February 22, 2022 • 48 mins
Like most 16th-century French peasants, Martin Guerre’s life seemed likely to be lost to history. But a strange series of events took place that would so cement the legend surrounding him that we’re talking about him still today, 450 years later.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant and this is Stuff
you Should Know, featuring Yarry. That's right, interesting history a dish, Yes, man,
(00:25):
I remember hearing this story back as an undergrad. Okay,
a hot sexy undergrad boy. Were you um in learning
my history? Yeah? I can't remember what class. Must have
been a European history class, but this this book just
always stuck with me. The The Return of Martin Geare
(00:47):
by Natalie Zimon Davis. Did you read it back then? Yeah? Yeah,
it was assigned as part of the class. It was
a great, great book. But did you read it? Yes? Okay,
I was very eager, um, hot sexy undergrad history major. Well,
I mean that's why I majored in English because I
like to read. So anytime I assigned a reading assignment,
I was like, great, I can do that. Yeah. That
(01:08):
was one reason I chose histories because I really enjoyed
reading history stuff. So I was like, well, if that's
what we're gonna be sitting around doing, let's do it.
I don't know what we'll do with it after we're
with that degree. But we'll we'll roll the dice and
find out you envisioned the future career. Were two lunkheads
with no previous broadcast experience could become Dare I say
(01:30):
noteworthy by talking into a can? Yeah? Yeah, I was
gambling on lucking out to an astounding degree. Yeah, me too.
Sort of that weird. Yeah, it's funny how life work. Well,
it all worked out, and here we are, all these
years later to tell the story h of Martin. Is
it pronounced a gear? I've always pronounced it Martin Gear,
(01:53):
But we're talking. We're gonna go to sixteenth century France,
so it's probably Martin Gear. Okay, but we're not going
to say it like but not Richard Gere. No, which
is ironic because Richard Gere was the lead in the
movie summers Be which was see you Look at your
(02:14):
improp skills? Yes, ending me uh. It was a sort
of a not necessarily a remake, but a an adaptation
on the story of Martin Gearre and the movie that
starred Gerard de Pardu from the early nineteen eighties. Yes,
and yeah, I think that's it. No, but exactly end. Yeah,
(02:37):
had you heard this story before the story of Martin Gere, Yeah,
a little bit. I certainly didn't know it like I
know it now, but I did see the movie Summers
Be back then I knew it was kind of based
on that. And uh, you know, there have been other
versions of stories like this, um, I mean not, the
least of which is a story told in animation form
(02:59):
about a man young man off to war named armontans Arian.
Oh yeah, yeah, I didn't even put tune two together. Sure,
when Principal Skinner took someone's identity during the war, and uh,
it's sort of a common story, but this is I
think the o g Yeah, thanks for that too, because
we would have gotten myriad emails telling us what utter
(03:22):
failures we are in life for missing that Simpson's reference. Yeah,
that was his name, right, armontans Arian. Totally. Man. Can
you imagine how fun the writer's room was that day
trying to come up with what his real name would be.
You know, I have said it before, I'll say it
again that that's Matt Graening's least favorite Simpsons episode was
at the time years ago. Yeah, Red that one. I
(03:42):
don't know why. Al Right, I love it too. It's good.
So we're talking about a man named Martin Garret who
was like born a peasant in sixteenth century France in
the Long Doc region, in this like little area just
above Spain, just below to loose, if that makes sense
for you. And like, typically, Chuck, when people live and
(04:05):
die in areas like this, unless they do something spectacularly
interesting or noteworthy or important, they just kind of get
lost to history. Sure, and this guy, Martin Garrett, actually
didn't do anything spectacularly interesting or important or noteworthy. Um,
and yet we're still talking about him, like four hundred
(04:27):
and fifty issue years more than that later because his life.
Something happened to his life that was so interesting that
it's worth doing an entire podcast episode about all these
years later. Uh greed. Uh. He was born in Spain
to a Basque family, and pretty quickly as a toddler
(04:49):
was brought over to France to how would you pronounce
such art a got or arta jatte or is it got?
I think got? Yeah, because cake is ghetto and it
begins with G. Look at you, all right, So arty
got and his family got there and they got to
work pretty quickly, um, setting themselves up in different trades
(05:10):
like farming eventually tilemaking and merchant ng and did. Okay,
like they didn't have any kind of money, but they
worked hard and sort of rose through that um lower
tiered status to the point where they could marry off
young Martin to another family, the jar Rolls family, who
(05:31):
you know, I think Dave Rouse, our our buddy who
put who put this together for us. He said that
they were well off, but I think they were well
off for their lower class though, right, yeah, they were
up and coming, he puts in. I think like they
were peasant farmers figuring out how to enter the merchant class,
which at the time was the very beginning of the
(05:52):
middle class. Okay, all right, well that makes sense then. Yeah,
so they were working their way up into the middle class.
So um, it was it was a like kind of
a coup. I take it for the gay family to
marry off Martin to Bertrand drawls um because her family
was a little better off. But yeah, they were really young.
Apparently later on Bertrand recalled that they were married at
(06:13):
age like nine or ten. Apparently that doesn't add up,
and that was probably more like thirteen or fourteen, So
you know, that's fine. Right. Uh, still very young. But
this is the sixteenth century after all. Uh. So they
got married, and you know when you get married back then,
you want to start having babies pretty quickly. And they
(06:35):
had a hard time having babies because for the first
eight years of their marriage they did not consummate their marriage. Uh.
And no one knows exactly why. There were rumors maybe
that Martin wasn't or Martine just wasn't into it. Um.
They were thirteen after all, so maybe you know, they
were normal children who kind of thought that wasn't the
(06:56):
thing to do yet I don't know, or he was like,
how do I work this? He just sounded like David
Byrne and once in a lifetime. Uh. Some people blamed
it on a witch's curse. Uh. They eventually consulted with
a wise woman who said it go to these series
of masses at church because mass is always guaranteed to
(07:17):
make you randy. Uh. And he eat a special cake
that would sort of get him going downstairs and apparently
it worked. Crazy as they had a baby. They had
a little son, like right afterward it was a kick
made of fireplace ashes I saw. But you know, they're
in the early twenties at this point, by the way, Yeah,
(07:38):
like the appropriate h for that kind of thing. Right.
It makes you wonder though, like was it self you know,
self imposed and like he was able to to feel
like this curse or whatever was lifted off of him
from eating that cake. But regardless, it happened like almost
immediately Bertrand got pregnant and they had a son named Senxi,
who was the same name of Martin's father. So um,
(08:01):
Martin said, Hey, this is really amazing. I've really turned
a new corner in life. I'm really interested to see
what life brings me now and just got back to
work with now with a son and wife. Right. Yeah,
But here's the thing, and I think there's really no
other way to describe Martin. Uh, everything I read, basically
it sounds like he was a real a hole. Yes,
(08:24):
that was the impression I had to He was not
a nice guy. He was not a nice husband. I
didn't see anything necessarily about like overt abuse. But he
just seemed like a real jerk, uh, sort of to
his family and around town, and he was kind of
looking to get out of town. And his father accused
(08:44):
him of stealing grain from the family stores. And then
selling it for a profit, which was not cool. Even
if it's your own family, it's probably more uncool that
it's your own family, and so never trust family that's
on the shirt. But instead saying like, wait a minute,
I want to defend myself, he just took off, and
he's like, sorry, wife and young son, but I don't
(09:06):
really like you guys that much anyway, so I'm out
of here. I see him as like an early twenties
gen xers, like whatever, man, I can't deal with this
at all. I'm out of here. And you get the
impression that he was just looking for a reason to leave,
and he did. He got it. He didn't defend himself,
which I mean in sixteenth century France or Basque culture, um,
(09:29):
that is something you would want to do if your
honor was being impugned. That was one of the few
currencies you had, so you would want to defend yourself.
So I think it says a lot about somebody at
that time who didn't even bother defending himself. He's just left,
and he left his wife and child um without providing
for them in any way. Like sure they had like
(09:50):
his his you know, inheritance, his money, um his share
of whatever the family owned, but he didn't like set
them up in any way. Before he left, he just
put down his plowshare, put down his tile making tongs,
and just laughed. That's right. He ended up in Spain.
(10:10):
He went back to Spain, Uh settled in b U
r g o s Burghos and became a servant for
a noble family. And they noticed, like, hey, dude, you're
pretty good fencer. You're good with a sword. You should
get you armied up. So he joined the Spanish army,
who was at war with France at the time, and
he fought for five years before and this is a
(10:32):
very key detail I think before we go into our
first break, that he was hitting the leg with a
bullet and had his leg amputated. Yes, so we'll take
a break. Hang on to that, put a pin in it,
and we'll be right back. So let's zero in on
(11:13):
Bertrand for the while, shall we the wife if you
don't remember Bertrand, Yes, Bertrando Rolls, who became married to
Martin Garrett, maybe aged nine to fourteen, depending on who
you ask. Seemed like a savvy young woman. Yes, now
this is new. We gotta say this so, like Natalie
(11:35):
Zimon Davis, Um, you mentioned that film The Return of
Martin Gere, Sorry, Gerard Depardiu, that Summers b was partly
based on right correct. She was the um consultant on
that historical consultant film, and she was so put off
by the retelling of this story that she published her
book two years afterward. Part of part of that book,
(11:58):
part of her big contra abution. She made tons of
contributions to the to the historical record, turned up a
lot of great documents and everything, but subjectively, her big
contribution was completely altering the way people saw Bertrand up
to this point she was a loyal, chast devoted wife
(12:18):
who would end up being duped, you could say, as
we'll see very soon. And under Natalie Simon davis is
reading of her, um, she was a very shrewd woman
who figured out how to navigate within the confines of
a male dominated middle age French society. Yeah. And one
of the first things that we can bring up to
(12:39):
sort of support this and I kind of like this
narrative a lot. By the way, um is the fact
that she got married when she was let's say, um,
just meet there in the middle and uh, you know,
he had Martine had problems, you know, uh, having sex
for eight years, and so she was, Um, it's acculated
(13:00):
from from Davis at least that she was kind of like, Hey,
this isn't so bad. I don't want to be doing
that anyway, especially with this kid who was a jerk,
and I don't want to have a kid. I'm thirteen
years old. So by the time, you know, she's got
four sisters, I really love them. Uh, he's you know,
his family seems to be doing okay. My family is
doing okay. At the time, that was a big deal.
