Talk:The Adventures of Gerard

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Edition:	(For proofreading) Smith, Elder & Co, London, 1908
Source:	(For proofreading) Internet Archive
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Notes:	Used this edition to proofread as it was the only one having the French quotation in the title page.
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Reviews

• The Outlook, December 1903

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as we must now call the creator of the Sherlock Holmes tradition, has written a series of stirring experiences in "The Adventures of Gerard" (McClure, Phillips & Co.), and added a new character to the gallery of portraits in modern fiction. Conan Doyle always does his work well, even when he is dealing with what appears to be purely popular material. "Micah Clarke" and "The White Company" disclosed the seriousness of his endeavor to give fiction solidity and semi-historical value. Familiarity with the personal records of the Napoleonic era has enabled him to sketch in Gerard the soldier of fortune who followed the Emperor over half of Europe, and whose life in camp and on the march has fashioned a distinct type of man, bold alike in fact and in fiction, boastful, unmoral, gifted with a pictorial imagination which invests his own exploits with the audacity of his great commander's genius, and ready on slight provocation to tell the amazing story of his career with high regard to dramatic effectiveness and innocent disregard of fact. The stories lack the buoyant and spontaneous inventiveness of the master of the fiction of adventure, Dumas the great; they are not as well told as the Sherlock Holmes tales, but they are very entertaining.

• The Bookman (UK), December 1903

Pretty well everybody knows the name of Brigadier Gerard by now, and those who have not yet made acquaintance with his adventures are to be envied the good reading they have still in store. Boastful and imaginative, almost, as Munchausen, daring and fearless as any hero known to the worlds of fact or fiction, the Brigadier relates his unparalleled triumphs and hairbreadth escapes as a soldier in the service of the great Napoleon with a racy humour, a vivid picturesqueness, an eye for dramatic effect, and a breezy belief in himself that is admirably characteristic of the man. The stories are written with a gusto, and take an instant grip on the reader's interest and never let it slacken till the end. They are every whit as enthralling as the Sherlock Holmes stories, and they are finished with a literary skill that gives them place on that selecter shelf of Sir Conan Doyle's works to which the inimitable detective is not admitted.

• The Bookman, November 1903

In one the stories of the earlier series narrating the adventures of the Brigadier Etienne Gerard—the story which told how the Gascon Colonel of Hussars and his friend and enemy the English "Bart" joined forces to hunt down the infamous Marechal Millefleurs—the Brigadier discoursed philosophically about the comparative valour of different nations. Each country liked to think and to boast that its own men possessed more bravery than the men of any other land. This, the Brigadier thought, was false and prejudicial. He had warred in many lands, he had fought against the Russians on the Beresina, the Austrians at Wagram, and the red-coated English in Portugal and Spain, and he felt himself qualified to say authoritatively that the men of all nations were equally brave. "Except", he added with delicious innocence, "that the French have rather more courage than the rest." If we knew nothing more than this of Colonel Etienne Gerard we should still have the foundations on which mentally to build up a fine and amusing character. We could readily deduce his valour, his geniality, his pleasant vanity, his devotion to women, and his unfaltering belief in his own irresistibility where any one of the sex, young or old, was concerned. We should know him as a dashing and valiant soldier, a loyal friend and a humane enemy.

To any one who has followed the work and methods of Conan Doyle carefully the preface of the present volume will be of interest. In it the author gives credit to the sources whence he drew the atmosphere and spirit of his stories. He mentions De Rocca's Mémoires sur la guerre des Français en Espagne, Souvenirs Militaires du Colonel de Gonneville, Les Cahiers du Capitaine Coignet, Les Mémoires du Sergeant Bourgoyne, the Journal of Sergeant Fricasse, and the Recollections of de Fézenac and of de Ségur and the Reminiscences of Marbot. To any one who has read Froissart in connection with The White Company, and Pugilistica and Boxiana in connection with Rodney Stone it will be perfectly apparent that if one were to go through the books to which Conan Doyle gives credit in the present volume, one would find at every turn familiar characters, bits of incident, scraps of conversation which have been incorporated in the two books dealing with the adventures of the Brigadier.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes was in the general estimation not quite up to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and it is to be doubted that The Return of Sherlock Holmes will prove as good as either. On the other hand, the second book about Brigadier Gerard seems to be rather an improvement on the first. There are at least three stories of the new collection as entertaining as "How the Brigadier Slew the Brothers of Ajaccio," which was perhaps the best of the tales in the earlier book. On the other hand, the story of "How the Brigadier Triumphed in England" is much inferior to the earlier one treating of that country and showing how the Brigadier made his escape from Dartmoor Prison and undertook to chastise physically the famous Buxton Bruiser.

