WEBVTT - The Improbable Story of Martin Guerre 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.880 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.320 and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant and this is Stuff 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:25.480 you Should Know, featuring Yarry. That's right, interesting history a dish, Yes, man, 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:30.040 I remember hearing this story back as an undergrad. Okay, 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:36.240 a hot sexy undergrad boy. Were you um in learning 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:40.479 my history? Yeah? I can't remember what class. Must have 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:43.239 been a European history class, but this this book just 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:46.960 always stuck with me. The The Return of Martin Geare 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:50.440 by Natalie Zimon Davis. Did you read it back then? Yeah? Yeah, 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:52.199 it was assigned as part of the class. It was 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.400 a great, great book. But did you read it? Yes? Okay, 0:00:55.720 --> 0:01:01.200 I was very eager, um, hot sexy undergrad history major. Well, 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:02.760 I mean that's why I majored in English because I 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.759 like to read. So anytime I assigned a reading assignment, 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:07.920 I was like, great, I can do that. Yeah. That 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:10.520 was one reason I chose histories because I really enjoyed 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:12.720 reading history stuff. So I was like, well, if that's 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:14.800 what we're gonna be sitting around doing, let's do it. 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:17.040 I don't know what we'll do with it after we're 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:19.840 with that degree. But we'll we'll roll the dice and 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:25.400 find out you envisioned the future career. Were two lunkheads 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:29.640 with no previous broadcast experience could become Dare I say 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:34.560 noteworthy by talking into a can? Yeah? Yeah, I was 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.680 gambling on lucking out to an astounding degree. Yeah, me too. 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.360 Sort of that weird. Yeah, it's funny how life work. Well, 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:44.760 it all worked out, and here we are, all these 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:48.520 years later to tell the story h of Martin. Is 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:52.640 it pronounced a gear? I've always pronounced it Martin Gear, 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:56.560 But we're talking. We're gonna go to sixteenth century France, 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:00.760 so it's probably Martin Gear. Okay, but we're not going 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:05.120 to say it like but not Richard Gere. No, which 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:10.160 is ironic because Richard Gere was the lead in the 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:14.560 movie summers Be which was see you Look at your 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.720 improp skills? Yes, ending me uh. It was a sort 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.919 of a not necessarily a remake, but a an adaptation 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:27.160 on the story of Martin Gearre and the movie that 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:31.480 starred Gerard de Pardu from the early nineteen eighties. Yes, 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:37.200 and yeah, I think that's it. No, but exactly end. Yeah, 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:40.520 had you heard this story before the story of Martin Gere, Yeah, 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:42.520 a little bit. I certainly didn't know it like I 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:45.360 know it now, but I did see the movie Summers 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:46.880 Be back then I knew it was kind of based 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.440 on that. And uh, you know, there have been other 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:54.760 versions of stories like this, um, I mean not, the 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:59.200 least of which is a story told in animation form 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:02.320 about a man young man off to war named armontans Arian. 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:07.360 Oh yeah, yeah, I didn't even put tune two together. Sure, 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:11.880 when Principal Skinner took someone's identity during the war, and uh, 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:14.640 it's sort of a common story, but this is I 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:18.280 think the o g Yeah, thanks for that too, because 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:22.040 we would have gotten myriad emails telling us what utter 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:25.440 failures we are in life for missing that Simpson's reference. Yeah, 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.440 that was his name, right, armontans Arian. Totally. Man. Can 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:30.560 you imagine how fun the writer's room was that day 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:32.680 trying to come up with what his real name would be. 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:35.360 You know, I have said it before, I'll say it 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:39.560 again that that's Matt Graening's least favorite Simpsons episode was 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.920 at the time years ago. Yeah, Red that one. I 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:45.840 don't know why. Al Right, I love it too. It's good. 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:48.880 So we're talking about a man named Martin Garret who 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:52.000 was like born a peasant in sixteenth century France in 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.960 the Long Doc region, in this like little area just 0:03:56.120 --> 0:04:00.320 above Spain, just below to loose, if that makes sense 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:05.200 for you. And like, typically, Chuck, when people live and 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:09.520 die in areas like this, unless they do something spectacularly 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:14.080 interesting or noteworthy or important, they just kind of get 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:18.000 lost to history. Sure, and this guy, Martin Garrett, actually 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:24.440 didn't do anything spectacularly interesting or important or noteworthy. Um, 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.760 and yet we're still talking about him, like four hundred 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:33.159 and fifty issue years more than that later because his life. 