m, that would cause me sorrow.

My dear father, you are nearing the time-post of ninety years, with
great health and cheerfulness; it is my hope you may top the arch of
your good and honourable life with a century key-stone.

Believe me, sir,

Your affectionate son,

GILBERT PARKER.

15th September, 1894, 7 Park Place,
St. James's S.W.

INTRODUCTION

THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD

This book, like Mrs. Falchion, was published in two volumes in January.
That was in 1894. It appeared first serially in the Illustrated London
News, for which paper, in effect, it was written, and it also appeared
in a series of newspapers in the United States during the year 1893.
This was a time when the historical novel was having its vogue. Mr.
Stanley Weyman, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and a good many others were
following the fashion, and many of the plays at the time were also
historical--so-called. I did not write The Trail of the Sword because it
was in keeping with the spirit of the moment. Fashion has never in the
least influenced my writing or my literary purposes. Whatever may be
thought of my books, they represent nothing except my own bent of mind,
my own wilful expression of myself, and the setting forth of that which
seized my imagination.

I wrote The Trail of the Sword because the early history of the
struggles between the French and English and the North American
Continent interested me deeply and fascinated my imagination. Also, I
had a most intense desire to write of the Frenchman of the early days
of the old regime; and I have no idea why it was so, because I have no
French blood in my veins nor any trace of French influence in my family.
There is, however, the Celtic strain, the Irish blood, immediate of the
tang, as it were, and no doubt a sympathy between the Celtic and the
Gallic strain is very near, and has a tendency to become very dear. It
has always been a difficulty for me to do anything except show the more
favourable side of French character and life.

I am afraid that both in The Trail of the Sword, which was the
forerunner of The Seats of the Mighty, the well sunk, in a sense, out of
which the latter was drawn, I gave my Frenchman the advantage over
his English rival. In The Trail of the Sword, the gallant French
adventurer's chivalrous but somewhat merciless soul, makes a better
picture than does his more phlegmatic but brave and honou