes. Basically, yeah, and there's another
Speaker 1: key move here we need to point out, um right away.
Speaker 1: He didn't just go back to the family farm and
Speaker 1: to the family house with everyone. He said, you know
Speaker 1: what I have the pox. I'm not feeling so great,
Speaker 1: so let me stay here at the hostel for a
Speaker 1: little bit and recover, which turned out to be a
Speaker 1: very sort of savvy key move. Yes, one of the
Speaker 1: other two. One of the other things that he did
Speaker 1: to that definitely convinced bertrand Um and others who were
Speaker 1: who were there. He said, by the way, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: stay here and recover until I'm done with this pox. Um,
Speaker 1: but can you go fetch my white stockings, my white
Speaker 1: hose from this particular drawer, in this particular chest where
Speaker 1: I left them eight years ago? And she went back
Speaker 1: and went to that particular chest in drawer and found
Speaker 1: his white sox were there, just as she remembered him
Speaker 1: leaving them there eight years ago. So like that, and
Speaker 1: a bunch of other stuff that he seemed to remember
Speaker 1: that only Martin would know. Um really convinced everybody like, no,
Speaker 1: this is Martin. He's a little different, but we like
Speaker 1: him even more now and we're going to get along
Speaker 1: with him just fine. Right. And bertrand also was like,
Speaker 1: and the other thing is when you left, you were
Speaker 1: not very interested in sex from me, and you seem
Speaker 1: to be really into that now. And so I'll take
Speaker 1: that as well. Uh, And in fact, I will give
Speaker 1: birth to two daughters in return. Sadly, only one of
Speaker 1: them survived infancy. And her name was is it Bernard
Speaker 1: or bernarda Bernard? Okay, I didn't know that could be
Speaker 1: a little girl's name, but I think we you add
Speaker 1: an e on the end it girls it up? Okay,
Speaker 1: but you don't. You don't pronounce you. No, no, it's all.
Speaker 1: It's all just for looks, okay, all right. So to
Speaker 1: catch up, he's back in town. Everyone likes the new
Speaker 1: and improved Martine gear Uh. He has another daughter, and
Speaker 1: he's having sex with his wife and everything's going great
Speaker 1: until who becomes his main foil gets involved, and that
Speaker 1: would be his uncle Pierre. And remember so Pire gare
Speaker 1: he's a he's another main character in this He by
Speaker 1: this time, after Martin left, married Bartron's mother, so now
Speaker 1: he's Bartron's uncle in law and father in law or stepfather,
Speaker 1: uncle in law and stepfather, that's right. And at first
Speaker 1: he welcomed this new improved Martin back with open arms.
Speaker 1: He was credulous at first, and then he won him
Speaker 1: over with some memories. The new Martin did and um,
Speaker 1: and so Pierre said, okay, let's go with it, and
Speaker 1: everybody was kind of going along and getting along. And
Speaker 1: then I guess one day Martin said, um, hey, by
Speaker 1: the way, Pierre, remember my inheritance, my part of the
Speaker 1: land and my part of the wealth that I left
Speaker 1: behind that you've been managing. Well, I know you made
Speaker 1: a bunch of money off of it. I feel like
Speaker 1: that's my money. So can I have my money, Pierre?
Speaker 1: Can I please? And Pierre didn't like that idea at all.
Speaker 1: And it's not clear whether he just didn't like that
Speaker 1: idea or whether he didn't like that idea because he
Speaker 1: didn't think this was Martin after all, and this guy
Speaker 1: was overstepping his bounds. I don't know. But one of
Speaker 1: the things that he did was assemble his son's to
Speaker 1: try to beat Martin to death on the road. And
Speaker 1: had it not been for Bear Trand throwing herself on
Speaker 1: top of Martin Martin's body, Um, they probably would have
Speaker 1: succeeded in in murdering him. Yeah, I mean, he it's interesting,
Speaker 1: like I fill in a little bit of the narrative blanks,
Speaker 1: is you know someone who's into movies and literature and stuff.
Speaker 1: It seems to me like Pierre was kind of like, hey,
Speaker 1: everyone seems to like this guy, so I'm not going
Speaker 1: to be the one to stand in the way. Uh.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to rocks the boat until this money
Speaker 1: thing came up, and that's Martin actually took him to court,
Speaker 1: and that's when things really changed. And that's when Pierre
Speaker 1: started talking to anyone who would listen and saying, you
Speaker 1: know what, he's basque and he doesn't understand these basque phrases.