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:36.240 Something happened to his life that was so interesting that 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.839 it's worth doing an entire podcast episode about all these 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:44.040 years later. Uh greed. Uh. He was born in Spain 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:48.960 to a Basque family, and pretty quickly as a toddler 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:52.480 was brought over to France to how would you pronounce 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.920 such art a got or arta jatte or is it got? 0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:00.240 I think got? Yeah, because cake is ghetto and it 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.960 begins with G. Look at you, all right, So arty 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:07.160 got and his family got there and they got to 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.839 work pretty quickly, um, setting themselves up in different trades 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:16.560 like farming eventually tilemaking and merchant ng and did. Okay, 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:18.640 like they didn't have any kind of money, but they 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.800 worked hard and sort of rose through that um lower 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:26.039 tiered status to the point where they could marry off 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:30.640 young Martin to another family, the jar Rolls family, who 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:34.280 you know, I think Dave Rouse, our our buddy who 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:36.839 put who put this together for us. He said that 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:39.480 they were well off, but I think they were well 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:43.200 off for their lower class though, right, yeah, they were 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:45.320 up and coming, he puts in. I think like they 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:50.240 were peasant farmers figuring out how to enter the merchant class, 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:52.400 which at the time was the very beginning of the 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:55.400 middle class. Okay, all right, well that makes sense then. Yeah, 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:57.640 so they were working their way up into the middle class. 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.640 So um, it was it was a like kind of 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:02.760 a coup. I take it for the gay family to 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:07.320 marry off Martin to Bertrand drawls um because her family 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:09.560 was a little better off. But yeah, they were really young. 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:13.960 Apparently later on Bertrand recalled that they were married at 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:18.560 age like nine or ten. Apparently that doesn't add up, 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.920 and that was probably more like thirteen or fourteen, So 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.440 you know, that's fine. Right. Uh, still very young. But 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.840 this is the sixteenth century after all. Uh. So they 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.520 got married, and you know when you get married back then, 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:35.640 you want to start having babies pretty quickly. And they 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.440 had a hard time having babies because for the first 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:43.120 eight years of their marriage they did not consummate their marriage. Uh. 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.479 And no one knows exactly why. There were rumors maybe 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:49.920 that Martin wasn't or Martine just wasn't into it. Um. 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:53.600 They were thirteen after all, so maybe you know, they 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.240 were normal children who kind of thought that wasn't the 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:58.279 thing to do yet I don't know, or he was like, 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.719 how do I work this? He just sounded like David 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:06.960 Byrne and once in a lifetime. Uh. Some people blamed 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:10.520 it on a witch's curse. Uh. They eventually consulted with 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.880 a wise woman who said it go to these series 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:17.640 of masses at church because mass is always guaranteed to 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:21.480 make you randy. Uh. And he eat a special cake 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.160 that would sort of get him going downstairs and apparently 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.920 it worked. Crazy as they had a baby. They had 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:32.640 a little son, like right afterward it was a kick 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.360 made of fireplace ashes I saw. But you know, they're 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:37.960 in the early twenties at this point, by the way, Yeah, 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.320 like the appropriate h for that kind of thing. Right. 