The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard Illustrated

Brigadier Gerard is the comedic hero of a series of 17 historical short stories, a play, and a major character in a novel by the British writer Arthur Conan Doyle. Gerard tells the stories from the point of view of an old man now living in retirement in Paris. We discover that he was born in Gascony in the early. He first joins the 2nd Hussars - the Hussars of Chambering - around 1799, serving as a lieutenant and junior captain. He first sees action at Marengo in Italy in 1800. He transfers to the 3rd Hussars of Conflabs in 1807 as a senior captain. He speaks somewhat idiosyncratic English, having learned it from an officer of the Irish Brigade of the French Army. The fictional Gerard is not to be confused with the real Napoleonic officer Étienne Maurice Gérard (1777-1852), who rose to become a Marshal and later Prime Minister of France.