The Adventures of Gerard Preface

**Arthur Conan Doyle** (0:00)
Preface to The Adventures of Gerard This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit librivox.org. The Adventures of Gerard by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Preface I hope that some readers may possibly be interested in these little tales of the Napoleonic soldiers, to the extent of following them up to the springs from which they flow. The age was rich in military material, some of it the most human and most picturesque that I have ever read. Setting aside historical works or the biographies of the leaders, there is a mass of evidence written by the actual fighting men themselves, which describes their feelings and their experiences, stated always from the point of view of the particular branch of the service to which they belonged. The cavalry were particularly happy in their writers of memoirs. Thus, de Roca, in his Memoirs sur la Guerre des Français en Espagne, has given the narrative of a hussar, while de Nelly, in his Memoirs sur la Guerre des Spagnes, gives the same campaign from the point of view of the Dragoon. Then we have the Souvenirs Militaires de Colonel de Gonville, which treats a series of wars, including that of Spain, as seen from under the steel-brimmed, hair-crested helmet of a Carassier.
Preeminent among all these works, and among all military memoirs, are the famous reminiscences of Marbeau, which can be obtained in an English form. Marbeau was a chasseur, so again we obtain the cavalry point of view. Among other books which help one to an understanding of the Napoleonic soldier, I would specially recommend Les Cahiers de Capitaine Cognier, which treat the wars from the point of view of the privates of the guards and les memoirs du Sgt Bourgand, who was a non-commissioned officer in the same corpse.
The Journal of Sgt. Fricasse and the recollections of de Fezna and of de Segeur complete the materials from which I have worked in my endeavour to give a true historical and military atmosphere to an imaginary figure. Arthur Conan Doyle, March 1903 End of preface