Speaker 1: This dude was a great fencer. He's this guy's no fencer.
Speaker 1: He's not even into it at all. He doesn't look
Speaker 1: anything like his son. And I think this guy is
Speaker 1: a fraud. And it's interesting that the town like it
Speaker 1: seems to be. And we'll get to the court case,
Speaker 1: but it seemed to be almost divided whether or not
Speaker 1: people said, no, we think it's him and it's all good,
Speaker 1: and people have said no, I think he is a fraud. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it just goes to show sort of the power
Speaker 1: of those stories's because at the time, in sixteenth century France,
Speaker 1: how else would you explain something like, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: remember that time we went and pushed over that cow
Speaker 1: and I and I did a dance on him on
Speaker 1: his belly, like you know, that's a powerful thing back
Speaker 1: then when you don't have photographs and any other kind
Speaker 1: of shared recollection that you can easily point to. So
Speaker 1: you know, he fooled a lot of people. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: definitely did. I wonder how much he was playing on
Speaker 1: people's propensity to not want to admit a mistake or
Speaker 1: that they were wrong. That plays into it. I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's got too. But like you said, the town was divided,
Speaker 1: and it was divided between Pierre and then this new Martin,
Speaker 1: and very crucially on the side of this new Martin
Speaker 1: was Beartrand. She threw she cast her a lot with
Speaker 1: him and said, no, this man is Martin Gere. I
Speaker 1: will um anyone who is mad enough to say otherwise,
Speaker 1: I will make him die, which is a weird way
Speaker 1: to to create a death threat, but it was. It
Speaker 1: was a death threat. And on the asked but um.
Speaker 1: This was despite m Bertrand's mother, who was Pierre's wife,
Speaker 1: coming to her and being like, look, you need to
Speaker 1: get with Pierre here. He's he's on the side of right,
Speaker 1: and um she still said no. So um. Pierre also
Speaker 1: he had. There were there were people who backed him up,
Speaker 1: like the the shoemaker. Right, yeah, there was a little
Speaker 1: matter of the fact. And this is in somers Bey too,
Speaker 1: that he came back from the war with a different
Speaker 1: foot size. That's a big change. That's a very drastic change,
Speaker 1: it is. And technically he did come back with a
Speaker 1: different foot size, but in a radically different way. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: because everything changed in fifteen fifty nine. He had been
Speaker 1: back a few years at this point, and a Spanish
Speaker 1: soldier wanders through town and heard about this story of
Speaker 1: Martin Gierre and said, hey, wait a minute, I knew
Speaker 1: that guy during the war and he's only got one leg.
Speaker 1: And it's like that's when it's like Mike Brady throwing
Speaker 1: the the briefcase in the courtroom. Just a hush falls
Speaker 1: over the crowd. And he said, no, this effect is
Speaker 1: uh an impostor an inteloper. And I believe he is
Speaker 1: Arnold Till, and he is a Spanish man of ill repute. Yes,
Speaker 1: so Pierre um like I got word out to nearby
Speaker 1: villages and and and confirm this that it probably was
Speaker 1: a guy named Arnold de Til who was from a
Speaker 1: town about thirty miles away called SaHas s A j
Speaker 1: A S I think I think probably right, that's about
Speaker 1: a day or two of travel from already got um.
Speaker 1: So it's far enough away but close enough that you
Speaker 1: could get you could you could confirm or deny whether
Speaker 1: somebody was someone from that town. Right, Yeah, this guy,
Speaker 1: you know, he's a bit of a rough house or
Speaker 1: he drank a lot and he gambled, and he bedded
Speaker 1: down with sex workers and had a big appetite. I mean,
Speaker 1: our departdu played this guy for God's sake, So that
Speaker 1: kind of tells you all you need to know. All right, So, uh,
Speaker 1: this guy all of a sudden is seemingly um found out.
Speaker 1: But the story is is that he went off joined
Speaker 1: the French army. Uh, this are no guy uh. And
Speaker 1: the question is like did he meet Martin on the battlefield.
