Riou (1883-1958) was a French Protestant writer, a pacifist who held pro-European views, and a politician who served as deputy in his native Ardeche in the first district of Privas from 1936-42. At the outbreak of the First World War he was one of the first to serve at the front, taking part in fighting in Lorraine and being mentioned in dispatches. He was wounded at the battle of Dieuze and taken prisoner, and spent 11 months incarcerated in a Bavarian fortress. This account of his imprisonment from 1914-15 was widely praised when first published in 1916.