Du Tilh's Piety In The Return Of Martin Guerre

Davis also implausibly proposes the belief that Bertrande and du Tilh essentially plotted together in order for their story to realistically hold up in court. According to Davis, the exceptionally personal information that du Tilh was able to cite could have come from no other source but Bertrande. She also argues that it was impossible for a woman to not recognize the touch of her husband. She also uses language at times that presents information as more assured than she has a right to as a historian, such as, “By the time she had received him into her bed, she must have realized the difference…” (Davis 44) and “Either by explicit or tacit agreement, she helped him become her husband.” (Davis 44). Also, Davis focuses on the fact that du …show more content…
Davis calls her piety into question, even claiming that it is extremely possible that she may have turned toward Protestantism in light of the situation. She has very little support for this opinion, and it is most likely a biased conclusion she drew in order to support her claims. Her questionable reasoning for this thought is that Bertrande may have used the differences between the Catholic and Protestant Churches regarding the institution of marriage to her benefit in The Return of Martin Guerre. In claiming that Bertrande may have become a Protestant due to these differences, she implies that Bertrande was entirely aware of the charade. She argues that Bertrande and du Tilh’s marriage becomes legitimatized when viewed in the light of the Protestant definition of marriage. In the Catholic Church, du Tilh and de Rol’s marriage would have little to no chance of ever becoming a legitimized marriage, but in the Protestant church it almost effortlessly would have been considered legitimate. The Catholic Church required that a reading of the banns as well as a performance of the sacrament by a parish priest precede a valid marriage. What made a marriage in the mind of Protestants were the consent of the partners, and their consent alone. So, according to Davis, the Protestant faith may have roughly justified Betrande's actions in her own pious mind. “Bertrande would have had difficulty in squaring possible bigamy with her sense of honor, not to mention her conscience. But it did allow them the possibility of conceiving of marriage as something that was in their hands to make indeed, as in their hands alone.” (Davis 47) Davis, once again, should restrain from drawing conclusions such as these without some sort of concrete firsthand evidence. Davis appears to underestimate the extreme piety of Bertrande after her husband abandoned her. She