Speaker 1: What we ended up finding out much later is that
Speaker 1: a couple of old friends of Martin actually mistook him
Speaker 1: for Martin uh initially and then where like, you look
Speaker 1: just like our friend this guy back in uh small
Speaker 1: town France, who's actually got a pretty good um doubt
Speaker 1: not dowry, but pretty good prospects monetarily waiting for him
Speaker 1: back home and this pretty good looking wife, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the wheels start turning in Arnold's mind. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not clear whether those two ended up becoming accomplices
Speaker 1: or else, if he was just able to kind of
Speaker 1: like work info out of them over time, But that
Speaker 1: is that does seem to be I think he's He
Speaker 1: later admitted that's where he got the He's like, how
Speaker 1: much do I look like him? Right? Exactly? Oh spinning
Speaker 1: image men? Oh goodness. He also was like really, um,
Speaker 1: really clever in that, Like he stayed behind at that
Speaker 1: hostile like he first appeared at the hostel, rather than
Speaker 1: showing up in town. That was a big one. He
Speaker 1: stayed behind with the pox I made scare quotes. Um
Speaker 1: he uh, so he could gather more information just slowly,
Speaker 1: but surely. He just seemed like the type you could
Speaker 1: get something out of you without you realizing it, because
Speaker 1: you were just having a good time hanging out with him, right,
Speaker 1: Like I wonder if he was like, yeah, because I
Speaker 1: remember that time we pushed over that cow and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, you mean the horse that time when
Speaker 1: we did this. He's like, oh yeah, that was totally
Speaker 1: it totally I was so drunk. I remember being a
Speaker 1: cow and everybody starts laughing. Right, but you didn't drink
Speaker 1: much back then, Well, I drank on the side. You
Speaker 1: didn't know it was secret, right, was also on the
Speaker 1: pills that was German. Yeah, you're really all over Europe
Speaker 1: right now. So, and this is where Natalie Zeman Davis
Speaker 1: comes in, Like, it's it's clear that this guy was
Speaker 1: really good at getting information from people without them realizing
Speaker 1: that he was extracting information, using that information um with
Speaker 1: his very very good memory UM to lull you into
Speaker 1: a sense of security or trust for him that he
Speaker 1: was to to overcome your instincts against trusting that he's
Speaker 1: he was who said he was. But that no, no
Speaker 1: amount of preparation and research in the in the sixteenth
Speaker 1: century setting could have helped him get away with this
Speaker 1: so thoroughly without the help of Bertrand. That's Natalie Ziemon
Speaker 1: Davis is like her thesis is like, there's no way
Speaker 1: that Bertrand was a dupe, that she wasn't complicit, and
Speaker 1: that you know, she probably it's tough to blame her
Speaker 1: because her life improved dramatically after this guy showed up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean if she would have caused a stink like
Speaker 1: Pierre did early on as the wife, it would have
Speaker 1: been a much much different deal, I think than her
Speaker 1: completely defending him, and Day points out we're never gonna know,
Speaker 1: like he's in the in the town going to the
Speaker 1: pub and he's talking with people about the stories, but
Speaker 1: she's with him as wife full time behind closed doors
Speaker 1: and we'll never know what went on there. But in
Speaker 1: my mind, in the movie version, there's a scene at
Speaker 1: some point where she goes, hey, listen, I know you're
Speaker 1: not him, but it's okay because you're actually a nice
Speaker 1: guy and I can make this work. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: that Jodie Foster's famous line is, hey, bubs, let's cut
Speaker 1: the s Missa Chika may n Now I haven't seen
Speaker 1: Nell in so long. I never have. I'm just putting
Speaker 1: mine written together from from previews I saw like twenty
Speaker 1: five years ago. I think, Yeah, I don't think it
Speaker 1: was a very good movie, or maybe I'm misremembering, or
Speaker 1: maybe i'm remembering it. I think we have to watch it.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, I want to watch this instead. So this
Speaker 1: this whole idea that bertrand is uh is is a complicit.
Speaker 1: It's a new idea. It's a modern take for centuries.
Speaker 1: She was in the storytelling. She was duped. Like, that's
Speaker 1: how good and wiley this are no do till was
Speaker 1: that being an impostor. He duped the man's wife. That's
Speaker 1: how good he was. And when you when you hear that,
Speaker 1: and then you hear Natalie Zimon Davis's take, you're like,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty ridiculous idea. But that's how it was.
Speaker 1: And and and as we'll see, Bertrand was never was
Speaker 1: never um persecuted or prosecuted for her role in it.
