The Martin Guerre Story: A Non-Persian Source for Persian Letter CXLI

Abstract

In the table of contents of the Lettres persanes Montesquieu identified Letter CXLI as Conte persan: d'Anais et It is not surprising, then, that those who have sought the source of this letter have looked to exotic and erotic texts.1 While the Histoire du jeune roi de Thibet et de la princesse des naimans may have inspired Montesquieu, as Paul Verniere has suggested,2 I think it is more likely that a much less exotic, although no less strange, tale was the source for the story of Anais and Ibrahim. This was a story that was well known in the eighteenth century but one that most of us have only recently become familiar with: the story of Bertrande de Rols and Martin Guerre.3 The story of Martin Guerre, as anyone knows who has read Natalie Zemon Davis's excellent account or seen the wonderful film by Daniel Vigne, is both a histoire prodigieuse and an imposter tale.4 It is the story of a man who abandons his wife, Bertrande de Rols, and their infant child, to return only after another man, Arnaud du Tilh, has appeared on the scene and taken over his