to these extraordinary calumnies originated by my enemy."

The judge was a good deal impressed by so much assurance. The accused
was relegated to prison, whence he was brought two days later to
encounter a formal examination.

He began by explaining the cause of his long absence, originating,
he said, in a domestic quarrel, as his wife well remembered. He there
related his life during these eight years. At first he wandered over the
country, wherever his curiosity and the love of travel led him. He
then had crossed the frontier, revisited Biscay, where he was born, and
having entered the service of the Cardinal of Burgos, he passed thence
into the army of the King of Spain. He was wounded at the battle of
St. Quentin, conveyed to a neighbouring village, where he recovered,
although threatened with amputation. Anxious to again behold his wife
and child, his other relations and the land of his adoption, he returned
to Artigues, where he was immediately recognised by everyone, including
the identical Pierre Guerre, his uncle, who now had the cruelty to
disavow him. In fact, the latter had shown him special affection up to
the day when Martin required an account of his stewardship. Had he
only had the cowardice to sacrifice his money and thereby defraud
his children, he would not to-day be charged as an impostor. "But,"
continued Martin, "I resisted, and a violent quarrel ensued, in which
anger perhaps carried me too far; Pierre Guerre, cunning and revengeful,
has waited in silence. He has taken his time and his measures to
organise this plot, hoping thereby to obtain his ends, to bring justice
to the help of his avarice, and to acquire the spoils he coveted,
and revenge for his defeat, by means of a sentence obtained from the
scruples of the judges." Besides these explanations, which did
not appear wanting in probability, Martin vehemently protested his
innocence, demanding that his wife should be confronted with him, and
declaring that in his presence she would not sustain the charge of
personation brought against him, and that her mind not being animated
by the blind hatred which dominated his persecutor, the truth would
undoubtedly prevail.

He now, in his turn, demanded that the judge should acknowledge his
innocence, and prove it by condemning his calumniators to the punishment
invoked against himself; that his wife, Bertrande de Rolls, should be
secluded in some house where her mind could no longer be perverted,