Herr, Martin

Martin Daguerre ( Basque. Martin Daguerre ) was born in the Basque city ​​of Hendaye in 1524. After 3 years, his family moved to the village of Artiga in Languedoc , where he shortened his name. Thanks to agriculture, the family soon became prosperous. Father married the 14-year-old Marten to an even younger Bertrand de Rolls from another wealthy family. For a long time, the marriage was childless, only after 8 years the spouses had a son. In 1548, his father accused Martin of stealing grain, and he fled from the village. According to the laws of that time, Bertrand could not divorce her missing husband until he was declared dead. During the following years, the fathers of Marten and Bertrand died, as well as the wife of Uncle Marten, Pierre Guerra; Marten's father, before his death, had mercy on his son and returned the inheritance rights. Pierre married mother Bertrand and concentrated in his hands the property of both wealthy families.

In 1556, a man appeared in a neighboring village, very similar to Martin Guerra. Arnaud du Til from the village of Sage , who had a bad reputation due to his dissolute life, decided to take advantage of the external resemblance and called himself Martin Herr. The Herr family came to him - his wife, uncle and four sisters - who hardly recognized their relative, mainly due to conversations where the imaginary Marten described family events of many years ago. He refused to return home, citing a sexually transmitted disease , which he did not want to infect his wife. Possessing a good memory, Arnault used the time before returning to Artig for inquiries about Guerra and preparing for a permanent life in the image of Martin. "Cured," du Til moved to Bertrand, with whom he lived for 3 years. She was not confident in the identity of the roommate, but, including due to the newly appeared intimate life, preferred to remain silent. He had two daughters, one of whom died in infancy. Talking about eight years of absence, "Martin" described the adventures in the French army and life in Spain.

Arno enthusiastically took up the family business, where he had a sharp conflict with Uncle Pierre over spending money in the absence of Martin. Pierre Guerre began to insist that Martin did not return to the family, but the impostor penetrated. Against Arno, there was a lack of knowledge of the Basque language and a foot size smaller than that of a real Martin. A soldier passing through the village said that he knew the real Marten, and he lost his leg in the war. In January 1560, Pierre managed to obtain a court order to arrest the man portraying his nephew. In court, the opinions of witnesses were divided: the sisters of Martin assured that they had a brother in front of them; Bertrand found it difficult to answer; introduced himself as Uncle Arnaud du Til claimed that before him was a nephew. As a result, the court found the defendant guilty of misappropriating the name and property of others, as well as seducing the wife of Martin Gerr. The punishments were fines, beheadings and quartering .

The sentenced filed an appeal with the Toulouse Parliament , where the case turned in his favor. Pierre Guerra was arrested for a false accusation. The impostor successfully interrogated twice about his past, and the court leaned in his favor. However, at one of the meetings a man appeared on a wooden leg, who called himself Martin Herr. The whole Gerrov family recognized him, although in the cross-examination, Arno more convincingly described events from the past. In 1548, the real Marten went to Burgos , where he became a lackey of the cardinal. Soon, the cardinal gave Guerra to the retinue of his brother, the commander of the Spanish army in the Italian War . At the Battle of Saint-Quentin, Martin was wounded by a bullet in the leg, which had to be amputated . Upon his return to Spain, he was assigned to a sinecure at the monastery. A few years later, Herr heard about the trial of Martin Herr, and decided to come to court. The du du Til family appeared there, admitting to the accused Arnault. On September 12, 1560, the court upheld the conviction of the trial court, replacing the execution by hanging and burning the corpse. After 4 days, the sentence was carried out in front of Herr’s house in Artigu. The daughter of Arno and Bertrand was declared the heiress of the property of his father. Martin Herr accused his wife of treason and aiding a fraudster, not believing in the probability of not recognizing her husband. Their further fate is unknown.

One of the leading French lawyers of his time, Jean de Cora , a victim of Bartholomew’s night, was a member of the court of appeal. He published several works, the most famous of which - Arrest Memorable du parlement de Tolose - appeared in the same 1560, much attention was paid to the case of Herr. Michel de Montaigne was present at the announcement of the verdict; the case of Martin Guerra was described in his Experiments.

Alexander Dumas, the father published the story in 1840, it became part of the collection “Famous Crimes”. He also used the heroes of the affair in The Two Diana . The story of Martin Guerre's double is greatly altered to fit the plot, with the exception of the scenes unfolding in his native village.

In the XX century, the case received extensive coverage in documentary and fiction, as well as in films. In 1941, the American writer Janet Lewis published the historical novel “The Martin Guerra's Wife”, where she tried to explore the personality of Bertrand and the motives of her actions. The same topic is revealed by the documentary work of the professor of history, Natalie Zemon Davis, “The Return of Martin Gerr,” where Bertrand appears as Arnaud’s accomplice, who agreed to cheat to improve his position in the eyes of his fellow countrymen, and eventually became attached to a roommate. Zemon Davis advised the creators of the French film of the same name , released in the same 1982. Gerard Depardieu played Arno, and Natalie Bai - Bertrand. Historian Robert Finley criticized Zemon Davis for introducing Martin's wife in a feminist light. In the book, she corresponds to the modern concept of an independent woman who decides to support the fraudster for the sake of her social status. Finley agrees with 16th-century historians who considered Bertrand a deceived woman.

The case of Martin Gerr became the basis for the film " Sommersby ", transferring the plot during the Civil War in the United States . Adaptation to the plot in France after the Second World War is also known, while the idea is left that the testimony of the colonel, whose Marten served as an orderly, becomes decisive in court.

In 1993, the musical “The House of Martin Guerra” was staged in Toronto , which received positive reviews and several awards. In 1996, the musical “Martin Gerr” was staged with great success in London . However, the reliability of the work has suffered significantly: Bartholomew’s night is included in the story. In 2016, the musical, dubbed "The History of Martin Herr," was first staged on the Russian stage by the Tver Musical Theater "Premier". The musical contains more than 20 copyright works.

• Jean de Coras. Arrest mémorable du Parlement de Tolose: contenant une histoire prodigieuse d'un supposé mari, advenüe de nostre temps: enrichie de cent et onze belles et doctes annotations. Lyon: Barthélémy Vincent, 1596. Lire ici .
• François Gayot de Pitaval. Causes célèbres et intéressantes, avec les jugements qui les ont décidées: Le faux Martin Guerre. 1735. Lire ici
• Alexandre Dumas et Narcisse Fournier. Crimes célèbres: Martin Guerre. Paris: Administration de librairie, 1840. Publié sur Lire ici .
• Natalie Zemon Davis. The Return of Martin Guerre . Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983. ISBN 0-674-76691-1

• Til a la Herr in the Top Secret newspaper