THE EXPLOITS OF BRIGADIER GERARD ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Garrett Alley, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
The Exploits of BRIGADIER GERARD
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
_This book is published by arrangement with the Estate of the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle_
1896
BY SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
_The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ _The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes_ _The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes_ _The Return of Sherlock Holmes_ _His Last Bow_ _The Hound of the Baskervilles_ _The Sign of Four_ _The Valley of Fear_ _Sir Nigel_ _The White Company_ _Micah Clarke_ _The Refugees_ _Rodney Stone_ _Uncle Bernac_ _Adventures of Gerard_ _The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard_ _The Lost World_ _The Tragedy of the Korosko_
OMNIBUS VOLUMES
_Great Stories_ _The Conan Doyle Stories_ _The Sherlock Holmes Short Stories_ _The Sherlock Holmes Long Stories_ _The Historical Romances_ _The Complete Professor Challenger Stories_ _The Complete Napoleonic Stories_
* * * * *
_The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle_
by John Dickson Carr
* * * * *
CONTENTS
1. How the Brigadier came to the Castle of Gloom
2. How the Brigadier slew the brothers of Ajaccio
3. How the Brigadier held the King
4. How the King held the Brigadier
5. How the Brigadier took the field against the Marshal Millefleurs
6. How the Brigadier played for a kingdom
7. How the Brigadier won his Medal
8. How the Brigadier was tempted by the Devil
1. HOW THE BRIGADIER CAME TO THE CASTLE OF GLOOM[A]
You do very well, my friends, to treat me with some little reverence, for in honouring me you are honouring both France and yourselves. It is not merely an old, grey-moustached officer whom you see eating his omelette or draining his glass, but it is a fragment of history. In me you see one of the last of those wonderful men, the men who were veterans when they were yet boys, who learned to use a sword earlier than a razor, and who during a hundred battles had never once let the enemy see the colour of their knapsacks. For twenty years we were teaching Europe how to fight, and even when they had learned their lesson it was only the thermometer, and never the bayonet, which could break the Grand Army down. Berlin, Naples, Vienna, Madrid, Lisbon, Moscow--we stabled our horses in them all. Yes, my friends, I say again that you do well to send your children to me with flowers, for these ears have heard the trumpet calls of France, and these eyes have seen her standards in lands where they may never be seen again.
Even now, when I doze in my arm-chair, I can see those great warriors stream before me--the green-jacketed chasseurs, the giant cuirassiers, Poniatowsky's lancers, the white-mantled dragoons, the nodding bearskins of the horse grenadiers. And then there comes the thick, low rattle of the drums, and through wreaths of dust and smoke I see the line of high bonnets, the row of brown faces, the swing and toss of the long, red plumes amid the sloping lines of steel. And there rides Ney with his red head, and Lefebvre with his bulldog jaw, and Lannes with his Gascon swagger; and then amidst the gleam of brass and the flaunting feathers I catch a glimpse of _him_, the man with the pale smile, the rounded shoulders, and the far-off eyes. There is an end of my sleep, my friends, for up I spring from my chair, with a cracked voice calling and a silly hand outstretched, so that Madame Titaux has one more laugh at the old fellow who lives among the shadows.
