Part I Summary

Major Richard Sharpe continues his military career during the invasion of France, participating in the siege of Toulouse, until Napoleon abdicates. Sharpe is then embroiled in legal troubles stemming from a plot hatched by his rival Pierre Ducos. Sharpe travels over much of France and to the Kingdom of Naples to hunt down Ducos, exact his revenge, and clear his good name. In the process, his marriage to Jane dissolves and his Friendship with William Frederickson is ruined.

Part I consists of a prologue and three enumerated chapters. The prologue serves to establish the novel's overall narrative arc and welds the current novel to events transpiring in a previous novel in the series of novels. Following a successful invasion into southwestern France, the British arm organizes to march on Toulouse. Jane demands Sharpe resign his commission and return to England with...