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.200 It makes you wonder though, like was it self you know, 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.440 self imposed and like he was able to to feel 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:49.120 like this curse or whatever was lifted off of him 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:52.920 from eating that cake. But regardless, it happened like almost 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:56.480 immediately Bertrand got pregnant and they had a son named Senxi, 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:01.440 who was the same name of Martin's father. So um, 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:04.760 Martin said, Hey, this is really amazing. I've really turned 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.520 a new corner in life. I'm really interested to see 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.240 what life brings me now and just got back to 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.880 work with now with a son and wife. Right. Yeah, 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.160 But here's the thing, and I think there's really no 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:20.800 other way to describe Martin. Uh, everything I read, basically 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.840 it sounds like he was a real a hole. Yes, 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:25.960 that was the impression I had to He was not 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.960 a nice guy. He was not a nice husband. I 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:33.360 didn't see anything necessarily about like overt abuse. But he 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.960 just seemed like a real jerk, uh, sort of to 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:40.920 his family and around town, and he was kind of 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.199 looking to get out of town. And his father accused 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:48.200 him of stealing grain from the family stores. And then 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:50.880 selling it for a profit, which was not cool. Even 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.719 if it's your own family, it's probably more uncool that 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:58.240 it's your own family, and so never trust family that's 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:01.400 on the shirt. But instead saying like, wait a minute, 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:03.720 I want to defend myself, he just took off, and 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:06.920 he's like, sorry, wife and young son, but I don't 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:08.480 really like you guys that much anyway, so I'm out 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.160 of here. I see him as like an early twenties 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:15.160 gen xers, like whatever, man, I can't deal with this 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.480 at all. I'm out of here. And you get the 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:21.360 impression that he was just looking for a reason to leave, 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.440 and he did. He got it. He didn't defend himself, 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:29.520 which I mean in sixteenth century France or Basque culture, um, 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:31.480 that is something you would want to do if your 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:33.760 honor was being impugned. That was one of the few 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:37.120 currencies you had, so you would want to defend yourself. 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:38.760 So I think it says a lot about somebody at 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.720 that time who didn't even bother defending himself. He's just left, 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:48.400 and he left his wife and child um without providing 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:50.400 for them in any way. Like sure they had like 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:54.720 his his you know, inheritance, his money, um his share 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:58.600 of whatever the family owned, but he didn't like set 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:00.840 them up in any way. Before he left, he just 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:05.040 put down his plowshare, put down his tile making tongs, 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:10.480 and just laughed. That's right. He ended up in Spain. 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:14.559 He went back to Spain, Uh settled in b U 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:19.080 r g o s Burghos and became a servant for 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.040 a noble family. And they noticed, like, hey, dude, you're 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:24.440 pretty good fencer. You're good with a sword. You should 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:27.320 get you armied up. So he joined the Spanish army, 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:29.640 who was at war with France at the time, and 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:32.480 he fought for five years before and this is a 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:34.800 very key detail I think before we go into our 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.640 first break, that he was hitting the leg with a 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:42.640 bullet and had his leg amputated. Yes, so we'll take 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:44.880 a break. Hang on to that, put a pin in it, 0:10:45.120 --> 0:11:13.400 and we'll be right back. So let's zero in on 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.960 Bertrand for the while, shall we the wife if you 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:24.600 don't remember Bertrand, Yes, Bertrando Rolls, who became married to 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:29.000 Martin Garrett, maybe aged nine to fourteen, depending on who 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:32.760 you ask. Seemed like a savvy young woman. Yes, now 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:35.240 this is new. We gotta say this so, like Natalie 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:39.120 Zimon Davis, Um, you mentioned that film The Return of 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.760 Martin Gere, Sorry, Gerard Depardiu, that Summers b was partly 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:47.480 based on right correct. She was the um consultant on 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:50.920 that historical consultant film, and she was so put off 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.640 by the retelling of this story that she published her 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:58.760 book two years afterward. Part of part of that book, 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.400 part of her big contra abution. She made tons of 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:05.080 contributions to the to the historical record, turned up a 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:09.880 lot of great documents and everything, but subjectively, her big 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:14.400 contribution was completely altering the way people saw Bertrand up 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:18.800 to this point she was a loyal, chast devoted wife 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.360 who would end up being duped, you could say, as 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:25.960 we'll see very soon. And