In neither the old series nor the new is there a story told with more dash and variety of incident than that of "How the Brigadier Saved the Army." It told of a time when disasters were falling thick and fast on the French arms in Spain. Napoleon's marshals were at each other's throats. Ney hated Masseria, and Massena hated Junot, and Soult hated them all. The English armies under Wellington so long bottled up in Portugal were beginning to assume the offensive, while the country about swarmed with the fiendish guerrillas who murdered those of the invading army who fell into their hands with hideous cruelty and ingenuity. There was one especial scoundrel, a guerrilla chief named Manuelo, "The Smiler," whose exploits filled the French soldiers with horror and dread. At length becoming more and more entangled in his difficulties Massena decided on a retreat. But one of the divisions, an army of fourteen thousand men, was far to the south, and it was necessary to inform this division of the move lest it would be left unsupported in the very heart of the enemy's country. For this purpose a beacon had some time before been prepared at the top of a hill, but this hill had fallen into the possession of the "Smiler" and his band. Two of Massena's trusted officers had already started out in attempts to light the beacon, and neither had returned. So Massena sent for the Brigadier and entrusted to him the desperate task of setting aflame the fire that was to save the isolated army.

It is quite superfluous to say that in accomplishing his purpose, the Brigadier meets many adventures and dares many perils. Trapped almost at the outset by a group of murderous peasants, he escapes by diving headlong into an empty barrel and rolling down hill. Captured again, he is led into the dread presence of the "Smiler," who in exchange for certain information as to the numbers and plans of the French troops gives him the privilege of choosing the manner in which way he shall die. Through the mind of the Brigadier there flashes an inspiration—a glorious inspiration. If he must die it shall be a death that shall go down in history, and an example of heroism that would be a lesson to the army which it will save. "I choose to die just one minute before midnight," he tells his captor. "As for the method, I love a death that all the world can see. Put me on yonder beacon and burn me alive, as saints and martyrs have been burned before me. That is no common end, but one which an Emperor might envy."

Almost all these stories treat of the years when Napoleon's power was waning. From Spain Gerard goes to Russia, shares in the disastrous invasion and performs another of his desperate tasks during the retreat. On the forenoon of Waterloo he has his share of the battle, but long before the fortunes of the day begin to turn he is dispatched by the Emperor with a message to Grouchy. Surrounded by the Prussian Army he hides in the attic of an inn and overhears a plot for the capture and destruction of the Emperor. This plot Gerard foils by his consummate daring and horsemanship. In the last story of the volume, the last that we shall probably ever hear from the Brigadier, there is a touch of pathos which is exceedingly effective. It is six years since the Emperor was sent to the barren rock of St. Helena, and there comes to Gerard at "The Sign of the Great Man"—the café frequented by him and other Napoleonic officers, one Captain Fourneau, who unfolds a plot to liberate the Emperor from his exile and to bring him back to France. The Brig Black Swan is fitted out and after a long voyage the Brigadier sets foot on St. Helena. But it is too late. When Gerard finds the Emperor it is his dead face that he looks upon.

And so I tell you in one evening how I bade good-bye to my master, and I take my leave also of you, my kind friends, who have listened so patiently to the long-winded stories of an old broken soldier. Russia, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and England, you have gone with me to all these countries, and you have seen through my dim eyes something of the sparkle and splendor of those great days, and I have brought back to you some shadow of those men whose tread shook the earth. Treasure it in your minds and pass it on to your children, for the memory of a great age is the most precious treasure that a nation can possess. As the tree is nurtured by its own cast leaves so it is these dead men in vanished days which may bring out another blossoming of heroes, of rulers, and of sages. I go to Gascony, but my words stay here in your memory, and long after Etienne Gerard is forgotten a heart may be warmed or a spirit braced by some faint echo of the words that he has spoken. Gentlemen, an old soldier salutes you and bids you farewell.

Arthur Bartlett Maurice