Brigadier Gerard and glory, he is always ready with a stirring speech or a gallant remark to a lady. Conan Doyle, in making his hero a vain, and often rather uncomprehending, Frenchman, was able to satirise both the stereotypical English view of the French and – by presenting them from Gerard's baffled point of view – English manners and attitudes. 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 1780s (he is 25 in "How the Brigadier Captured Saragossa"). In "How
Brigadier Gerard (horse) was never any doubt when he got going. His neck was in front a quarter of a mile out and that was that’. John Lawrence (Lord Oaksey): He took a moment to find his full stride and Mercer tapped him once. But the response was more than he or anyone can have expected. For in 100 yards racing down the hill into the dip, Brigadier Gerard brushed aside the two colts who last year dominated European two year old racing. They finished together far ahead of the others, but he was three lengths clear and going away, as decisive and