under Natalie Simon davis is 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:29.720 reading of her, um, she was a very shrewd woman 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.000 who figured out how to navigate within the confines of 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:37.959 a male dominated middle age French society. Yeah. And one 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:39.640 of the first things that we can bring up to 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:41.760 sort of support this and I kind of like this 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.960 narrative a lot. By the way, um is the fact 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.880 that she got married when she was let's say, um, 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.800 just meet there in the middle and uh, you know, 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:56.360 he had Martine had problems, you know, uh, having sex 0:12:56.400 --> 0:13:00.559 for eight years, and so she was, Um, it's acculated 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.680 from from Davis at least that she was kind of like, Hey, 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:05.440 this isn't so bad. I don't want to be doing 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:08.160 that anyway, especially with this kid who was a jerk, 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:10.560 and I don't want to have a kid. I'm thirteen 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:13.480 years old. So by the time, you know, she's got 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:16.960 four sisters, I really love them. Uh, he's you know, 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.719 his family seems to be doing okay. My family is 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:21.680 doing okay. At the time, that was a big deal. 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:24.280 And so the fact that she had to wait until 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:28.559 she was in her early twenties to finally uh to 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:32.640 you know, I expect to lose her virginity to Martin 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:37.959 and then have this kid wasn't so bad after all. Yeah, 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:40.680 because she could have asked for the marriage to be 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:45.040 annulled after three years passed without it being consummated by 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:48.880 under French law at the time, I think French Catholic law. Um, 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.720 and she didn't. She's just she's like so yeah, that 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:57.040 definitely substantiates um. Zimon Davis has claimed that like she 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.360 was just kind of rolling with it. She she was like, okay, 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:01.840 I'm I'm kind the happy with this, and she didn't 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:03.920 try and get married when he left either. There were 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:07.400 a lot of strict laws about remarrying, like if the 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.600 husband disappears or something, you had to have proof of 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:14.160 death with witnesses and all that stuff. And she was 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:18.520 basically like, hey, I'm kind of a widow here. His 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:22.640 uncle Pierre is married to my mom. Now they're taking 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:24.360 really good care of me, got a lot of help 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:28.800 with my baby, So I'm pretty cool to just chill here. Yeah. 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:33.000 So in this in this reading, she's saying, Natalie Ziemond 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:36.040 Davis is saying like she didn't have a choice. Like again, 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:41.760 under French Catholic law at the time, like it says, 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.480 not even when a husband has been absent twenty years 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:47.480 or more, can a wife remarry unless she has proof 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:49.800 of his death. And it's got to be like like 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.800 irrefutable proof that this person has died, their husbands died. 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:57.360 She didn't have the irrefutable proof, but she didn't. Also, 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.680 she didn't she didn't like go like take love hers. 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.840 She didn't ask to have an exception made for her, 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:07.760 and so it painted her her her image among the 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.040 townsfolk and among her family that she was a chase, 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.840 devoted wife who was just gonna wait for her lousy 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:15.640 husband for as long as it took, and then also 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.920 took on the converse side of that. That just goes 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:24.520 to show you just how fully and selfishly um Martin 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:28.480 abandoned her, knowing full well that she couldn't remarry because 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.760 she wouldn't have any proof of his death. So he 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:33.440 left her in limbo. Like even more, it wasn't even 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:35.800 like I'm leaving. Good luck with your life. You do 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:38.160 what you want with it. It was I'm leaving. You 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:40.160 have to stick around and wait until I decided to 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.760 come back, if ever, that's right. Uh. So things are 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:47.040 going along like this. She's living her life again, has 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:50.000 plenty of help with her baby, and then one day 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:55.280 in town at a hostel, a man wanders in it says, Hi, 0:15:55.520 --> 0:16:00.880 I'm Martine Garre uh and I'm back. Everybody like, check 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:04.120 it out. It's been a while. The innkeeper says, you know, 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:07.160 oh my god, your wife, Bertrand and your son. It's 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:10.800 so exciting to be reunited and heart He breaks down crying, 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:16.160 and everyone of course in town comes running up and uh, 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:20.080 to see who this person is, including his his wife, 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:26.520 and they all went, huh, you look a little different Martin. 