The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard Illustrated

The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard Sir Arthur Conan DoyleYou do very well, my friends, to treat me with some little reverence, for in honouring me you are honouringboth France and yourselves. It is not merely an old, grey-moustached officer whom you see eating hisomelette or draining his glass, but it is a fragment of history. In me you see one of the last of those wonderfulmen, 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 twentyyears we were teaching Europe how to fight, and even when they had learned their lesson it was only thethermometer, 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 tosend your children to me with flowers, for these ears have heard the trumpet calls of France, and these eyeshave seen her standards in lands where they may never be seen again. Even now, when I doze in my armchair, 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 thenthere comes the thick, low rattle of the drums, and through wreaths of dust and smoke I see the line of highbonnets, 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 Gasconswagger; and then amidst the gleam of brass and the flaunting feathers I catch a glimpse of him, the manwith the pale smile, the rounded shoulders, and the far-off eyes. There is an end of my sleep, my friends, forup I spring from my chair, with a cracked voice calling and a silly hand outstretched, so that Madame Titauxhas one more laugh at the old fellow who lives among the shadows