The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

First published: 1905

Type of work: Adventure tale

Themes: Love and romance, politics and law, and war

Time of work: The fall of 1792

Recommended Ages: 15-18

Locale: England and France

Principal Characters:

• Sir Percy Blakeney, a British nobelman and seeming dilettante, who masquerades as the Scarlet Pimpernel
• Marguerite St. Just Blakeney, Sir Percy’s wife, a French-born beauty unaware of his underground activities
• Armand St. Just, the adored brother of Marguerite, who joins the Pimpernel’s cadre
• Chauvelin, the wily agent of the French government, who is dedicated to pursuing the Pimpernel
• Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, a nobleman-adventurer, who is a part of the Pimpernel’s trusted circle
• Suzanne de Tournay, a recently rescued Frenchwoman, who is enamored of Sir Andrew

The Story

In September, 1792, as the bloody Reign of Terror engulfs France in the aftermath of revolution, the legend of a meddlesome, mysterious figure flashes across the turbulent landscape to embarrass and infuriate the newly organized people’s government. Called the Scarlet Pimpernel for leaving as his taunting signature a replica of a small star-shaped flower drawn in red, this British adventurer, an acknowledged master at disguise, has, with his loyal group of associates, helped many a captured aristocrat escape the guillotine. French soldiers and civilian vigilantes, mocked by his daring exploits, are at the outset of this tale shamefully fooled as the Pimpernel and his cohorts safely extricate the condemned Comtesse de Tournay, her son, and her daughter, Suzanne, from under the shadow of “Madame Guillotine.” The fortunate escapees are deposited by Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, a close Pimpernel associate, at the Fisherman’s Rest Inn across the channel in Dover, England.

Arriving there to greet the de Tournays and to help celebrate their freedom are Sir Percy Blakeney and his accomplished wife Marguerite, a French-born lady of regal bearing. Blakeney appears to be an affable though dull-witted sportsman, a diffident dandy content to ease through life as a fashionable wastrel. Once passionately in love with his wife, Blakeney has cooled toward her after hearing a rumor that she had at one time betrayed an aristocratic French family to the revolution. Lady Blakeney senses the reason behind her spouse’s disapproval, yet, being shy, never explained how as a young girl she had been deceived into this inadvertent disclosure. Hurt, Marguerite has lately taken to insulting her distant, taciturn husband. Nevertheless, the banal, inept Sir Percy and the scintillating Marguerite are conspicuous at the apex of British society. When the Comtesse de Tournay notices Lady Blakeney at the Inn, however, the newly arrived French emigree turns aside in disgust and forbids her daughter to speak to Marguerite, though the young women had been classmates and friends a few years before.

Lady Blakeney sadly leaves the party and, outside, she meets her brother, Armand St. Just, who is about to cross over to France, ostensibly to continue working within the new French government. He does not tell his concerned sister, however, that he is actually returning to his homeland as an agent of the Scarlet Pimpernel to assist in the rescue of the Comte de Tournay, still trapped amidst the revolution.

Later that day, after Armand has sailed, Marguerite encounters Chauvelin, a notorious French agent, who has been dispatched to England to discover and eliminate the elusive Pimpernel. Boldly, he solicits the aid of the socially influential Marguerite, whom he regards as a loyal Frenchwoman. Angrily, she refuses. Warning her that he will not accept this rebuff as final, Chauvelin departs for London, the very destination of the Blakeneys and their circle, where over the next several days, they will attend first the opera and then Lord Grenville’s prestigious ball.

Meanwhile, Chauvelin’s accomplices assault and rob Sir Andrew of a Scarlet Pimpernel message which, unfortunately, incriminates Armand St. Just, now on French soil, as a member of this underground conspiracy and a traitor to France. With this information in hand, Chauvelin approaches Marguerite at the opera; she, alarmed at the potential danger to her brother, allows herself to be blackmailed into helping the French agent track down the Pimpernel. At Lord Grenville’s ball, Marguerite shrewdly manages to intercept a note meant for Sir Andrew; the content reveals that the Pimpernel himself will depart alone the next morning for France and that the very evening of the ball, he will appear in a vacated dining room. Reluctantly, Marguerite passes the information on to Chauvelin, who, hastening to the designated area just before the scheduled hour, finds to his disappointment only the lazy Sir Percy sound asleep in a comfortable chair. Chauvelin sits to await the presumed imminent arrival of his prey, but the Frenchman too falls asleep, awakening a short time later to an empty room.

Directly after their return to the sumptuous Blakeney estate after the ball, Sir Percy informs Marguerite that he must leave for a while on business. When he rides off into the night, the deserted lady feels remorseful for her acerbic treatment of him and, wishing at that moment simply to feel his presence, walks into his private sanctum, where she has never been before. There, Marguerite discovers scholarly volumes not in keeping with Sir Percy’s light-minded persona, several maps of Paris, and a gold ring embossed with a small star-shaped flower—the insignia known to all England and France. She realizes then that her husband has been merely pretending to be a careless, thoughtless ne’er-do-well, that he is in fact the Scarlet Pimpernel, now alone on his way into enemy territory, and she has inadvertently betrayed him.

Enlisting the help of Sir Andrew, Marguerite, piecing together information about her husband’s itinerary, rushes to Dover, but failing to catch up with Blakeney there, she crosses to Calais, from which coastal point she has learned the Pimpernel intends to arrange the flight to England of the Comte de Tournay and Armand St. Just. Chauvelin and his group of zealots appear; their British nemesis is now fully known to them and is surely doomed. The resourceful Pimpernel, though, with audacious guile and ingenious disguise, slips the French trap and escapes to fulfill his mission, learning along the way of Lady Blakeney’s courageous efforts to save him. Sir Percy regards his wife with new admiration and respect. Marguerite has cleared her reputation, and the couple happily begins to reestablish the warm mutuality of their love.

Context

The Scarlet Pimpernel has endured generations because its universal concerns of crossed identities, disguises and masquerades, heroism and loyalty, and love and trust embody eternal human verities. So engaging, in fact, was Baroness Orczy’s creation of Sir Percy Blakeney that a number of sequels featuring his intriguing persona followed, including The Elusive Pimpernel (1908), The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1922), and The Way of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1933), all well-received derring-do tales about the French Revolution and featuring many of the same characters from the original novel. The furtive, shadowy atmosphere of mystery and suspense depicted within a romantic aura of lovers who finally acknowledge the depth of their passion has made this novel especially popular among young readers. The expertly orchestrated combination of adventure and romance has, indeed, sustained The Scarlet Pimpernel’s appeal to the youthful.

Though the agent-in-disguise had by 1905 come to be a staple of penny-dreadful fiction in England and dime-novel adventure in the United States, Orczy’s characters struck a responsive psychological chord in her readership. Sir Percy epitomizes strength, power used well, and heroism directed toward justice, along with the ability to be simultaneously public and private. Marguerite similarly appears to embody parallel—and paradoxical—traits: She is reckless and safe, adventurous and protected, powerful and submissive. The lives of both are entwined with quests defined in chivalric terms of the knight and his lady, the warrior and his inspiration— archetypes deeply rooted in the human psyche. Therefore, readers willingly suspend disbelief and enter for a few hours the world of the late eighteenth century, certain that honor, justice, and love will ultimately prevail.