(13:22):
And so the fact that she had to wait until
she was in her early twenties to finally uh to
you know, I expect to lose her virginity to Martin
and then have this kid wasn't so bad after all. Yeah,
because she could have asked for the marriage to be
annulled after three years passed without it being consummated by
(13:45):
under French law at the time, I think French Catholic law. Um,
and she didn't. She's just she's like so yeah, that
definitely substantiates um. Zimon Davis has claimed that like she
was just kind of rolling with it. She she was like, okay,
I'm I'm kind the happy with this, and she didn't
try and get married when he left either. There were
a lot of strict laws about remarrying, like if the
(14:07):
husband disappears or something, you had to have proof of
death with witnesses and all that stuff. And she was
basically like, hey, I'm kind of a widow here. His
uncle Pierre is married to my mom. Now they're taking
really good care of me, got a lot of help
with my baby, So I'm pretty cool to just chill here. Yeah.
(14:28):
So in this in this reading, she's saying, Natalie Ziemond
Davis is saying like she didn't have a choice. Like again,
under French Catholic law at the time, like it says,
not even when a husband has been absent twenty years
or more, can a wife remarry unless she has proof
of his death. And it's got to be like like
(14:50):
irrefutable proof that this person has died, their husbands died.
She didn't have the irrefutable proof, but she didn't. Also,
she didn't she didn't like go like take love hers.
She didn't ask to have an exception made for her,
and so it painted her her her image among the
townsfolk and among her family that she was a chase,
devoted wife who was just gonna wait for her lousy
(15:12):
husband for as long as it took, and then also
took on the converse side of that. That just goes
to show you just how fully and selfishly um Martin
abandoned her, knowing full well that she couldn't remarry because
she wouldn't have any proof of his death. So he
left her in limbo. Like even more, it wasn't even
(15:33):
like I'm leaving. Good luck with your life. You do
what you want with it. It was I'm leaving. You
have to stick around and wait until I decided to
come back, if ever, that's right. Uh. So things are
going along like this. She's living her life again, has
plenty of help with her baby, and then one day
in town at a hostel, a man wanders in it says, Hi,
(15:55):
I'm Martine Garre uh and I'm back. Everybody like, check
it out. It's been a while. The innkeeper says, you know,
oh my god, your wife, Bertrand and your son. It's
so exciting to be reunited and heart He breaks down crying,
and everyone of course in town comes running up and uh,
(16:16):
to see who this person is, including his his wife,
and they all went, huh, you look a little different Martin.
I think that's how they initially approached it. Well, because
he did. Apparently he had gotten shorter, heavier, his nose
had changed. Um, wasn't his Drupyuh? Let's read that. There's
(16:41):
a description from later court records that would happen of
um what Martin Gare supposedly looked like? Can I read
this please? Martin Garre was taller and darker than this
man who showed up. He was a man thin and
body and legs a little bent, carrying his head between
his shoulders, the chin cleft like hue lewis a little
(17:04):
thrust forward, whose lip lower lip drooped a little, having
small teeth, a large and flattened nose and ulcer on
his face, and a scar on his right eyebrow. This
person was short, thick set, strong of body, having a
heavy leg, does not have a flat nose, nor is bent,
nor has any of the said scars. So an entirely
(17:26):
different looking person showed up and it's like, hey, everybody
remember me Martin Gare right? Uh? And it's important to
note here that no one in town knew that Martin
had lost his leg in the war. Yeah, so that
was obviously would have been the biggest red flag. But
this guy comes back and he doesn't look like him,
but he knows all the stories. He's saying, like, hey,
(17:47):
remember when we did this, and he would hang out
with the townspeople and he'd say, I remember that time
we did that, and this this great time we had
over here doing this, and everyone's just like, oh my gosh,
Like he knows all the stories. It doesn't look like him,
but you know what, this guy's kind of fun and
awesome and nice. Yeah, and I don't know what happened
(18:08):
to him in the war, but like we'll take him. Yes.
So eight years had passed and he apparently physically changed drastically,
but also most notably, his personality had changed distinctly for
the better. He was a charmer now, and like you said,
he remembered all these stories. So everybody said, let's uh,
let's see where this goes. Basically, yeah, and there's another
(18:30):
key move here we need to point out, um right away.
He didn't just go back to the family farm and
to the family house with everyone. He said, you know
what I have the pox. I'm not feeling so great,
so let me stay here at the hostel for a
little bit and recover, which turned out to be a
very sort of savvy key move. Yes, one of the
other two. One of the other things that he did
(18:51):
to that definitely convinced bertrand Um and others who were
who were there. He said, by the way, I'm gonna
stay here and recover until I'm done with this pox. Um,
but can you go fetch my white stockings, my white
hose from this particular drawer, in this particular chest where
I left them eight years ago? And she went back
(19:12):
and went to that particular chest in drawer and found
his white sox were there, just as she remembered him
leaving them there eight years ago. So like that, and
a bunch of other stuff that he seemed to remember
that only Martin would know. Um really convinced everybody like, no,
this is Martin. He's a little different, but we like
him even more now and we're going to get along
with him just fine. Right. And bertrand also was like,
(19:35):
and the other thing is when you left, you were
not very interested in sex from me, and you seem
to be really into that now. And so I'll take
that as well. Uh, And in fact, I will give
birth to two daughters in return. Sadly, only one of
them survived infancy. And her name was is it Bernard
or bernarda Bernard? Okay, I didn't know that could be
(19:57):
a little girl's name, but I think we you add
an e on the end it girls it up? Okay,
but you don't. You don't pronounce you. No, no, it's all.
It's all just for looks, okay, all right. So to
catch up, he's back in town. Everyone likes the new
and improved Martine gear Uh. He has another daughter, and
(20:19):
he's having sex with his wife and everything's going great
until who becomes his main foil gets involved, and that
would be his uncle Pierre. And remember so Pire gare
he's a he's another main character in this He by
this time, after Martin left, married Bartron's mother, so now
(20:40):
he's Bartron's uncle in law and father in law or stepfather,
uncle in law and stepfather, that's right. And at first
he welcomed this new improved Martin back with open arms.
He was credulous at first, and then he won him
over with some memories. The new Martin did and um,
(21:01):
and so Pierre said, okay, let's go with it, and
everybody was kind of going along and getting along. And
then I guess one day Martin said, um, hey, by
the way, Pierre, remember my inheritance, my part of the
land and my part of the wealth that I left
behind that you've been managing. Well, I know you made
a bunch of money off of it. I feel like
(21:21):
that's my money. So can I have my money, Pierre?
Can I please? And Pierre didn't like that idea at all.
And it's not clear whether he just didn't like that
idea or whether he didn't like that idea because he
didn't think this was Martin after all, and this guy
was overstepping his bounds. I don't know. But one of
the things that he did was assemble his son's to
(21:43):
try to beat Martin to death on the road. And
had it not been for Bear Trand throwing herself on
top of Martin Martin's body, Um, they probably would have
succeeded in in murdering him. Yeah, I mean, he it's interesting,
like I fill in a little bit of the narrative blanks,
is you know someone who's into movies and literature and stuff.
(22:04):
It seems to me like Pierre was kind of like, hey,
everyone seems to like this guy, so I'm not going
to be the one to stand in the way. Uh.
He didn't want to rocks the boat until this money
thing came up, and that's Martin actually took him to court,
and that's when things really changed. And that's when Pierre
started talking to anyone who would listen and saying, you
(22:26):
know what, he's basque and he doesn't understand these basque phrases.
This dude was a great fencer. He's this guy's no fencer.
He's not even into it at all. He doesn't look
anything like his son. And I think this guy is
a fraud. And it's interesting that the town like it
seems to be. And we'll get to the court case,
but it seemed to be almost divided whether or not
(22:49):
people said, no, we think it's him and it's all good,
and people have said no, I think he is a fraud. Uh.
And it just goes to show sort of the power
of those stories's because at the time, in sixteenth century France,
how else would you explain something like, you know, hey,
remember that time we went and pushed over that cow
(23:10):
and I and I did a dance on him on
his belly, like you know, that's a powerful thing back
then when you don't have photographs and any other kind
of shared recollection that you can easily point to. So
you know, he fooled a lot of people. Yeah, he
definitely did. I wonder how much he was playing on
people's propensity to not want to admit a mistake or
(23:30):
that they were wrong. That plays into it. I'm sure
it's got too. But like you said, the town was divided,
and it was divided between Pierre and then this new Martin,
and very crucially on the side of this new Martin
was Beartrand. She threw she cast her a lot with
him and said, no, this man is Martin Gere. I
will um anyone who is mad enough to say otherwise,
(23:53):
I will make him die, which is a weird way
to to create a death threat, but it was. It
was a death threat. And on the asked but um.