Speaker 1: She she got out of it as well. Should we
Speaker 1: take a break, Yeah, let's all right, we'll take our
Speaker 1: last break, and we'll talk about the first trial of
Speaker 1: Martin gear right after this. All right, the first trial,
Speaker 1: I said of Martin Gerre, but we're gonna call it
Speaker 1: the first trial of our no. Uh. He was put
Speaker 1: on trial in a town called r i e u
Speaker 1: x ru ru ru u. Uh. He was put on
Speaker 1: trial specifically for stealing another man's identity, adultery, taking his property.
Speaker 1: And Dave points out very uh aptly that this is
Speaker 1: like in the sixteenth century, how do you prove something
Speaker 1: like this? You could give him memory test, but uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you could we already know he has a
Speaker 1: great memory and kind of did his homework. You could
Speaker 1: get villagers up there to testify, which they certainly did,
Speaker 1: but they're biased. You could you know, compare them physically,
Speaker 1: which they did, but it seems like that didn't matter
Speaker 1: much because uh, some people knew like he for sure
Speaker 1: he had different foot size. Uh. And also they didn't
Speaker 1: you know, have the kind of photographs and handwriting comps
Speaker 1: and stuff like that that just it was a lot
Speaker 1: easier to get away with something like this back then.
Speaker 1: Plus also for just about everybody who said, oh no
Speaker 1: his long his nose was long and flat, others would
Speaker 1: say no, no, it was short and pointy like this
Speaker 1: guy right exactly. Plus I mean, you've got no fingerprinting,
Speaker 1: no DNA tests, not even like standardized stuff like driver's
Speaker 1: licenses or passports. There weren't even like wagon licenses at
Speaker 1: the time, so there really wasn't any way but to
Speaker 1: hear as many people as possible and then just thoughtfully
Speaker 1: kind of sort through their testimony and that first trial
Speaker 1: at you, um Martin gear and at a time or
Speaker 1: I should say our no do till Um, at a
Speaker 1: time when a lot of people would have shrunk at
Speaker 1: the challenge, rose to the challenge, maybe more than anybody
Speaker 1: ever living would have. Like this guy defended his honor
Speaker 1: as much as the real Martin gear would have. Probably more. Actually,
Speaker 1: as we'll see as we saw. The other thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to bring up to is, like I would say,
Speaker 1: so much of this was impacted solely on the fact
Speaker 1: that a lot of people like this guy, you know,
Speaker 1: and and they like the new Martin, and they're not
Speaker 1: going to go in there in sixteenth century France and
Speaker 1: cause a big stink. They're gonna say. No, I think
Speaker 1: it's him. He knew this story, and he's got that
Speaker 1: and I remember that knows and what's the foot size anyway?
Speaker 1: Those those fee can change sizes, right, what do we
Speaker 1: even know about that? Yeah, this is what this guy said.
Speaker 1: So he crossed, examined witnesses against him, and for that
Speaker 1: shoemaker in particular, he said, this man is a drinking
Speaker 1: companion of Pierre Gare. Let him show his records about
Speaker 1: the size of my feet. Um. He also confronted a
Speaker 1: man who was his uncle Um from SaHas, who was
Speaker 1: our no do Tills uncle, who said, yeah, that's our
Speaker 1: no do till he's cross examining me right now. He said,
Speaker 1: I've never seen this man before in my life, and
Speaker 1: he's my uncle. Why can't he produce other members of
Speaker 1: my family that say so um so that a confidence
Speaker 1: person does con Man is like so adamant their beliefs
Speaker 1: that that's that's what they used to trick you. Yes,
Speaker 1: and again it wasn't just him um bertrand was saying,
Speaker 1: this man is my husband. I would rather suffer a
Speaker 1: thousand cruel deaths than say otherwise. His sisters did too, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: that was a big one. So all four of Martin
Speaker 1: Garret's sisters came and testified at this trial that nope,
Speaker 1: this is our brother, like he's our brother. I don't
Speaker 1: know what else we can say. And yet just I
Speaker 1: the um the testimony in favor of him the judge,
Speaker 1: and you said, now I think you're an impostor and
Speaker 1: I'm going to find you guilty. That's right, pay to
Speaker 1: a public apology and a ceremony. Um, pay your wife
Speaker 1: two thousand francs. And uh, this one other little tidbit,
Speaker 1: we're going to behead you and quarter you. And he went, oh,
Speaker 1: how about we is there such a thing as uh
Speaker 1: appealing to a higher court, and they said, well, unfortunately
Speaker 1: there is, and so now we will talk about this
Speaker 1: second trial. Yeah, this was like to the appellate court,
Speaker 1: this group of like the finest legal minds in France. Um.
