Brigadier Gerard Brigadier Gerard Brigadier Gerard is the hero of a series of 17 historical short stories, a play, and a major character in a novel by the British writer Arthur Conan Doyle. The hero, Etienne Gerard, is a Hussar officer in the French Army during the Napoleonic Wars. Gerard's most notable attribute is his vanity – he is utterly convinced that he is the bravest soldier, greatest swordsman, most accomplished horseman and most gallant lover in all France. Gerard is not entirely wrong, since he displays notable bravery on many occasions, but his self-satisfaction undercuts this quite often. Obsessed with honour
Brigadier Gerard between December 1894 and September 1903. They were later issued in two volumes: "The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard" in February 1896 and "The Adventures of Gerard" in September 1903. Some of the titles were changed on re-publication. The last story, "The Marriage of the Brigadier", was published in September 1910. All the stories were published in "The Complete Brigadier Gerard" in 1995, which includes the story "A Foreign Office Romance" (1894) – a precursor to the stories, but not actually featuring Gerard. George McDonald Fraser cited Brigadier Gerard as a major inspiration for his own fictional comedic adventurer Harry Flashman,