Joachim Martin

Joachim Martin (1842–1897) was a carpenter from the village of Les Crottes, in the French Alps, who left a secret diary underneath the floorboards of the Château de Picomtal [fr].^[1]

Diary

The diary is made up of 72 entries dated between 1880 and 1881. Varying between mundane observations and poignant personal opinions, the diary provides a frank look into the provincial lives of Martin and his neighbors. Among his revelations are the fact that another villager had committed infanticide multiple times and hidden the evidence under a stable. Martin refused to report the man, even when he tried to seduce Martin's wife, writing, "He's my old childhood friend. And his mother is my father's mistress."^[2]

The floorboards were excavated in the early 2000s,^[3] but the existence of the diary was not widely known until the publication of a book called Joaquim's Floorboard by historian Jacques-Olivier Boudon [fr]. He noted that the diary consists of "the words of an ordinary working man, a man of the people [...] saying things that are very personal, because he knows they will not ever be read except a long time in the future."^[2]

References