Speaker 1: They were called the what were they called chuck holed Parliament,
Speaker 1: the criminal chamber of the Parliament of to lose Okay,
Speaker 1: So they were basically, like I said, the finest legal
Speaker 1: minds in France who were coming together to hear this
Speaker 1: story that was pretty much sweeping the not just the nation,
Speaker 1: but like this part of Europe that there's this guy
Speaker 1: who's being called an impostors defending himself and this whole
Speaker 1: town is split about whether he is who he says
Speaker 1: he is. And one of the judges in the case
Speaker 1: was Jean de korros Um, who went on to actually
Speaker 1: write the first and earliest account of this case. He
Speaker 1: actually wrote two of them. He wrote a sequel that
Speaker 1: delved a little more into our known dutils life. Um.
Speaker 1: But the people who came together to hear this case
Speaker 1: basically got even better UM version of what had happened
Speaker 1: in Ryu. That's right, uh, And another example here early
Speaker 1: on in this trial of Bertrand being very savvy with
Speaker 1: her moves because she was basically like, hey, listen, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say that this man is impostor. I
Speaker 1: think he is my husband. Uh but if he's not,
Speaker 1: he sure fooled me right exactly, not my fault. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he also so this is another thing too. He So
Speaker 1: the judges really wanted to, um, this guy to be
Speaker 1: the real guy. Uh. Decoras says, um that they put
Speaker 1: more weight to the affirmative testimony because they want Yeah,
Speaker 1: they wanted him to be that. Yeah, they wanted to
Speaker 1: not be an impostor. So they put more weight into
Speaker 1: affirmative testimony because they felt that, um, it was more
Speaker 1: positive than say, like negative testimony, which was destructive, which
Speaker 1: makes sense an illegal like a certain way legally, but
Speaker 1: but more more than that, the affirmative testimony also affirmed
Speaker 1: this marriage and this family and this household that was
Speaker 1: already intact and that didn't want to be split apart.
Speaker 1: It's not like Bertrand was saying this man is not
Speaker 1: my husband. She's saying he is my husband, please leave
Speaker 1: us alone. And the judges wanted to support that and
Speaker 1: are no de Till gave them heaping mountains folds of
Speaker 1: stuff to to go ahead and go along on with this,
Speaker 1: and he actually he stood up to all this testimony,
Speaker 1: did it again. He survived all these memory tests. Bar
Speaker 1: Trond hung in there. He got so good, Chuck that
Speaker 1: he on the stand said, I just want you to
Speaker 1: know I forgive you for having to testify against me.
Speaker 1: I know you don't want to, but I can give you.
Speaker 1: I don't hold it against you, dear wife. That's how
Speaker 1: much I love you. And those judges were like, swoon,
Speaker 1: I wish I was bear Tron. And he won them over, Chuck,
Speaker 1: and they were about to rule in his favor that
Speaker 1: he was Martin Gear and everybody just shut up about
Speaker 1: it from now on. Except there was a twist that happened.
Speaker 1: Huh yeah, And this would be great for an ad break,
Speaker 1: but we've already done it, so we'll just say, very simply,
Speaker 1: a man walks in with a wooden leg in the
Speaker 1: movie version, I'm sure in the movie version that didn't
Speaker 1: happen quite like that. But the real Martin Gear please
Speaker 1: stood up and all of a sudden, there he was, Uh,
Speaker 1: he's back, the real deal. No one knows why he
Speaker 1: came back exactly. Uh. The speculation is that he heard
Speaker 1: about this story because it traveled, like he said, kind
Speaker 1: of throughout you know, this region of Europe, and that
Speaker 1: he was like, wait a minute, Uh, I'm a jerk
Speaker 1: and I'm not gonna let this stand, right, So he
Speaker 1: he showed up like almost the last minute that he
Speaker 1: could have. I'm sure he's showed up. Later they would
Speaker 1: have reopened the case, but they hadn't yet ruled, but
Speaker 1: they were about to rule in our notes favor, like
Speaker 1: the gable is up and essentially and this guy shows
Speaker 1: up and says, wait, I am the real Martin Gere basically,
Speaker 1: and they treated him like he was potentially an imposter.
