ABSTRACT
In the village of Artigat in the Pyrenees of southwestern France, over 400 years ago (in the sixteenth century), a wedding had recently taken place. The couple were mere children — the groom probably about 14 years old, the bride even younger — and the union had been arranged between their fathers. Both men saw the marriage as serving their interests well. Before long, the villagers felt that the couple ought to be blessed with progeny; but for eight years they remained childless, until a son, Sanxi, was born, following intervention by an enchantress to enable conception. Subsequently the young husband, Martin Guerre found himself at the centre of a family dispute, accused of stealing grain from his own father. This offence was taken seriously in the Guerre family, which originated from the Basque town of Hendaye. After that Martin Guerre vanished without trace; widespread searches yielded no result. For many years after Guerre's disappearance, his young wife Bertrande de Rols lived as a protégée of her relatives, alone yet unable to remarry, with no place of her own in society.