This was despite m Bertrand's mother, who was Pierre's wife,
coming to her and being like, look, you need to
get with Pierre here. He's he's on the side of right,
and um she still said no. So um. Pierre also
(24:16):
he had. There were there were people who backed him up,
like the the shoemaker. Right, yeah, there was a little
matter of the fact. And this is in somers Bey too,
that he came back from the war with a different
foot size. That's a big change. That's a very drastic change,
it is. And technically he did come back with a
different foot size, but in a radically different way. Well yeah,
(24:40):
because everything changed in fifteen fifty nine. He had been
back a few years at this point, and a Spanish
soldier wanders through town and heard about this story of
Martin Gierre and said, hey, wait a minute, I knew
that guy during the war and he's only got one leg.
And it's like that's when it's like Mike Brady throwing
the the briefcase in the courtroom. Just a hush falls
(25:05):
over the crowd. And he said, no, this effect is
uh an impostor an inteloper. And I believe he is
Arnold Till, and he is a Spanish man of ill repute. Yes,
so Pierre um like I got word out to nearby
villages and and and confirm this that it probably was
(25:27):
a guy named Arnold de Til who was from a
town about thirty miles away called SaHas s A j
A S I think I think probably right, that's about
a day or two of travel from already got um.
So it's far enough away but close enough that you
could get you could you could confirm or deny whether
somebody was someone from that town. Right, Yeah, this guy,
(25:51):
you know, he's a bit of a rough house or
he drank a lot and he gambled, and he bedded
down with sex workers and had a big appetite. I mean,
our departdu played this guy for God's sake, So that
kind of tells you all you need to know. All right, So, uh,
this guy all of a sudden is seemingly um found out.
(26:11):
But the story is is that he went off joined
the French army. Uh, this are no guy uh. And
the question is like did he meet Martin on the battlefield.
What we ended up finding out much later is that
a couple of old friends of Martin actually mistook him
for Martin uh initially and then where like, you look
just like our friend this guy back in uh small
(26:33):
town France, who's actually got a pretty good um doubt
not dowry, but pretty good prospects monetarily waiting for him
back home and this pretty good looking wife, and all
of a sudden, the wheels start turning in Arnold's mind. Right,
It's not clear whether those two ended up becoming accomplices
or else, if he was just able to kind of
like work info out of them over time, But that
(26:56):
is that does seem to be I think he's He
later admitted that's where he got the He's like, how
much do I look like him? Right? Exactly? Oh spinning
image men? Oh goodness. He also was like really, um,
really clever in that, Like he stayed behind at that
hostile like he first appeared at the hostel, rather than
(27:17):
showing up in town. That was a big one. He
stayed behind with the pox I made scare quotes. Um
he uh, so he could gather more information just slowly,
but surely. He just seemed like the type you could
get something out of you without you realizing it, because
you were just having a good time hanging out with him, right,
Like I wonder if he was like, yeah, because I
(27:39):
remember that time we pushed over that cow and I
was like, oh, you mean the horse that time when
we did this. He's like, oh yeah, that was totally
it totally I was so drunk. I remember being a
cow and everybody starts laughing. Right, but you didn't drink
much back then, Well, I drank on the side. You
didn't know it was secret, right, was also on the
pills that was German. Yeah, you're really all over Europe
(28:01):
right now. So, and this is where Natalie Zeman Davis
comes in, Like, it's it's clear that this guy was
really good at getting information from people without them realizing
that he was extracting information, using that information um with
his very very good memory UM to lull you into
(28:22):
a sense of security or trust for him that he
was to to overcome your instincts against trusting that he's
he was who said he was. But that no, no
amount of preparation and research in the in the sixteenth
century setting could have helped him get away with this
(28:45):
so thoroughly without the help of Bertrand. That's Natalie Ziemon
Davis is like her thesis is like, there's no way
that Bertrand was a dupe, that she wasn't complicit, and
that you know, she probably it's tough to blame her
because her life improved dramatically after this guy showed up. Yeah,
(29:07):
I mean if she would have caused a stink like
Pierre did early on as the wife, it would have
been a much much different deal, I think than her
completely defending him, and Day points out we're never gonna know,
like he's in the in the town going to the
pub and he's talking with people about the stories, but
she's with him as wife full time behind closed doors
(29:29):
and we'll never know what went on there. But in
my mind, in the movie version, there's a scene at
some point where she goes, hey, listen, I know you're
not him, but it's okay because you're actually a nice
guy and I can make this work. Yeah. I think
that Jodie Foster's famous line is, hey, bubs, let's cut
the s Missa Chika may n Now I haven't seen
(29:58):
Nell in so long. I never have. I'm just putting
mine written together from from previews I saw like twenty
five years ago. I think, Yeah, I don't think it
was a very good movie, or maybe I'm misremembering, or
maybe i'm remembering it. I think we have to watch it.
Oh boy, I want to watch this instead. So this
this whole idea that bertrand is uh is is a complicit.
(30:21):
It's a new idea. It's a modern take for centuries.
She was in the storytelling. She was duped. Like, that's
how good and wiley this are no do till was
that being an impostor. He duped the man's wife. That's
how good he was. And when you when you hear that,
and then you hear Natalie Zimon Davis's take, you're like,
(30:44):
that's a pretty ridiculous idea. But that's how it was.
And and and as we'll see, Bertrand was never was
never um persecuted or prosecuted for her role in it.
She she got out of it as well. Should we
take a break, Yeah, let's all right, we'll take our
last break, and we'll talk about the first trial of
(31:04):
Martin gear right after this. All right, the first trial,
(31:33):
I said of Martin Gerre, but we're gonna call it
the first trial of our no. Uh. He was put
on trial in a town called r i e u
x ru ru ru u. Uh. He was put on
trial specifically for stealing another man's identity, adultery, taking his property.
(31:55):
And Dave points out very uh aptly that this is
like in the sixteenth century, how do you prove something
like this? You could give him memory test, but uh,
you know, you could we already know he has a
great memory and kind of did his homework. You could
get villagers up there to testify, which they certainly did,
but they're biased. You could you know, compare them physically,
(32:17):
which they did, but it seems like that didn't matter
much because uh, some people knew like he for sure
he had different foot size. Uh. And also they didn't
you know, have the kind of photographs and handwriting comps
and stuff like that that just it was a lot
easier to get away with something like this back then.
Plus also for just about everybody who said, oh no
his long his nose was long and flat, others would
(32:40):
say no, no, it was short and pointy like this
guy right exactly. Plus I mean, you've got no fingerprinting,
no DNA tests, not even like standardized stuff like driver's
licenses or passports. There weren't even like wagon licenses at
the time, so there really wasn't any way but to
hear as many people as possible and then just thoughtfully
(33:01):
kind of sort through their testimony and that first trial
at you, um Martin gear and at a time or
I should say our no do till Um, at a
time when a lot of people would have shrunk at
the challenge, rose to the challenge, maybe more than anybody
ever living would have. Like this guy defended his honor
(33:27):
as much as the real Martin gear would have. Probably more. Actually,
as we'll see as we saw. The other thing I
wanted to bring up to is, like I would say,
so much of this was impacted solely on the fact
that a lot of people like this guy, you know,
and and they like the new Martin, and they're not
going to go in there in sixteenth century France and
(33:49):
cause a big stink. They're gonna say. No, I think
it's him. He knew this story, and he's got that
and I remember that knows and what's the foot size anyway?
Those those fee can change sizes, right, what do we
even know about that? Yeah, this is what this guy said.
So he crossed, examined witnesses against him, and for that
shoemaker in particular, he said, this man is a drinking
companion of Pierre Gare. Let him show his records about
(34:09):
the size of my feet. Um. He also confronted a
man who was his uncle Um from SaHas, who was
our no do Tills uncle, who said, yeah, that's our
no do till he's cross examining me right now. He said,
I've never seen this man before in my life, and
he's my uncle. Why can't he produce other members of
my family that say so um so that a confidence
(34:32):
person does con Man is like so adamant their beliefs
that that's that's what they used to trick you. Yes,
and again it wasn't just him um bertrand was saying,
this man is my husband. I would rather suffer a
thousand cruel deaths than say otherwise. His sisters did too, right, Yes,
that was a big one. So all four of Martin
Garret's sisters came and testified at this trial that nope,
(34:54):
this is our brother, like he's our brother. I don't
know what else we can say. And yet just I
the um the testimony in favor of him the judge,
and you said, now I think you're an impostor and
I'm going to find you guilty. That's right, pay to
a public apology and a ceremony. Um, pay your wife
(35:14):
two thousand francs. And uh, this one other little tidbit,
we're going to behead you and quarter you. And he went, oh,
how about we is there such a thing as uh
appealing to a higher court, and they said, well, unfortunately
there is, and so now we will talk about this
(35:35):
second trial. Yeah, this was like to the appellate court,
this group of like the finest legal minds in France. Um.
