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 and wrote the introduction to a 2001 collection of Gerard stories. Although rare, the Brigadier Gerard stories are still in print. Twin Engine Publishing HB, Barnes & Noble Books, Echo Library and New York Review Books are some contemporary publishers. In May 2008, Penguin Classics published the complete short stories as "The Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard" as part of their Read Red series. In 1915 a silent film "Brigadier Gerard" was made, directed by Bert Haldane with Lewis Waller in the title role. The French film "Un drame sous Napoléon" (1921), directed by Gérard Bourgeois, was a film