The Return of Martin Guerre

by

Natalie Zemon Davis

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Bertrande de Rols Character Analysis

Bertrande was the daughter of a wealthy and prominent Artigat family. Her marriage to Martin Guerre when she was only a young girl was designed to solidify the alliance between the de Rols and Guerre families, demonstrating that women in sixteenth-century rural France often had little control over their lives and destinies. Even in a society that severely limited her independence, however, Bertrande carved out significant agency for herself. In Davis’s account, Bertrande’s attitude was characterized by “shrewd realism” about how to maneuver in a patriarchal world. For example, refusing to divorce Martin during the eight-year period when they had no children gave her the freedom to enjoy a childhood with her sisters-in-law and the privileges of being a married woman. After Martin abandoned her and their son, Sanxi the younger, Bertrande had to rely on the generosity of her male relatives to support herself. For almost a decade, she was left with the ambiguous status of neither wife nor widow, since a wife could not marry again unless her husband was proven dead. Even in this difficult situation, however, Davis shows how Bertrande found a way to make a new life. She was able to live with Arnaud du Tilh as a “respectable” married woman by colluding in his impersonation of her true husband, Martin. She even had another child with him, Bernarde. When Arnaud’s deception was uncovered, however, she claimed that she had been deceived—which was almost certainly not true, but it allowed Bertrande to maintain her reputation for honor and virtue. As Davis shows, Bertrande was strong-willed, honorable, and deeply concerned for her reputation. She was savvy enough to know that her power in the village community lay in being perceived as an honorable and respectable wife and mother, a position that she successfully maintained even after the extraordinary events of her life and marriage.

Bertrande de Rols Quotes in The Return of Martin Guerre

The The Return of Martin Guerre quotes below are all either spoken by Bertrande de Rols or refer to Bertrande de Rols. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Identity and Property Theme Icon
).
Preface and Introduction Quotes

But we still know rather little about the peasants’ hopes and feelings; the ways in which they experienced the relation between husband and wife, parent and child; the ways in which they experienced the constraints and possibilities of their lives. We often think of peasants as not having had much in the way of choices, but is this in fact true? Did individual villagers ever try to fashion their lives in unusual and unexpected ways?

Related Characters: Martin Guerre, Bertrande de Rols, Arnaud du Tilh
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

[W]hen urged by her relatives to separate from Martin, she firmly refused. Here we come to certain character traits of Bertrande de Rols, which she was already displaying in her sixteenth year: a concern for her reputation as a woman, a stubborn independence, and a shrewd realism about how she could maneuver within the constraints placed upon one of her sex. Her refusal to have her marriage dissolved, which might well have been followed by another marriage at her parents’ behest, freed her temporarily from certain wifely duties. It gave her a chance to have a girlhood with Martin’s younger sisters, with whom she got on well. And she could get credit for her virtue.

Related Characters: Bertrande de Rols
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

Bertrande’s status was much reduced by all these events. Neither wife nor widow, she was under the same roof with her mother again. Neither wife nor widow, she had to face the other village women at the mill, the well, the tileworks, and at the harvest. And there was no easy remedy for her in law…a wife was not free to remarry in the absence of her husband, no matter how many years had elapsed, unless she had certain proof of his death.

Related Characters: Bertrande de Rols
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

What hope might the Protestant message have offered to the new Martin and Bertrande during the years they were living together as “true married people”? That they could tell their story to God alone and need not communicate it to any human intermediary. That the life they had willfully fabricated was part of God’s providence.

Related Characters: Bertrande de Rols, Arnaud du Tilh
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

She had tried to fashion her life as best she could, using all the leeway and imagination she had as a woman. But she was also proud of her honor and her virtue and was, as she would say later in court, God-fearing. She wanted to live as a mother and family woman at the center of village society. She wanted her son to inherit.

Related Characters: Bertrande de Rols
Page Number: 60
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

If [Bertrande] had wanted to betray [Arnaud] at this point, all she had to do was tell a story he could not repeat; instead she adhered to the text they had agreed upon months before.