They were called the what were they called chuck holed Parliament,
the criminal chamber of the Parliament of to lose Okay,
So they were basically, like I said, the finest legal
minds in France who were coming together to hear this
(35:57):
story that was pretty much sweeping the not just the nation,
but like this part of Europe that there's this guy
who's being called an impostors defending himself and this whole
town is split about whether he is who he says
he is. And one of the judges in the case
was Jean de korros Um, who went on to actually
write the first and earliest account of this case. He
(36:20):
actually wrote two of them. He wrote a sequel that
delved a little more into our known dutils life. Um.
But the people who came together to hear this case
basically got even better UM version of what had happened
in Ryu. That's right, uh, And another example here early
(36:40):
on in this trial of Bertrand being very savvy with
her moves because she was basically like, hey, listen, I'm
not going to say that this man is impostor. I
think he is my husband. Uh but if he's not,
he sure fooled me right exactly, not my fault. Yeah,
he also so this is another thing too. He So
(37:01):
the judges really wanted to, um, this guy to be
the real guy. Uh. Decoras says, um that they put
more weight to the affirmative testimony because they want Yeah,
they wanted him to be that. Yeah, they wanted to
not be an impostor. So they put more weight into
(37:23):
affirmative testimony because they felt that, um, it was more
positive than say, like negative testimony, which was destructive, which
makes sense an illegal like a certain way legally, but
but more more than that, the affirmative testimony also affirmed
this marriage and this family and this household that was
already intact and that didn't want to be split apart.
(37:45):
It's not like Bertrand was saying this man is not
my husband. She's saying he is my husband, please leave
us alone. And the judges wanted to support that and
are no de Till gave them heaping mountains folds of
stuff to to go ahead and go along on with this,
and he actually he stood up to all this testimony,
did it again. He survived all these memory tests. Bar
(38:07):
Trond hung in there. He got so good, Chuck that
he on the stand said, I just want you to
know I forgive you for having to testify against me.
I know you don't want to, but I can give you.
I don't hold it against you, dear wife. That's how
much I love you. And those judges were like, swoon,
I wish I was bear Tron. And he won them over, Chuck,
(38:29):
and they were about to rule in his favor that
he was Martin Gear and everybody just shut up about
it from now on. Except there was a twist that happened.
Huh yeah, And this would be great for an ad break,
but we've already done it, so we'll just say, very simply,
a man walks in with a wooden leg in the
(38:51):
movie version, I'm sure in the movie version that didn't
happen quite like that. But the real Martin Gear please
stood up and all of a sudden, there he was, Uh,
he's back, the real deal. No one knows why he
came back exactly. Uh. The speculation is that he heard
(39:11):
about this story because it traveled, like he said, kind
of throughout you know, this region of Europe, and that
he was like, wait a minute, Uh, I'm a jerk
and I'm not gonna let this stand, right, So he
he showed up like almost the last minute that he
could have. I'm sure he's showed up. Later they would
have reopened the case, but they hadn't yet ruled, but
(39:31):
they were about to rule in our notes favor, like
the gable is up and essentially and this guy shows
up and says, wait, I am the real Martin Gere basically,
and they treated him like he was potentially an imposter.
First two they took him into custody. They questioned him separately,
and they questioned him and they questioned our note on
the same old memories um, and both of them responded
(39:55):
like equally. Well. So the judges are like, oh my god,
what is going on here. They've never had a case
like this before. But the thing that I think clinched
everything is when when he came to the court, when
he was presented in court, his family all recognized and
his sisters all said, oh my god, we were wrong.
This guy is the realist, our real brother, and then
(40:16):
Bertron said, she gulped very heavily, was maybe heard to
say under her breath, well, I guess the jig is up,
and threw herself at the feet of Martin Garret and said,
I have been duped. I'm so sorry. I can't believe
that this impostor got me, but I was fooled. Please
forgive me. Yeah, I was desperate. I wanted my husband
(40:38):
back and this guy tricked me. And I was willing
to overlook the differences because I wanted you back so bad,
my dear Martin. And uh, it's really interesting, he said.
He was not well. Two things. First of all, during
all this are no was like he kept up that
con man thing and like went on the attack against Martin,
you know, like you're the impostor in a big, big way,
(41:00):
which really helped um. But then Martin was basically, you know,
as far as Pertran goes, he said, lead and this
is a shortened quote, but leave aside these tears. The
wife ought to know her husband. No one is to
blame but you. Yeah, so he wasn't having it. No,
he was not having it, and um, the judges even said, well,
(41:21):
hey man, maybe uh have a little heart, like you're
the one who left her eight years ago, and Martin said, silence,
that is not a crime, and the judges were like, oh,
that's true, it's not a crime. So you just go
ahead and keep being a jerk. But we just wanted
to put one in on your wife's behalf. But um,
she got off. She did not. The judges did not
(41:43):
rule against her. They just they determined that she had
been duped and that the entire blame was was squarely
on the shoulders of our no do till who would
now yes, be sentenced to death right. And not only
was she let off, but they were very kind to
the daughter that she had with Martin initially because technically,
as far as the law was concerned, that would make
(42:05):
her a bastard. Are not Martin, but are no right?
I'm confused. Um, that would make her a bastard, which
meants she couldn't get inheritance and stuff like that. But
they said no, at the time, she thought it was
her husband, so we're gonna make an exception here. So
they really did her a couple of favors. But when
it came to our No, they really didn't know what
(42:25):
descendance because they had never done anything like this before.
So they said, well, I guess let's kind of go
with what the other people were saying. Let's um, let's
kill you, but we'll just hang you and burn your body.
We won't quarter you and behead you, right right. I
also saw that he was sentenced to to um be
hanged while barefoot and bareheaded, and I cannot for life
(42:49):
and we find what the problem was with that. I
think it was just an insult maybe, but probably like
see his face, yeah, I guess, But also you see
his ugly feet too. Yeah, well it's his feet that
are smaller now. And maybe it's also more you need
to look upon the people that you have betrayed, right, Yeah,
that's a good one. That's good. So um he he
(43:11):
his sentence was carried out and already got um and
they actually built the gallows in front of Martin Gere's
house just to give him like a really great view
of the whole thing or something like that. Um, he
could he could keep working until the last minute making
tiles and then come out and be like all right,
let's go and our note was was marched through town.
(43:32):
Um and he finally now he was like, okay, I'm
just gonna take full credit for this and admitted everything,
didn't He Yeah, but you guys like me right right.
But he's like, a good job. I got to you
guys so good. Yeah, pretty much. He commended the judges
for their work. Uh. He walked through town with the
(43:53):
news around his neck, as you know, they made him
carry his own news around his neck. And I think
at the end appealed to Martin like, hey, be nice
to your wife, dude, like I fooled her. She's a
woman of honor, Like, don't take this out on her.
Which was pretty great because he could have out of
spide or out of whatever he he could have like
(44:15):
out at her or even not said anything, but he
from to the very end he declared that she had
no idea and had nothing to do with it. And
if you go through you know Natalie's emon Davis's lends,
that was a really loving gesture and it reminds you
of like these two were probably like deeply in love
with one another, and and also like it's no short
(44:38):
it's no small thing, even like in the time of
very high infant mortality rates. Chuck that they lost a
child together and that surely bonded them even further. So
like the loss that was created at the the return
of Martin Gare with this marriage is actual happy, but
impostor and illegitimate marriage was torn apart by thegitimate version.
(45:01):
But the but how legitimate was it? You know what
I'm saying. If it was that unhappy like this, this man,
the real man, managed to interlope into something even more
real than what he had created with his own wife. Yeah,
that's a very confusing statement, but I totally get it.
And it also makes it really sad that he that
Arnold was was executed, and I'm sure bar Tryan had
(45:23):
to watch and pretend like she was happy about it. Yeah. Uh, No,
one really knows what happened in the end to Bertrand
and Martin, the real Martin. Not a lot of details,
but they do know that there were three more sons.
But you know, I don't necessarily means I don't think
that necessarily means a reconciled we're happy they this was
(45:44):
the sixteenth century. He could have forced himself upon her
by all I know. You know, I guess, but they
did stay together, and I'm sure he could have gotten
a divorce even in Catholic French law at the time.
But that so his the illegitimate daughter ur Node and
Bertrand's daughter, she went to live with the very uncle
that our note had said what he had never seen
(46:05):
him in his life on the stand. Oh really, yeah,
that's that's who went and took care of her. And Chuck.
Our version of the movie ends, I think with um
little Bernard growing up a little bit and saying, uncle,
can you tell me about my dad? And uncle? And
Bernard start walking back to the house from the barn
(46:27):
and the uncle says, kid, you wouldn't believe it if
I tried. That's great. Does she think perfect ending? Okay? Yeah,
So since Chuck said perfect ending, I think that means
that it's time for a listener mail. Uh. You know
what in lieu of listener mail, we do this a
couple of times of year when we rarely ask for
(46:49):
support in helping to spread the word. Even here in
year thirteen. Uh, we still want to grow the stuff
you should know, audience and make sure people are tuning in.
So uh, tell a friend or a neighbor or a
family member about Stuff you Should Know, if you would
and review and rate us on iTunes because that always
helps iTunes, Spotify, wherever you find podcasts, wherever you find podcasts.
(47:13):
We always appreciate it. This is the show that grew
very organically because of this kind of thing many years ago,
and we, uh, we don't ask for it much, but
we continue to count on that for growth. Yes, So
thank you to everybody who's ever rated or reviewed us,
and thank you just for listening to We appreciate you
guys listening even if you don't lift a finger. Amen. Yeah. Uh, Well,
(47:35):
since Chuck said amen, that's the end of this episode,
which I think I've already done. I'm losing my mind.