Speaker 1: First two they took him into custody. They questioned him separately,
Speaker 1: and they questioned him and they questioned our note on
Speaker 1: the same old memories um, and both of them responded
Speaker 1: like equally. Well. So the judges are like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: what is going on here. They've never had a case
Speaker 1: like this before. But the thing that I think clinched
Speaker 1: everything is when when he came to the court, when
Speaker 1: he was presented in court, his family all recognized and
Speaker 1: his sisters all said, oh my god, we were wrong.
Speaker 1: This guy is the realist, our real brother, and then
Speaker 1: Bertron said, she gulped very heavily, was maybe heard to
Speaker 1: say under her breath, well, I guess the jig is up,
Speaker 1: and threw herself at the feet of Martin Garret and said,
Speaker 1: I have been duped. I'm so sorry. I can't believe
Speaker 1: that this impostor got me, but I was fooled. Please
Speaker 1: forgive me. Yeah, I was desperate. I wanted my husband
Speaker 1: back and this guy tricked me. And I was willing
Speaker 1: to overlook the differences because I wanted you back so bad,
Speaker 1: my dear Martin. And uh, it's really interesting, he said.
Speaker 1: He was not well. Two things. First of all, during
Speaker 1: all this are no was like he kept up that
Speaker 1: con man thing and like went on the attack against Martin,
Speaker 1: you know, like you're the impostor in a big, big way,
Speaker 1: which really helped um. But then Martin was basically, you know,
Speaker 1: as far as Pertran goes, he said, lead and this
Speaker 1: is a shortened quote, but leave aside these tears. The
Speaker 1: wife ought to know her husband. No one is to
Speaker 1: blame but you. Yeah, so he wasn't having it. No,
Speaker 1: he was not having it, and um, the judges even said, well,
Speaker 1: hey man, maybe uh have a little heart, like you're
Speaker 1: the one who left her eight years ago, and Martin said, silence,
Speaker 1: that is not a crime, and the judges were like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's true, it's not a crime. So you just go
Speaker 1: ahead and keep being a jerk. But we just wanted
Speaker 1: to put one in on your wife's behalf. But um,
Speaker 1: she got off. She did not. The judges did not
Speaker 1: rule against her. They just they determined that she had
Speaker 1: been duped and that the entire blame was was squarely
Speaker 1: on the shoulders of our no do till who would
Speaker 1: now yes, be sentenced to death right. And not only
Speaker 1: was she let off, but they were very kind to
Speaker 1: the daughter that she had with Martin initially because technically,
Speaker 1: as far as the law was concerned, that would make
Speaker 1: her a bastard. Are not Martin, but are no right?
Speaker 1: I'm confused. Um, that would make her a bastard, which
Speaker 1: meants she couldn't get inheritance and stuff like that. But
Speaker 1: they said no, at the time, she thought it was
Speaker 1: her husband, so we're gonna make an exception here. So
Speaker 1: they really did her a couple of favors. But when
Speaker 1: it came to our No, they really didn't know what
Speaker 1: descendance because they had never done anything like this before.
Speaker 1: So they said, well, I guess let's kind of go
Speaker 1: with what the other people were saying. Let's um, let's
Speaker 1: kill you, but we'll just hang you and burn your body.
Speaker 1: We won't quarter you and behead you, right right. I
Speaker 1: also saw that he was sentenced to to um be
Speaker 1: hanged while barefoot and bareheaded, and I cannot for life
Speaker 1: and we find what the problem was with that. I
Speaker 1: think it was just an insult maybe, but probably like
Speaker 1: see his face, yeah, I guess, But also you see
Speaker 1: his ugly feet too. Yeah, well it's his feet that
Speaker 1: are smaller now. And maybe it's also more you need
Speaker 1: to look upon the people that you have betrayed, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. That's good. So um he he
Speaker 1: his sentence was carried out and already got um and
Speaker 1: they actually built the gallows in front of Martin Gere's
Speaker 1: house just to give him like a really great view
Speaker 1: of the whole thing or something like that. Um, he
Speaker 1: could he could keep working until the last minute making
Speaker 1: tiles and then come out and be like all right,
Speaker 1: let's go and our note was was marched through town.
Speaker 1: Um and he finally now he was like, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna take full credit for this and admitted everything,
Speaker 1: didn't He Yeah, but you guys like me right right.
Speaker 1: But he's like, a good job. I got to you
Speaker 1: guys so good. Yeah, pretty much. He commended the judges
Speaker 1: for their work. Uh. He walked through town with the
Speaker 1: news around his neck, as you know, they made him
Speaker 1: carry his own news around his neck. And I think
Speaker 1: at the end appealed to Martin like, hey, be nice
Speaker 1: to your wife, dude, like I fooled her. She's a
Speaker 1: woman of honor, Like, don't take this out on her.
Speaker 1: Which was pretty great because he could have out of
Speaker 1: spide or out of whatever he he could have like
Speaker 1: out at her or even not said anything, but he
Speaker 1: from to the very end he declared that she had
Speaker 1: no idea and had nothing to do with it. And
Speaker 1: if you go through you know Natalie's emon Davis's lends,
Speaker 1: that was a really loving gesture and it reminds you
Speaker 1: of like these two were probably like deeply in love
Speaker 1: with one another, and and also like it's no short
Speaker 1: it's no small thing, even like in the time of
Speaker 1: very high infant mortality rates. Chuck that they lost a
Speaker 1: child together and that surely bonded them even further. So
Speaker 1: like the loss that was created at the the return
Speaker 1: of Martin Gare with this marriage is actual happy, but
Speaker 1: impostor and illegitimate marriage was torn apart by thegitimate version.
Speaker 1: But the but how legitimate was it? You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. If it was that unhappy like this, this man,
Speaker 1: the real man, managed to interlope into something even more
Speaker 1: real than what he had created with his own wife. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a very confusing statement, but I totally get it.
Speaker 1: And it also makes it really sad that he that
Speaker 1: Arnold was was executed, and I'm sure bar Tryan had
Speaker 1: to watch and pretend like she was happy about it. Yeah. Uh, No,
Speaker 1: one really knows what happened in the end to Bertrand
Speaker 1: and Martin, the real Martin. Not a lot of details,
Speaker 1: but they do know that there were three more sons.
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't necessarily means I don't think
Speaker 1: that necessarily means a reconciled we're happy they this was
Speaker 1: the sixteenth century. He could have forced himself upon her
Speaker 1: by all I know. You know, I guess, but they
Speaker 1: did stay together, and I'm sure he could have gotten
Speaker 1: a divorce even in Catholic French law at the time.
Speaker 1: But that so his the illegitimate daughter ur Node and
Speaker 1: Bertrand's daughter, she went to live with the very uncle
Speaker 1: that our note had said what he had never seen
Speaker 1: him in his life on the stand. Oh really, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's who went and took care of her. And Chuck.
Speaker 1: Our version of the movie ends, I think with um
Speaker 1: little Bernard growing up a little bit and saying, uncle,
Speaker 1: can you tell me about my dad? And uncle? And
Speaker 1: Bernard start walking back to the house from the barn
Speaker 1: and the uncle says, kid, you wouldn't believe it if
Speaker 1: I tried. That's great. Does she think perfect ending? Okay? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So since Chuck said perfect ending, I think that means
Speaker 1: that it's time for a listener mail. Uh. You know
Speaker 1: what in lieu of listener mail, we do this a
Speaker 1: couple of times of year when we rarely ask for
Speaker 1: support in helping to spread the word. Even here in
Speaker 1: year thirteen. Uh, we still want to grow the stuff
Speaker 1: you should know, audience and make sure people are tuning in.
Speaker 1: So uh, tell a friend or a neighbor or a
Speaker 1: family member about Stuff you Should Know, if you would
Speaker 1: and review and rate us on iTunes because that always
Speaker 1: helps iTunes, Spotify, wherever you find podcasts, wherever you find podcasts.
Speaker 1: We always appreciate it. This is the show that grew
Speaker 1: very organically because of this kind of thing many years ago,
Speaker 1: and we, uh, we don't ask for it much, but
Speaker 1: we continue to count on that for growth. Yes, So
Speaker 1: thank you to everybody who's ever rated or reviewed us,
Speaker 1: and thank you just for listening to We appreciate you
Speaker 1: guys listening even if you don't lift a finger. Amen. Yeah. Uh, Well,
Speaker 1: since Chuck said amen, that's the end of this episode,
Speaker 1: which I think I've already done. I'm losing my mind.
Speaker 1: And if you want to get in touch with us,
Speaker 1: you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
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