Related Characters: Bertrande de Rols, Arnaud du Tilh
Page Number: 76
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

Even on the ladder up to the gibbet he was talking, preaching to the man who would take his place not to be harsh with Bertrande. She was a woman of honor, virtue, and constancy, he could attest to it. As soon as she suspected him, she had driven him away.

Related Characters: Bertrande de Rols, Arnaud du Tilh
Page Number: 81
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

In Coras’s “comitragic” version…one can approve the cuckolding of the once impotent and now faraway husband. Here Arnaud du Tilh becomes a kind of hero, a more real Martin Guerre than the hard-hearted man with the wooden leg. The tragedy is more in his unmasking than in his imposture.

Related Characters: Martin Guerre, Bertrande de Rols, Arnaud du Tilh, Jean de Coras
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:
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Bertrande de Rols Quotes in The Return of Martin Guerre

The The Return of Martin Guerre quotes below are all either spoken by Bertrande de Rols or refer to Bertrande de Rols. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Identity and Property Theme Icon
).
Preface and Introduction Quotes

But we still know rather little about the peasants’ hopes and feelings; the ways in which they experienced the relation between husband and wife, parent and child; the ways in which they experienced the constraints and possibilities of their lives. We often think of peasants as not having had much in the way of choices, but is this in fact true? Did individual villagers ever try to fashion their lives in unusual and unexpected ways?

Related Characters: Martin Guerre, Bertrande de Rols, Arnaud du Tilh
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

[W]hen urged by her relatives to separate from Martin, she firmly refused. Here we come to certain character traits of Bertrande de Rols, which she was already displaying in her sixteenth year: a concern for her reputation as a woman, a stubborn independence, and a shrewd realism about how she could maneuver within the constraints placed upon one of her sex. Her refusal to have her marriage dissolved, which might well have been followed by another marriage at her parents’ behest, freed her temporarily from certain wifely duties. It gave her a chance to have a girlhood with Martin’s younger sisters, with whom she got on well. And she could get credit for her virtue.

Related Characters: Bertrande de Rols
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

Bertrande’s status was much reduced by all these events. Neither wife nor widow, she was under the same roof with her mother again. Neither wife nor widow, she had to face the other village women at the mill, the well, the tileworks, and at the harvest. And there was no easy remedy for her in law…a wife was not free to remarry in the absence of her husband, no matter how many years had elapsed, unless she had certain proof of his death.

Related Characters: Bertrande de Rols
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

What hope might the Protestant message have offered to the new Martin and Bertrande during the years they were living together as “true married people”? That they could tell their story to God alone and need not communicate it to any human intermediary. That the life they had willfully fabricated was part of God’s providence.

Related Characters: Bertrande de Rols, Arnaud du Tilh
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

She had tried to fashion her life as best she could, using all the leeway and imagination she had as a woman. But she was also proud of her honor and her virtue and was, as she would say later in court, God-fearing. She wanted to live as a mother and family woman at the center of village society. She wanted her son to inherit.

Related Characters: Bertrande de Rols
Page Number: 60
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

If [Bertrande] had wanted to betray [Arnaud] at this point, all she had to do was tell a story he could not repeat; instead she adhered to the text they had agreed upon months before.

Related Characters: Bertrande de Rols, Arnaud du Tilh
Page Number: 76
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

Even on the ladder up to the gibbet he was talking, preaching to the man who would take his place not to be harsh with Bertrande. She was a woman of honor, virtue, and constancy, he could attest to it. As soon as she suspected him, she had driven him away.

Related Characters: Bertrande de Rols, Arnaud du Tilh
Page Number: 81
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

In Coras’s “comitragic” version…one can approve the cuckolding of the once impotent and now faraway husband. Here Arnaud du Tilh becomes a kind of hero, a more real Martin Guerre than the hard-hearted man with the wooden leg. The tragedy is more in his unmasking than in his imposture.

Related Characters: Martin Guerre, Bertrande de Rols, Arnaud du Tilh, Jean de Coras
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis: