André Martin's forged identity papers

André Martin's forged identity papers give the Jackal more than a name: they make his disguise legible to the authorities as an ordinary, documented life. Prepared in the Brussels weapons-preparation stop and used during the manhunt, the cards help him pass a checkpoint despite the scrutiny of Pierre Valremy, a CRS guard.

Preparation and Intended Identity

Later, in Jules Bernard's bedroom, the Jackal lays out his clothing and equipment for the next stage of his plan. Among the veteran's worn shoes, military greatcoat, campaign ribbons, and black beret, he places false papers forged in the Brussels weapons-preparation stop. The documents are designed for the identity represented by the clothes: André Martin, a French war veteran.

The papers belong to a larger, carefully assembled disguise. The Jackal also lays out a light webbing harness and the five steel tubes concealing the parts of his rifle. He removes the cordite pencils from two explosive bullets and discards their now-useless cartridge cases, keeping three bullets. In this arrangement, the identity cards are neither incidental paperwork nor a separate disguise: they are part of the equipment that will let him appear to belong in the streets of Paris.

What the Cards Claim

At a checkpoint, the Jackal presents two cards. Both identify him as André Martin, a French citizen aged fifty-three, born at Colmar in Alsace and resident in Paris. One card bears the designation of a war-disabled veteran. The photographs show the same man, though they were taken at different times, giving the documents the appearance of a consistent identity supported by more than one image.

The details reinforce the physical performance. When asked to remove his beret, the Jackal complies; Pierre Valremy compares his face with the photographs and accepts the match. The scene makes the papers' function concrete: their claims must survive a face-to-face check, and the disguise supplies the visual and bodily cues that make those claims plausible.

Use at the Checkpoint

Asked why he wants to pass, the Jackal says that he lives nearby, is retired on a pension, and has an attic. Valremy checks the address on the identity card: 154 Rue de Rennes, Paris 6eme. The building above them is numbered 132, but Valremy reasons that 154 must be farther down the road. With no order forbidding an old man from going home, he returns the cards and lets the Jackal through.

The papers therefore succeed not by ending scrutiny, but by giving a brief inspection an ordinary explanation. A minor discrepancy in the surrounding street numbers does not expose the deception; instead, Valremy's plausible assumption closes the check. His warning not to get into mischief, and his expectation that Big Charlie will arrive later, underline how the Jackal passes through a controlled space while the search continues around him.

Role in the Manhunt

The André Martin papers belong to a sequence of identities that frustrates the search. Earlier, French records had yielded travel and hotel information under the name Alexander James Quentin Duggan, including an entry into France on the Brabant Express from Brussels on July 22 and a stay near the Place de la Madeleine. Those records let investigators reconstruct part of the traveler's earlier movements, but they do not prevent him from adopting a new identity for the later escape attempt.

By contrast, the response to the car found near Ussel is organized around a description rather than a verified name: Claude Lebel directs local officers to search farmhouses, shops, cafés, hotels, and woodcutters' shacks for a tall blond Englishman carrying luggage and cash. The false cards offer the Jackal a way to pass as someone outside that description. Their importance is thus practical and temporary: they do not erase the manhunt or establish a lasting identity, but at the checkpoint they turn a dangerous encounter into permission to go on.