And if you want to get in touch with us,
you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
(47:56):
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant and this is Stuff
you Should Know, featuring Yarry. That's right, interesting history a dish, Yes, man,
(00:25):
I remember hearing this story back as an undergrad. Okay,
a hot sexy undergrad boy. Were you um in learning
my history? Yeah? I can't remember what class. Must have
been a European history class, but this this book just
always stuck with me. The The Return of Martin Geare
(00:47):
by Natalie Zimon Davis. Did you read it back then? Yeah? Yeah,
it was assigned as part of the class. It was
a great, great book. But did you read it? Yes? Okay,
I was very eager, um, hot sexy undergrad history major. Well,
I mean that's why I majored in English because I
like to read. So anytime I assigned a reading assignment,
I was like, great, I can do that. Yeah. That
(01:08):
was one reason I chose histories because I really enjoyed
reading history stuff. So I was like, well, if that's
what we're gonna be sitting around doing, let's do it.
I don't know what we'll do with it after we're
with that degree. But we'll we'll roll the dice and
find out you envisioned the future career. Were two lunkheads
with no previous broadcast experience could become Dare I say
(01:30):
noteworthy by talking into a can? Yeah? Yeah, I was
gambling on lucking out to an astounding degree. Yeah, me too.
Sort of that weird. Yeah, it's funny how life work. Well,
it all worked out, and here we are, all these
years later to tell the story h of Martin. Is
it pronounced a gear? I've always pronounced it Martin Gear,
(01:53):
But we're talking. We're gonna go to sixteenth century France,
so it's probably Martin Gear. Okay, but we're not going
to say it like but not Richard Gere. No, which
is ironic because Richard Gere was the lead in the
movie summers Be which was see you Look at your
(02:14):
improp skills? Yes, ending me uh. It was a sort
of a not necessarily a remake, but a an adaptation
on the story of Martin Gearre and the movie that
starred Gerard de Pardu from the early nineteen eighties. Yes,
and yeah, I think that's it. No, but exactly end. Yeah,
(02:37):
had you heard this story before the story of Martin Gere, Yeah,
a little bit. I certainly didn't know it like I
know it now, but I did see the movie Summers
Be back then I knew it was kind of based
on that. And uh, you know, there have been other
versions of stories like this, um, I mean not, the
least of which is a story told in animation form
(02:59):
about a man young man off to war named armontans Arian.
Oh yeah, yeah, I didn't even put tune two together. Sure,
when Principal Skinner took someone's identity during the war, and uh,
it's sort of a common story, but this is I
think the o g Yeah, thanks for that too, because
we would have gotten myriad emails telling us what utter
(03:22):
failures we are in life for missing that Simpson's reference. Yeah,
that was his name, right, armontans Arian. Totally. Man. Can
you imagine how fun the writer's room was that day
trying to come up with what his real name would be.
You know, I have said it before, I'll say it
again that that's Matt Graening's least favorite Simpsons episode was
at the time years ago. Yeah, Red that one. I
(03:42):
don't know why. Al Right, I love it too. It's good.
So we're talking about a man named Martin Garret who
was like born a peasant in sixteenth century France in
the Long Doc region, in this like little area just
above Spain, just below to loose, if that makes sense
for you. And like, typically, Chuck, when people live and
(04:05):
die in areas like this, unless they do something spectacularly
interesting or noteworthy or important, they just kind of get
lost to history. Sure, and this guy, Martin Garrett, actually
didn't do anything spectacularly interesting or important or noteworthy. Um,
and yet we're still talking about him, like four hundred
(04:27):
and fifty issue years more than that later because his life.
Something happened to his life that was so interesting that
it's worth doing an entire podcast episode about all these
years later. Uh greed. Uh. He was born in Spain
to a Basque family, and pretty quickly as a toddler
(04:49):
was brought over to France to how would you pronounce
such art a got or arta jatte or is it got?
I think got? Yeah, because cake is ghetto and it
begins with G. Look at you, all right, So arty
got and his family got there and they got to
work pretty quickly, um, setting themselves up in different trades
(05:10):
like farming eventually tilemaking and merchant ng and did. Okay,
like they didn't have any kind of money, but they
worked hard and sort of rose through that um lower
tiered status to the point where they could marry off
young Martin to another family, the jar Rolls family, who
(05:31):
you know, I think Dave Rouse, our our buddy who
put who put this together for us. He said that
they were well off, but I think they were well
off for their lower class though, right, yeah, they were
up and coming, he puts in. I think like they
were peasant farmers figuring out how to enter the merchant class,
which at the time was the very beginning of the
(05:52):
middle class. Okay, all right, well that makes sense then. Yeah,
so they were working their way up into the middle class.
So um, it was it was a like kind of
a coup. I take it for the gay family to
marry off Martin to Bertrand drawls um because her family
was a little better off. But yeah, they were really young.
Apparently later on Bertrand recalled that they were married at
(06:13):
age like nine or ten. Apparently that doesn't add up,
and that was probably more like thirteen or fourteen, So
you know, that's fine. Right. Uh, still very young. But
this is the sixteenth century after all. Uh. So they
got married, and you know when you get married back then,
you want to start having babies pretty quickly. And they
(06:35):
had a hard time having babies because for the first
eight years of their marriage they did not consummate their marriage. Uh.
And no one knows exactly why. There were rumors maybe
that Martin wasn't or Martine just wasn't into it. Um.
They were thirteen after all, so maybe you know, they
were normal children who kind of thought that wasn't the
(06:56):
thing to do yet I don't know, or he was like,
how do I work this? He just sounded like David
Byrne and once in a lifetime. Uh. Some people blamed
it on a witch's curse. Uh. They eventually consulted with
a wise woman who said it go to these series
of masses at church because mass is always guaranteed to
(07:17):
make you randy. Uh. And he eat a special cake
that would sort of get him going downstairs and apparently
it worked. Crazy as they had a baby. They had
a little son, like right afterward it was a kick
made of fireplace ashes I saw. But you know, they're
in the early twenties at this point, by the way, Yeah,
(07:38):
like the appropriate h for that kind of thing. Right.
It makes you wonder though, like was it self you know,
self imposed and like he was able to to feel
like this curse or whatever was lifted off of him
from eating that cake. But regardless, it happened like almost
immediately Bertrand got pregnant and they had a son named Senxi,
who was the same name of Martin's father. So um,
(08:01):
Martin said, Hey, this is really amazing. I've really turned
a new corner in life. I'm really interested to see
what life brings me now and just got back to
work with now with a son and wife. Right. Yeah,
But here's the thing, and I think there's really no
other way to describe Martin. Uh, everything I read, basically
it sounds like he was a real a hole. Yes,
(08:24):
that was the impression I had to He was not
a nice guy. He was not a nice husband. I
didn't see anything necessarily about like overt abuse. But he
just seemed like a real jerk, uh, sort of to
his family and around town, and he was kind of
looking to get out of town. And his father accused
(08:44):
him of stealing grain from the family stores. And then
selling it for a profit, which was not cool. Even
if it's your own family, it's probably more uncool that
it's your own family, and so never trust family that's
on the shirt. But instead saying like, wait a minute,
I want to defend myself, he just took off, and
he's like, sorry, wife and young son, but I don't
(09:06):
really like you guys that much anyway, so I'm out
of here. I see him as like an early twenties
gen xers, like whatever, man, I can't deal with this
at all. I'm out of here. And you get the
impression that he was just looking for a reason to leave,
and he did. He got it. He didn't defend himself,
which I mean in sixteenth century France or Basque culture, um,
(09:29):
that is something you would want to do if your
honor was being impugned. That was one of the few
currencies you had, so you would want to defend yourself.
So I think it says a lot about somebody at
that time who didn't even bother defending himself. He's just left,
and he left his wife and child um without providing
for them in any way. Like sure they had like
(09:50):
his his you know, inheritance, his money, um his share
of whatever the family owned, but he didn't like set
them up in any way. Before he left, he just
put down his plowshare, put down his tile making tongs,
and just laughed. That's right. He ended up in Spain.
(10:10):
He went back to Spain, Uh settled in b U
r g o s Burghos and became a servant for
a noble family. And they noticed, like, hey, dude, you're
pretty good fencer. You're good with a sword. You should
get you armied up. So he joined the Spanish army,
who was at war with France at the time, and
he fought for five years before and this is a
(10:32):
very key detail I think before we go into our
first break, that he was hitting the leg with a
bullet and had his leg amputated. Yes, so we'll take
a break. Hang on to that, put a pin in it,
and we'll be right back. So let's zero in on
(11:13):
Bertrand for the while, shall we the wife if you
don't remember Bertrand, Yes, Bertrando Rolls, who became married to
Martin Garrett, maybe aged nine to fourteen, depending on who
you ask. Seemed like a savvy young woman. Yes, now
this is new. We gotta say this so, like Natalie
(11:35):
Zimon Davis, Um, you mentioned that film The Return of
Martin Gere, Sorry, Gerard Depardiu, that Summers b was partly
based on right correct. She was the um consultant on
that historical consultant film, and she was so put off
by the retelling of this story that she published her
book two years afterward. Part of part of that book,
(11:58):
part of her big contra abution. She made tons of
contributions to the to the historical record, turned up a
lot of great documents and everything, but subjectively, her big
contribution was completely altering the way people saw Bertrand up
to this point she was a loyal, chast devoted wife
(12:18):
who would end up being duped, you could say, as
we'll see very soon. And under Natalie Simon davis is
reading of her, um, she was a very shrewd woman
who figured out how to navigate within the confines of
a male dominated middle age French society. Yeah. And one
of the first things that we can bring up to
(12:39):
sort of support this and I kind of like this
narrative a lot. By the way, um is the fact
that she got married when she was let's say, um,
just meet there in the middle and uh, you know,
he had Martine had problems, you know, uh, having sex
for eight years, and so she was, Um, it's acculated
(13:00):
from from Davis at least that she was kind of like, Hey,
this isn't so bad. I don't want to be doing
that anyway, especially with this kid who was a jerk,
and I don't want to have a kid. I'm thirteen
years old. So by the time, you know, she's got
four sisters, I really love them. Uh, he's you know,
his family seems to be doing okay. My family is
doing okay. At the time, that was a big deal.
