Possessed "of a passion weary of itself", elderly ex-privateer Peyrol is driven by "a sudden impulse of scorn, of magnanimity" to engage in a mortally perilous exploit designed to trick Admiral Nelson into lifting his blockade of the French coast during the Napoleonic wars. The immediate backdrop of this tale's action is an horrific, politically-driven massacre that took place in Toulon in 1793, and which has greatly affected the lives of the small community amongst whom Peyrol has subsequently settled in his retirement. 

It is probably not a coincidence that this novel, Conrad's last, was written soon after the Great War, in which Conrad's own son Borys served as an artillery officer, including at the Somme. Conrad's theme is the psychological disfigurement caused when we suffer, or inflict, great trauma, and the high price that must be paid thereafter to achieve any possible redemption. 

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