The re-united pair lived together at Artigues for three years in apparent peace and happiness, and during this period two children were born to them.  But suddenly the wife Bertrande appeared before the magistrates of Rieux, and lodged a complaint against her husband, praying “that he might be condemned to make satisfaction to the king for a breach of his laws; to demand pardon of God, the king, and herself, in his shirt, with a lighted torch in his hand; declaring that he had falsely, rashly, and traitorously imposed upon her in assuming the name and passing himself upon her for Martin Guerre.”

The affair created no small stir in the neighbourhood, and the gossips were driven to their wits’ end to explain it.  Some asserted that, either through an old grudge or a recent quarrel, she had adopted this method of getting quit of her husband, while others maintained that she was naturally a woman of undecided character and opinions, and that, as at first she had been easily persuaded that this man was her husband, she had acted latterly on the suggestions and advice of Peter Guerre, her husband’s uncle, who pretended to have discovered that he was an impostor, and had recommended her to apply to the authorities.  The accused himself staunchly maintained that the charge was the result of a conspiracy between his wife and his uncle, and that the latter had contrived the plot with a view to possess himself of his effects.  That no doubt might remain as to his identity he gave an outline of his personal history from the time of his flight from home to the time of his arrest, stating the reasons which induced him to leave his wife in the first instance, and his adventures during his absence.  He said that for seven or eight years he had served the king in the wars; that he had then enlisted in the Spanish army; and that, having returned home, longing to see his wife and children, he had been welcomed without hesitation by his relations and acquaintances, and even by Peter Guerre, notwithstanding the alteration which time and camp-life had made in his appearance.  He declared, moreover, that his uncle had persistently quarrelled with him since his return, that blows had frequently been exchanged between them, and that thus an evil animus had been created against him.

In answer to the interrogatories of the judge, he unhesitatingly told the leading circumstances of his earlier life, mentioning trivial details, giving prominent dates glibly, and showing the utmost familiarity with petty as with important matters of family history.  As far as his marriage was concerned, he named the persons who were present at the nuptials, those who dined with them, their different dresses, the priest who performed the ceremony, all the little circumstances that happened that day and the next, and even named the people who presided at the bedding.  And, as if the official interrogatory were not sufficiently complete, he spoke, of his own accord, of his son Sanxi, and of the day he was born; of his own departure, of the persons he met on the road, of the towns he had passed through in France and Spain, and of people with whom he had become acquainted in both kingdoms.