(13:22):
And so the fact that she had to wait until
she was in her early twenties to finally uh to
you know, I expect to lose her virginity to Martin
and then have this kid wasn't so bad after all. Yeah,
because she could have asked for the marriage to be
annulled after three years passed without it being consummated by
(13:45):
under French law at the time, I think French Catholic law. Um,
and she didn't. She's just she's like so yeah, that
definitely substantiates um. Zimon Davis has claimed that like she
was just kind of rolling with it. She she was like, okay,
I'm I'm kind the happy with this, and she didn't
try and get married when he left either. There were
a lot of strict laws about remarrying, like if the
(14:07):
husband disappears or something, you had to have proof of
death with witnesses and all that stuff. And she was
basically like, hey, I'm kind of a widow here. His
uncle Pierre is married to my mom. Now they're taking
really good care of me, got a lot of help
with my baby, So I'm pretty cool to just chill here. Yeah.
(14:28):
So in this in this reading, she's saying, Natalie Ziemond
Davis is saying like she didn't have a choice. Like again,
under French Catholic law at the time, like it says,
not even when a husband has been absent twenty years
or more, can a wife remarry unless she has proof
of his death. And it's got to be like like
(14:50):
irrefutable proof that this person has died, their husbands died.
She didn't have the irrefutable proof, but she didn't. Also,
she didn't she didn't like go like take love hers.
She didn't ask to have an exception made for her,
and so it painted her her her image among the
townsfolk and among her family that she was a chase,
devoted wife who was just gonna wait for her lousy
(15:12):
husband for as long as it took, and then also
took on the converse side of that. That just goes
to show you just how fully and selfishly um Martin
abandoned her, knowing full well that she couldn't remarry because
she wouldn't have any proof of his death. So he
left her in limbo. Like even more, it wasn't even
(15:33):
like I'm leaving. Good luck with your life. You do
what you want with it. It was I'm leaving. You
have to stick around and wait until I decided to
come back, if ever, that's right. Uh. So things are
going along like this. She's living her life again, has
plenty of help with her baby, and then one day
in town at a hostel, a man wanders in it says, Hi,
(15:55):
I'm Martine Garre uh and I'm back. Everybody like, check
it out. It's been a while. The innkeeper says, you know,
oh my god, your wife, Bertrand and your son. It's
so exciting to be reunited and heart He breaks down crying,
and everyone of course in town comes running up and uh,
(16:16):
to see who this person is, including his his wife,
and they all went, huh, you look a little different Martin.
I think that's how they initially approached it. Well, because
he did. Apparently he had gotten shorter, heavier, his nose
had changed. Um, wasn't his Drupyuh? Let's read that. There's
(16:41):
a description from later court records that would happen of
um what Martin Gare supposedly looked like? Can I read
this please? Martin Garre was taller and darker than this
man who showed up. He was a man thin and
body and legs a little bent, carrying his head between
his shoulders, the chin cleft like hue lewis a little
(17:04):
thrust forward, whose lip lower lip drooped a little, having
small teeth, a large and flattened nose and ulcer on
his face, and a scar on his right eyebrow. This
person was short, thick set, strong of body, having a
heavy leg, does not have a flat nose, nor is bent,
nor has any of the said scars. So an entirely
(17:26):
different looking person showed up and it's like, hey, everybody
remember me Martin Gare right? Uh? And it's important to
note here that no one in town knew that Martin
had lost his leg in the war. Yeah, so that
was obviously would have been the biggest red flag. But
this guy comes back and he doesn't look like him,
but he knows all the stories. He's saying, like, hey,
(17:47):
remember when we did this, and he would hang out
with the townspeople and he'd say, I remember that time
we did that, and this this great time we had
over here doing this, and everyone's just like, oh my gosh,
Like he knows all the stories. It doesn't look like him,
but you know what, this guy's kind of fun and
awesome and nice. Yeah, and I don't know what happened
(18:08):
to him in the war, but like we'll take him. Yes.
So eight years had passed and he apparently physically changed drastically,
but also most notably, his personality had changed distinctly for
the better. He was a charmer now, and like you said,
he remembered all these stories. So everybody said, let's uh,
let's see where this goes. Basically, yeah, and there's another
(18:30):
key move here we need to point out, um right away.
He didn't just go back to the family farm and
to the family house with everyone. He said, you know
what I have the pox. I'm not feeling so great,
so let me stay here at the hostel for a
little bit and recover, which turned out to be a
very sort of savvy key move. Yes, one of the
other two. One of the other things that he did
(18:51):
to that definitely convinced bertrand Um and others who were
who were there. He said, by the way, I'm gonna
stay here and recover until I'm done with this pox. Um,
but can you go fetch my white stockings, my white
hose from this particular drawer, in this particular chest where
I left them eight years ago? And she went back
(19:12):
and went to that particular chest in drawer and found
his white sox were there, just as she remembered him
leaving them there eight years ago. So like that, and
a bunch of other stuff that he seemed to remember
that only Martin would know. Um really convinced everybody like, no,
this is Martin. He's a little different, but we like
him even more now and we're going to get along
with him just fine. Right. And bertrand also was like,
(19:35):
and the other thing is when you left, you were
not very interested in sex from me, and you seem
to be really into that now. And so I'll take
that as well. Uh, And in fact, I will give
birth to two daughters in return. Sadly, only one of
them survived infancy. And her name was is it Bernard
or bernarda Bernard? Okay, I didn't know that could be
(19:57):
a little girl's name, but I think we you add
an e on the end it girls it up? Okay,
but you don't. You don't pronounce you. No, no, it's all.
It's all just for looks, okay, all right. So to
catch up, he's back in town. Everyone likes the new
and improved Martine gear Uh. He has another daughter, and
(20:19):
he's having sex with his wife and everything's going great
until who becomes his main foil gets involved, and that
would be his uncle Pierre. And remember so Pire gare
he's a he's another main character in this He by
this time, after Martin left, married Bartron's mother, so now
(20:40):
he's Bartron's uncle in law and father in law or stepfather,
uncle in law and stepfather, that's right. And at first
he welcomed this new improved Martin back with open arms.
He was credulous at first, and then he won him
over with some memories. The new Martin did and um,
(21:01):
and so Pierre said, okay, let's go with it, and
everybody was kind of going along and getting along. And
then I guess one day Martin said, um, hey, by
the way, Pierre, remember my inheritance, my part of the
land and my part of the wealth that I left
behind that you've been managing. Well, I know you made
a bunch of money off of it. I feel like
(21:21):
that's my money. So can I have my money, Pierre?
Can I please? And Pierre didn't like that idea at all.
And it's not clear whether he just didn't like that
idea or whether he didn't like that idea because he
didn't think this was Martin after all, and this guy
was overstepping his bounds. I don't know. But one of
the things that he did was assemble his son's to
(21:43):
try to beat Martin to death on the road. And
had it not been for Bear Trand throwing herself on
top of Martin Martin's body, Um, they probably would have
succeeded in in murdering him. Yeah, I mean, he it's interesting,
like I fill in a little bit of the narrative blanks,
is you know someone who's into movies and literature and stuff.
(22:04):
It seems to me like Pierre was kind of like, hey,
everyone seems to like this guy, so I'm not going
to be the one to stand in the way. Uh.
He didn't want to rocks the boat until this money
thing came up, and that's Martin actually took him to court,
and that's when things really changed. And that's when Pierre
started talking to anyone who would listen and saying, you
(22:26):
know what, he's basque and he doesn't understand these basque phrases.
This dude was a great fencer. He's this guy's no fencer.
He's not even into it at all. He doesn't look
anything like his son. And I think this guy is
a fraud. And it's interesting that the town like it
seems to be. And we'll get to the court case,
but it seemed to be almost divided whether or not
(22:49):
people said, no, we think it's him and it's all good,
and people have said no, I think he is a fraud. Uh.
And it just goes to show sort of the power
of those stories's because at the time, in sixteenth century France,
how else would you explain something like, you know, hey,
remember that time we went and pushed over that cow
(23:10):
and I and I did a dance on him on
his belly, like you know, that's a powerful thing back
then when you don't have photographs and any other kind
of shared recollection that you can easily point to. So
you know, he fooled a lot of people. Yeah, he
definitely did. I wonder how much he was playing on
people's propensity to not want to admit a mistake or
(23:30):
that they were wrong. That plays into it. I'm sure
it's got too. But like you said, the town was divided,
and it was divided between Pierre and then this new Martin,
and very crucially on the side of this new Martin
was Beartrand. She threw she cast her a lot with
him and said, no, this man is Martin Gere. I
will um anyone who is mad enough to say otherwise,
(23:53):
I will make him die, which is a weird way
to to create a death threat, but it was. It
was a death threat. And on the asked but um.
This was despite m Bertrand's mother, who was Pierre's wife,
coming to her and being like, look, you need to
get with Pierre here. He's he's on the side of right,
and um she still said no. So um. Pierre also
(24:16):
he had. There were there were people who backed him up,
like the the shoemaker. Right, yeah, there was a little
matter of the fact. And this is in somers Bey too,
that he came back from the war with a different
foot size. That's a big change. That's a very drastic change,
it is. And technically he did come back with a
different foot size, but in a radically different way. Well yeah,
(24:40):
because everything changed in fifteen fifty nine. He had been
back a few years at this point, and a Spanish
soldier wanders through town and heard about this story of
Martin Gierre and said, hey, wait a minute, I knew
that guy during the war and he's only got one leg.
And it's like that's when it's like Mike Brady throwing
the the briefcase in the courtroom. Just a hush falls
(25:05):
over the crowd. And he said, no, this effect is
uh an impostor an inteloper. And I believe he is
Arnold Till, and he is a Spanish man of ill repute. Yes,
so Pierre um like I got word out to nearby
villages and and and confirm this that it probably was
(25:27):
a guy named Arnold de Til who was from a
town about thirty miles away called SaHas s A j
A S I think I think probably right, that's about
a day or two of travel from already got um.
So it's far enough away but close enough that you
could get you could you could confirm or deny whether
somebody was someone from that town. Right, Yeah, this guy,
(25:51):
you know, he's a bit of a rough house or
he drank a lot and he gambled, and he bedded
down with sex workers and had a big appetite. I mean,
our departdu played this guy for God's sake, So that
kind of tells you all you need to know. All right, So, uh,
this guy all of a sudden is seemingly um found out.
(26:11):
But the story is is that he went off joined
the French army. Uh, this are no guy uh. And
the question is like did he meet Martin on the battlefield.
What we ended up finding out much later is that
a couple of old friends of Martin actually mistook him
for Martin uh initially and then where like, you look
just like our friend this guy back in uh small
(26:33):
town France, who's actually got a pretty good um doubt
not dowry, but pretty good prospects monetarily waiting for him
back home and this pretty good looking wife, and all
of a sudden, the wheels start turning in Arnold's mind. Right,
It's not clear whether those two ended up becoming accomplices
or else, if he was just able to kind of
like work info out of them over time, But that
(26:56):
is that does seem to be I think he's He
later admitted that's where he got the He's like, how
much do I look like him? Right? Exactly? Oh spinning
image men? Oh goodness. He also was like really, um,
really clever in that, Like he stayed behind at that
hostile like he first appeared at the hostel, rather than
(27:17):
showing up in town. That was a big one. He
stayed behind with the pox I made scare quotes. Um
he uh, so he could gather more information just slowly,
but surely. He just seemed like the type you could
get something out of you without you realizing it, because
you were just having a good time hanging out with him, right,
Like I wonder if he was like, yeah, because I
(27:39):
remember that time we pushed over that cow and I
was like, oh, you mean the horse that time when
we did this. He's like, oh yeah, that was totally
it totally I was so drunk. I remember being a
cow and everybody starts laughing. Right, but you didn't drink
much back then, Well, I drank on the side. You
didn't know it was secret, right, was also on the
pills that was German. Yeah, you're really all over Europe
(28:01):
right now. So, and this is where Natalie Zeman Davis
comes in, Like, it's it's clear that this guy was
really good at getting information from people without them realizing
that he was extracting information, using that information um with
his very very good memory UM to lull you into
(28:22):
a sense of security or trust for him that he
was to to overcome your instincts against trusting that he's
he was who said he was. But that no, no
amount of preparation and research in the in the sixteenth
century setting could have helped him get away with this
(28:45):
so thoroughly without the help of Bertrand. That's Natalie Ziemon
Davis is like her thesis is like, there's no way
that Bertrand was a dupe, that she wasn't complicit, and
that you know, she probably it's tough to blame her
because her life improved dramatically after this guy showed up. Yeah,
(29:07):
I mean if she would have caused a stink like
Pierre did early on as the wife, it would have
been a much much different deal, I think than her
completely defending him, and Day points out we're never gonna know,
like he's in the in the town going to the
pub and he's talking with people about the stories, but
she's with him as wife full time behind closed doors
(29:29):
and we'll never know what went on there. But in
my mind, in the movie version, there's a scene at
some point where she goes, hey, listen, I know you're
not him, but it's okay because you're actually a nice
guy and I can make this work. Yeah. I think
that Jodie Foster's famous line is, hey, bubs, let's cut
the s Missa Chika may n Now I haven't seen
(29:58):
Nell in so long. I never have. I'm just putting
mine written together from from previews I saw like twenty
five years ago. I think, Yeah, I don't think it
was a very good movie, or maybe I'm misremembering, or
maybe i'm remembering it. I think we have to watch it.
Oh boy, I want to watch this instead. So this
this whole idea that bertrand is uh is is a complicit.
(30:21):
It's a new idea. It's a modern take for centuries.
She was in the storytelling. She was duped. Like, that's
how good and wiley this are no do till was
that being an impostor. He duped the man's wife. That's
how good he was. And when you when you hear that,
and then you hear Natalie Zimon Davis's take, you're like,
(30:44):
that's a pretty ridiculous idea. But that's how it was.
And and and as we'll see, Bertrand was never was
never um persecuted or prosecuted for her role in it.
She she got out of it as well. Should we
take a break, Yeah, let's all right, we'll take our
last break, and we'll talk about the first trial of
(31:04):
Martin gear right after this. All right, the first trial,
(31:33):
I said of Martin Gerre, but we're gonna call it
the first trial of our no. Uh. He was put
on trial in a town called r i e u
x ru ru ru u. Uh. He was put on
trial specifically for stealing another man's identity, adultery, taking his property.
(31:55):
And Dave points out very uh aptly that this is
like in the sixteenth century, how do you prove something
like this? You could give him memory test, but uh,
you know, you could we already know he has a
great memory and kind of did his homework. You could
get villagers up there to testify, which they certainly did,
but they're biased. You could you know, compare them physically,
(32:17):
which they did, but it seems like that didn't matter
much because uh, some people knew like he for sure
he had different foot size. Uh. And also they didn't
you know, have the kind of photographs and handwriting comps
and stuff like that that just it was a lot
easier to get away with something like this back then.
Plus also for just about everybody who said, oh no
his long his nose was long and flat, others would
(32:40):
say no, no, it was short and pointy like this
guy right exactly. Plus I mean, you've got no fingerprinting,
no DNA tests, not even like standardized stuff like driver's
licenses or passports. There weren't even like wagon licenses at
the time, so there really wasn't any way but to
hear as many people as possible and then just thoughtfully
(33:01):
kind of sort through their testimony and that first trial
at you, um Martin gear and at a time or
I should say our no do till Um, at a
time when a lot of people would have shrunk at
the challenge, rose to the challenge, maybe more than anybody
ever living would have. Like this guy defended his honor
(33:27):
as much as the real Martin gear would have. Probably more. Actually,
as we'll see as we saw. The other thing I
wanted to bring up to is, like I would say,
so much of this was impacted solely on the fact
that a lot of people like this guy, you know,
and and they like the new Martin, and they're not
going to go in there in sixteenth century France and
(33:49):
cause a big stink. They're gonna say. No, I think
it's him. He knew this story, and he's got that
and I remember that knows and what's the foot size anyway?
Those those fee can change sizes, right, what do we
even know about that? Yeah, this is what this guy said.
So he crossed, examined witnesses against him, and for that
shoemaker in particular, he said, this man is a drinking
companion of Pierre Gare. Let him show his records about
(34:09):
the size of my feet. Um. He also confronted a
man who was his uncle Um from SaHas, who was
our no do Tills uncle, who said, yeah, that's our
no do till he's cross examining me right now. He said,
I've never seen this man before in my life, and
he's my uncle. Why can't he produce other members of
my family that say so um so that a confidence
(34:32):
person does con Man is like so adamant their beliefs
that that's that's what they used to trick you. Yes,
and again it wasn't just him um bertrand was saying,
this man is my husband. I would rather suffer a
thousand cruel deaths than say otherwise. His sisters did too, right, Yes,
that was a big one. So all four of Martin
Garret's sisters came and testified at this trial that nope,
(34:54):
this is our brother, like he's our brother. I don't
know what else we can say. And yet just I
the um the testimony in favor of him the judge,
and you said, now I think you're an impostor and
I'm going to find you guilty. That's right, pay to
a public apology and a ceremony. Um, pay your wife
(35:14):
two thousand francs. And uh, this one other little tidbit,
we're going to behead you and quarter you. And he went, oh,
how about we is there such a thing as uh
appealing to a higher court, and they said, well, unfortunately
there is, and so now we will talk about this
(35:35):
second trial. Yeah, this was like to the appellate court,
this group of like the finest legal minds in France. Um.
They were called the what were they called chuck holed Parliament,
the criminal chamber of the Parliament of to lose Okay,
So they were basically, like I said, the finest legal
minds in France who were coming together to hear this
(35:57):
story that was pretty much sweeping the not just the nation,
but like this part of Europe that there's this guy
who's being called an impostors defending himself and this whole
town is split about whether he is who he says
he is. And one of the judges in the case
was Jean de korros Um, who went on to actually
write the first and earliest account of this case. He
(36:20):
actually wrote two of them. He wrote a sequel that
delved a little more into our known dutils life. Um.
