SOURCE: Hufton, Olwen. “Coming Back.” History Today 34 (April 1984): 55.

In the following review of The Return of Martin Guerre, Hufton suggests that the Guerre story sheds light on many aspects of village life in sixteenth-century France.

The preoccupation of historians with popular mentalities continues to grow. This study [The Return of Martin Guerre] focuses on a notorious case tried before two courts in 1560 which has formed the basis of law treatises, an operetta, a novel and now a film and is a tale set in a Pyrenean village. Martin Guerre, a young peasant who quarrelled with his uncle over a theft of grain, tired of his marriage and his life in the village and abandoned his wife, to serve in Spain as a domestic and later as a soldier. During his long absence, he was replaced by an imposter who had heard of his disappearance, mastered his curriculum vitae...