The New International Encyclopædia/Aimard, Gustave

AIMARD, ā̇′mär′, Gustave (1818-83). A French novelist. He shipped to America as a cabin-boy, spent ten years among the Indians of the western prairies, and traveled in Spain, Turkey, and the Caucasus. In 1848 he was in Paris, and an officer of the Garde Mobile. At the time of the Franco-German war, he organized, and for a while commanded, the so-called "francs-tireurs of the press." He is sometimes called the French Fenimore Cooper. He published many adventure stories, for the most part improbable but interesting. The list, many volumes of which have been translated into English, includes: Les trappeurs de l'Arkansas (1858); Le grand chef des Aneas (1858); Les pirates de la prairie (1859), and Les scalpeurs blanes (1873).