But the people who came together to hear this case
basically got even better UM version of what had happened
in Ryu. That's right, uh, And another example here early
(36:40):
on in this trial of Bertrand being very savvy with
her moves because she was basically like, hey, listen, I'm
not going to say that this man is impostor. I
think he is my husband. Uh but if he's not,
he sure fooled me right exactly, not my fault. Yeah,
he also so this is another thing too. He So
(37:01):
the judges really wanted to, um, this guy to be
the real guy. Uh. Decoras says, um that they put
more weight to the affirmative testimony because they want Yeah,
they wanted him to be that. Yeah, they wanted to
not be an impostor. So they put more weight into
(37:23):
affirmative testimony because they felt that, um, it was more
positive than say, like negative testimony, which was destructive, which
makes sense an illegal like a certain way legally, but
but more more than that, the affirmative testimony also affirmed
this marriage and this family and this household that was
already intact and that didn't want to be split apart.
(37:45):
It's not like Bertrand was saying this man is not
my husband. She's saying he is my husband, please leave
us alone. And the judges wanted to support that and
are no de Till gave them heaping mountains folds of
stuff to to go ahead and go along on with this,
and he actually he stood up to all this testimony,
did it again. He survived all these memory tests. Bar
(38:07):
Trond hung in there. He got so good, Chuck that
he on the stand said, I just want you to
know I forgive you for having to testify against me.
I know you don't want to, but I can give you.
I don't hold it against you, dear wife. That's how
much I love you. And those judges were like, swoon,
I wish I was bear Tron. And he won them over, Chuck,
(38:29):
and they were about to rule in his favor that
he was Martin Gear and everybody just shut up about
it from now on. Except there was a twist that happened.
Huh yeah, And this would be great for an ad break,
but we've already done it, so we'll just say, very simply,
a man walks in with a wooden leg in the
(38:51):
movie version, I'm sure in the movie version that didn't
happen quite like that. But the real Martin Gear please
stood up and all of a sudden, there he was, Uh,
he's back, the real deal. No one knows why he
came back exactly. Uh. The speculation is that he heard
(39:11):
about this story because it traveled, like he said, kind
of throughout you know, this region of Europe, and that
he was like, wait a minute, Uh, I'm a jerk
and I'm not gonna let this stand, right, So he
he showed up like almost the last minute that he
could have. I'm sure he's showed up. Later they would
have reopened the case, but they hadn't yet ruled, but
(39:31):
they were about to rule in our notes favor, like
the gable is up and essentially and this guy shows
up and says, wait, I am the real Martin Gere basically,
and they treated him like he was potentially an imposter.
First two they took him into custody. They questioned him separately,
and they questioned him and they questioned our note on
the same old memories um, and both of them responded
(39:55):
like equally. Well. So the judges are like, oh my god,
what is going on here. They've never had a case
like this before. But the thing that I think clinched
everything is when when he came to the court, when
he was presented in court, his family all recognized and
his sisters all said, oh my god, we were wrong.
This guy is the realist, our real brother, and then
(40:16):
Bertron said, she gulped very heavily, was maybe heard to
say under her breath, well, I guess the jig is up,
and threw herself at the feet of Martin Garret and said,
I have been duped. I'm so sorry. I can't believe
that this impostor got me, but I was fooled. Please
forgive me. Yeah, I was desperate. I wanted my husband
(40:38):
back and this guy tricked me. And I was willing
to overlook the differences because I wanted you back so bad,
my dear Martin. And uh, it's really interesting, he said.
He was not well. Two things. First of all, during
all this are no was like he kept up that
con man thing and like went on the attack against Martin,
you know, like you're the impostor in a big, big way,
(41:00):
which really helped um. But then Martin was basically, you know,
as far as Pertran goes, he said, lead and this
is a shortened quote, but leave aside these tears. The
wife ought to know her husband. No one is to
blame but you. Yeah, so he wasn't having it. No,
he was not having it, and um, the judges even said, well,
(41:21):
hey man, maybe uh have a little heart, like you're
the one who left her eight years ago, and Martin said, silence,
that is not a crime, and the judges were like, oh,
that's true, it's not a crime. So you just go
ahead and keep being a jerk. But we just wanted
to put one in on your wife's behalf. But um,
she got off. She did not. The judges did not
(41:43):
rule against her. They just they determined that she had
been duped and that the entire blame was was squarely
on the shoulders of our no do till who would
now yes, be sentenced to death right. And not only
was she let off, but they were very kind to
the daughter that she had with Martin initially because technically,
as far as the law was concerned, that would make
(42:05):
her a bastard. Are not Martin, but are no right?
I'm confused. Um, that would make her a bastard, which
meants she couldn't get inheritance and stuff like that. But
they said no, at the time, she thought it was
her husband, so we're gonna make an exception here. So
they really did her a couple of favors. But when
it came to our No, they really didn't know what
(42:25):
descendance because they had never done anything like this before.
So they said, well, I guess let's kind of go
with what the other people were saying. Let's um, let's
kill you, but we'll just hang you and burn your body.
We won't quarter you and behead you, right right. I
also saw that he was sentenced to to um be
hanged while barefoot and bareheaded, and I cannot for life
(42:49):
and we find what the problem was with that. I
think it was just an insult maybe, but probably like
see his face, yeah, I guess, But also you see
his ugly feet too. Yeah, well it's his feet that
are smaller now. And maybe it's also more you need
to look upon the people that you have betrayed, right, Yeah,
that's a good one. That's good. So um he he
(43:11):
his sentence was carried out and already got um and
they actually built the gallows in front of Martin Gere's
house just to give him like a really great view
of the whole thing or something like that. Um, he
could he could keep working until the last minute making
tiles and then come out and be like all right,
let's go and our note was was marched through town.
(43:32):
Um and he finally now he was like, okay, I'm
just gonna take full credit for this and admitted everything,
didn't He Yeah, but you guys like me right right.
But he's like, a good job. I got to you
guys so good. Yeah, pretty much. He commended the judges
for their work. Uh. He walked through town with the
(43:53):
news around his neck, as you know, they made him
carry his own news around his neck. And I think
at the end appealed to Martin like, hey, be nice
to your wife, dude, like I fooled her. She's a
woman of honor, Like, don't take this out on her.
Which was pretty great because he could have out of
spide or out of whatever he he could have like
(44:15):
out at her or even not said anything, but he
from to the very end he declared that she had
no idea and had nothing to do with it. And
if you go through you know Natalie's emon Davis's lends,
that was a really loving gesture and it reminds you
of like these two were probably like deeply in love
with one another, and and also like it's no short
(44:38):
it's no small thing, even like in the time of
very high infant mortality rates. Chuck that they lost a
child together and that surely bonded them even further. So
like the loss that was created at the the return
of Martin Gare with this marriage is actual happy, but
impostor and illegitimate marriage was torn apart by thegitimate version.
(45:01):
But the but how legitimate was it? You know what
I'm saying. If it was that unhappy like this, this man,
the real man, managed to interlope into something even more
real than what he had created with his own wife. Yeah,
that's a very confusing statement, but I totally get it.
And it also makes it really sad that he that
Arnold was was executed, and I'm sure bar Tryan had
(45:23):
to watch and pretend like she was happy about it. Yeah. Uh, No,
one really knows what happened in the end to Bertrand
and Martin, the real Martin. Not a lot of details,
but they do know that there were three more sons.
But you know, I don't necessarily means I don't think
that necessarily means a reconciled we're happy they this was
(45:44):
the sixteenth century. He could have forced himself upon her
by all I know. You know, I guess, but they
did stay together, and I'm sure he could have gotten
a divorce even in Catholic French law at the time.
But that so his the illegitimate daughter ur Node and
Bertrand's daughter, she went to live with the very uncle
that our note had said what he had never seen
(46:05):
him in his life on the stand. Oh really, yeah,
that's that's who went and took care of her. And Chuck.
Our version of the movie ends, I think with um
little Bernard growing up a little bit and saying, uncle,
can you tell me about my dad? And uncle? And
Bernard start walking back to the house from the barn
(46:27):
and the uncle says, kid, you wouldn't believe it if
I tried. That's great. Does she think perfect ending? Okay? Yeah,
So since Chuck said perfect ending, I think that means
that it's time for a listener mail. Uh. You know
what in lieu of listener mail, we do this a
couple of times of year when we rarely ask for
(46:49):
support in helping to spread the word. Even here in
year thirteen. Uh, we still want to grow the stuff
you should know, audience and make sure people are tuning in.
So uh, tell a friend or a neighbor or a
family member about Stuff you Should Know, if you would
and review and rate us on iTunes because that always
helps iTunes, Spotify, wherever you find podcasts, wherever you find podcasts.
(47:13):
We always appreciate it. This is the show that grew
very organically because of this kind of thing many years ago,
and we, uh, we don't ask for it much, but
we continue to count on that for growth. Yes, So
thank you to everybody who's ever rated or reviewed us,
and thank you just for listening to We appreciate you
guys listening even if you don't lift a finger. Amen. Yeah. Uh, Well,
(47:35):
since Chuck said amen, that's the end of this episode,
which I think I've already done. I'm losing my mind.
And if you want to get in touch with us,
you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
(47:56):
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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