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:31.280 I think that's how they initially approached it. Well, because 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.480 he did. Apparently he had gotten shorter, heavier, his nose 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:41.120 had changed. Um, wasn't his Drupyuh? Let's read that. There's 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:45.280 a description from later court records that would happen of 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:49.600 um what Martin Gare supposedly looked like? Can I read 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:55.440 this please? Martin Garre was taller and darker than this 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:57.400 man who showed up. He was a man thin and 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.400 body and legs a little bent, carrying his head between 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:04.399 his shoulders, the chin cleft like hue lewis a little 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:08.520 thrust forward, whose lip lower lip drooped a little, having 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:11.879 small teeth, a large and flattened nose and ulcer on 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.480 his face, and a scar on his right eyebrow. This 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.679 person was short, thick set, strong of body, having a 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:21.560 heavy leg, does not have a flat nose, nor is bent, 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:25.960 nor has any of the said scars. So an entirely 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:29.440 different looking person showed up and it's like, hey, everybody 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:33.600 remember me Martin Gare right? Uh? And it's important to 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:36.720 note here that no one in town knew that Martin 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.200 had lost his leg in the war. Yeah, so that 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:42.520 was obviously would have been the biggest red flag. But 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:44.560 this guy comes back and he doesn't look like him, 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:47.959 but he knows all the stories. He's saying, like, hey, 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:51.199 remember when we did this, and he would hang out 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.760 with the townspeople and he'd say, I remember that time 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:56.480 we did that, and this this great time we had 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.679 over here doing this, and everyone's just like, oh my gosh, 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:03.480 Like he knows all the stories. It doesn't look like him, 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:05.320 but you know what, this guy's kind of fun and 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.320 awesome and nice. Yeah, and I don't know what happened 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:10.720 to him in the war, but like we'll take him. Yes. 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:15.440 So eight years had passed and he apparently physically changed drastically, 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:19.800 but also most notably, his personality had changed distinctly for 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:23.120 the better. He was a charmer now, and like you said, 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:27.520 he remembered all these stories. So everybody said, let's uh, 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:30.720 let's see where this goes. Basically, yeah, and there's another 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.679 key move here we need to point out, um right away. 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:36.080 He didn't just go back to the family farm and 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:38.639 to the family house with everyone. He said, you know 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:41.640 what I have the pox. I'm not feeling so great, 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:43.040 so let me stay here at the hostel for a 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.000 little bit and recover, which turned out to be a 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:49.439 very sort of savvy key move. Yes, one of the 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:51.600 other two. One of the other things that he did 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:56.280 to that definitely convinced bertrand Um and others who were 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.440 who were there. He said, by the way, I'm gonna 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:02.280 stay here and recover until I'm done with this pox. Um, 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.480 but can you go fetch my white stockings, my white 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:09.360 hose from this particular drawer, in this particular chest where 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:12.879 I left them eight years ago? And she went back 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:15.320 and went to that particular chest in drawer and found 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.439 his white sox were there, just as she remembered him 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.520 leaving them there eight years ago. So like that, and 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:22.840 a bunch of other stuff that he seemed to remember 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:26.840 that only Martin would know. Um really convinced everybody like, no, 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:29.240 this is Martin. He's a little different, but we like 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:32.000 him even more now and we're going to get along 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:35.560 with him just fine. Right. And bertrand also was like, 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:38.480 and the other thing is when you left, you were 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:41.680 not very interested in sex from me, and you seem 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:44.600 to be really into that now. And so I'll take 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.320 that as well. Uh, And in fact, I will give 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:49.840 birth to two daughters in return. Sadly, only one of 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.879 them survived infancy. And her name was is it Bernard 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.679 or bernarda Bernard? Okay, I didn't know that could be 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.360 a little girl's name, but I think we you add 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:02.760 an e on the end it girls it up? Okay, 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:06.800 but you don't. You don't pronounce you. No, no, it's all. 