The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard

The hero, Etienne Gerard, is a Hussar officer in the French Army during the Napoleonic Wars whose most notable attribute is his vanity. 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.