LITMIR.BIZ

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have loved this boy,” he said at last, “for he has a way with him, a way of stealing the heart, but I have feared for him ever since he grew old enough to talk. He has had no respect for the laws, gentlemen. It breaks my heart to say that he has even declared there is no God. He has revered his parents not at all. With no faith, no respect for family, nor for the law of the kingdom, what could one hope for, gentlemen? He has a good heart, that is all. But what is a good heart when he can so disgrace an honorable family?”

      The two brothers of Arnaud du Tilh were then called and testified that the prisoner “resembled” their brother. Further than that they would not commit themselves.

      After this came a long succession of witnesses for the defense, forty–five people all of blameless reputation and well-qualified to know what they were talking about. Martin’s four sisters testified that the accused was their brother, as did also two brothers-in-law. Many people who had been guests at the wedding of Bertrande and Martin testified that the accused was certainly Martin Guerre. The curé of Artigues testified in favor of his friend.

      Last witness of all came the old housekeeper who had brought to the bridal couple the little midnight repast, or réveillon. She had a story to tell after she had identified the prisoner as her young master. She stood before the judges with her hands clasped firmly at her belt, her brown eyes, good, honest, kind, fixed steadily upon the revered faces, and cleared her throat. Shortly after the return of Monsieur, she testified, she had heard Madame remark to Monsieur that she had kept certain chests unopened since his departure, so long ago. Upon hearing this, Monsieur had described certain white culottes wrapped in a piece of taffeta and requested that they be fetched him. Whereupon Madame had given to the housekeeper the key to the chest and requested her to fetch the pantalons, and the housekeeper had done so, finding them wrapped exactly as Monsieur had described. She made her recital bravely, greatly impressed herself at the gravity with which the judges heard it, and then, trembling with triumph and embarrassment, crept back to her place.

      It was now late in the afternoon. The day’s heat seemed to have accumulated in the crowded room along with the testimony of the witnesses, and the place was stifling. The light which entered through the high windows struck almost levelly upon the wall opposite, above the heads of the judges. The scribe laid down his pen, and the judges leaned forward to confer with each other. The examination was over, and it remained only to interpret the information. Those who had most to lose or gain by the decision had been dismissed to an inner room, but the courtroom was still packed.

      It was neither reasonable nor just, the court argued first of all, to permit the bad reputation of the rogue Arnaud du Tilh to affect the fate of the prisoner if he was indeed Martin Guerre. Secondly, the judges argued, if it were so easy for the wife of Martin Guerre to mistake Arnaud for her husband, even if only for a short time, it would have been just as easy for the soldier from Rochefort to mistake Arnaud for Martin; there was no way of proving that the man who lost a leg at the battle of St. Laurent before St. Quentin was Martin Guerre rather than Arnaud du Tilh. Thirdly, they argued, it was beyond human ingenuity for any man to impersonate so well, to know so many intimate details of the life of another man, and to exhibit so close a physical resemblance to another man as the accused. Last of all, the court considered that the confusion of Bertrande at the sight of the accused, together with the report of her outcry in the court of Rieux when the sentence of death had been pronounced against the prisoner, testified badly for her case. Therefore the judges decided, and doubtless to their own relief, for they had been sadly puzzled, that the prisoner must be in truth none other than Martin Guerre, as he himself affirmed. The populace seemed pleased with the decision, and the clerk of the court prepared to put the verdict down in writing.

      As this individual drew up his inkpot and sharpened his pen, and as the judges of Toulouse relaxed in their chairs and mopped their foreheads, conversing among themselves, and not, shrewdly, overlooking the smiles which overspread the courtroom, a commotion was heard at the outer door in which could be distinguished a great deal of stamping and of beating on the stone floor with the butt of a halberd, and a vigorous exposition of an undeterminable nature in an unmistakably Gascon voice. The court sent to inquire; the messenger returned with news of some importance, for, as the audience twisted about and necks were craned in curiosity, a way was cleared through the crowd so that a Gascon soldier in travel-stained garments was permitted to walk directly up to the seats of the justices.

      The halberds of the attendants sounded on the floor as the men halted, one on each side of the soldier; but there also sounded, during the entrance of the group, what resembled the butt of a third halberd, but which was, remarkably enough, a wooden leg worn by the Gascon soldier.

      The judges surveyed the newcomer. He was sunburned, and bearded, but through the beard the shape of the high, cleft chin was easily discernible. His left eyebrow was scarred; and there was a trace of an old ulcer on one cheek. He returned the scrutiny of the judges of Toulouse with eyes which were arrogant, gray and cold.

      “Body of God,” said one of the justices, sinking back in his seat in something not unlike despair, “this is either Martin Guerre or the devil,” and he gave an order to the attendants to put the newcomer under arrest.

      After brief deliberation among the judges, the order was also given to remove the accused man to an adjoining chamber and to close the doors against further entrance. This done, the weary justices proceeded to examine the soldier with the wooden leg.

      “I am without any doubt Martin Guerre,” said the soldier. “I lost my leg before St. Quentin in the year fifty-seven. I am the father of Sanxi Guerre, and of no other children.”

      To all the questions which had previously been put to the accused man, the soldier was able to reply with reasonable accuracy. Once or twice his answers were at variance with those of Bertrande to the same question, now and again he hesitated before answering, but in the main he showed a knowledge of the affairs of Martin Guerre which might well have justified his claim to be that man. He also manifested an unusual knowledge of the career of Arnaud du Tilh. This was interesting, for the accused man had known nothing at all of the affairs of du Tilh; he had heard rumors of his existence—that was all. But the newcomer seemed no better informed concerning the affairs of Martin Guerre than the accused had seemed. At the end of an hour the judges were no nearer a decision than they had been early that morning.

      There remained a final test, however. The prisoner was summoned and made to stand face to face with the one-legged soldier. Then, one by one, the relatives of the two men were called, and asked to make their choice.

      Carbon Bareau, the first of the relatives of du Tilh to be called, stared for a moment with great surprise at the soldier, then, turning without any hesitation at all, laid his hand on the shoulder of the prisoner and said:

      “Gentlemen, this is my nephew.”

      The brothers of Arnaud, confronted by the two men so extraordinarily similar, hesitated, and then, turning from the prisoner as from the soldier, besought the court to excuse them from bearing witness. The court, with a humanity rare in that century, dismissed them. They had in their request testified more than they realized.

      When the youngest sister of Martin Guerre was admitted, she lifted her hands to her forehead in a gesture full of amazement and distress, and then, without hesitation, flung herself upon the breast of the soldier with the wooden leg and burst into tears. One by one the other relatives of Martin Guerre, being admitted, stared with surprise from the soldier to the prisoner and back again, and confessed with many apologies and protestations of sorrow at their mistake that the soldier with one leg was undeniably Martin Guerre, who had been so long away.

      It was remarkable that while Martin Guerre received this succession of tearful recognitions with a consistent, stern reserve, Arnaud du Tilh the prisoner, although growing perceptibly graver, lost none of his calm air of assurance and none of his dignity.

      Meanwhile the judges, seeing which way the case had turned, sent to their hotel for Pierre Guerre and Bertrande de Rols. The day had been long. For these two lonely defenders of a cause it had seemed longer than a century. When the messenger came for them, they left the confinement of the inn and followed him through the still-confining streets with the intense fatalism

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