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:11.240 It's all just for looks, okay, all right. So to 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.360 catch up, he's back in town. Everyone likes the new 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:18.920 and improved Martine gear Uh. He has another daughter, and 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:22.639 he's having sex with his wife and everything's going great 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:27.480 until who becomes his main foil gets involved, and that 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:31.320 would be his uncle Pierre. And remember so Pire gare 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:35.280 he's a he's another main character in this He by 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:40.359 this time, after Martin left, married Bartron's mother, so now 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:44.760 he's Bartron's uncle in law and father in law or stepfather, 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:50.240 uncle in law and stepfather, that's right. And at first 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:55.240 he welcomed this new improved Martin back with open arms. 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:57.920 He was credulous at first, and then he won him 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:01.360 over with some memories. The new Martin did and um, 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:04.520 and so Pierre said, okay, let's go with it, and 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.199 everybody was kind of going along and getting along. And 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:10.679 then I guess one day Martin said, um, hey, by 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.639 the way, Pierre, remember my inheritance, my part of the 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:16.400 land and my part of the wealth that I left 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.760 behind that you've been managing. Well, I know you made 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:21.879 a bunch of money off of it. I feel like 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:24.720 that's my money. So can I have my money, Pierre? 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:28.680 Can I please? And Pierre didn't like that idea at all. 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:31.800 And it's not clear whether he just didn't like that 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:34.199 idea or whether he didn't like that idea because he 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:36.360 didn't think this was Martin after all, and this guy 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:39.879 was overstepping his bounds. I don't know. But one of 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:43.320 the things that he did was assemble his son's to 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:46.560 try to beat Martin to death on the road. And 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:48.760 had it not been for Bear Trand throwing herself on 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:52.000 top of Martin Martin's body, Um, they probably would have 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:56.720 succeeded in in murdering him. Yeah, I mean, he it's interesting, 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:00.160 like I fill in a little bit of the narrative blanks, 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:03.760 is you know someone who's into movies and literature and stuff. 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:07.280 It seems to me like Pierre was kind of like, hey, 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:09.320 everyone seems to like this guy, so I'm not going 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:11.719 to be the one to stand in the way. Uh. 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:17.720 He didn't want to rocks the boat until this money 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:21.080 thing came up, and that's Martin actually took him to court, 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:23.600 and that's when things really changed. And that's when Pierre 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:26.879 started talking to anyone who would listen and saying, you 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:30.360 know what, he's basque and he doesn't understand these basque phrases. 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:34.040 This dude was a great fencer. He's this guy's no fencer. 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:36.160 He's not even into it at all. He doesn't look 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:39.680 anything like his son. And I think this guy is 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:44.919 a fraud. And it's interesting that the town like it 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:46.640 seems to be. And we'll get to the court case, 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:49.439 but it seemed to be almost divided whether or not 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:52.119 people said, no, we think it's him and it's all good, 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:55.640 and people have said no, I think he is a fraud. Uh. 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:57.760 And it just goes to show sort of the power 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:04.080 of those stories's because at the time, in sixteenth century France, 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:07.400 how else would you explain something like, you know, hey, 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:09.640 remember that time we went and pushed over that cow 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:12.119 and I and I did a dance on him on 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:15.720 his belly, like you know, that's a powerful thing back 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:18.920 then when you don't have photographs and any other kind 0:23:18.920 --> 0:23:22.000 of shared recollection that you can easily point to. So 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:24.879 you know, he fooled a lot of people. Yeah, he 0:23:24.960 --> 0:23:26.919 definitely did. I wonder how much he was playing on 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:30.520 people's propensity to not want to admit a mistake or 0:23:30.560 --> 0:23:32.880 that they were wrong. That plays into it. I'm sure 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:36.000 it's got too. But like you said, the town was divided, 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:39.760 and it was divided between Pierre and then this new Martin, 0:23:40.280 --> 0:23:43.679