Apparently Chauvelin was a real person as well -- presumably Orczy used the French Ambassador of the period, a very minor historical personage, as a likely figure to be entrusted by his government with the task of identifying and neutralising her fictional anti-Republican protagonist, and then when the series took off she continued developing her existing character as an ongoing antagonist. (She certainly wouldn't have expected readers of popular thrillers in the early 20th century to know anything about his historical antecedents!)
Glancing back at "The Scarlet Pimpernel" I observe that Chauvelin's eyes have apparently changed colour over the intervening years from 'pale yellow' to 'grey' (nowadays, of course, the mark of the Romantic Hero, but in Orczy's day it would have been blue ;-) And of course his atypical penchant for wearing simple black when the fashion was for peacock colours and expensive dyes would, a generation later, become the mark of exquisite taste. Clearly born out of his time :-p But I'm afraid being short and scrawny has never been fashionable...
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timeasmymeasure
Chauvelin
Date: 2024-10-20 02:20 pm (UTC)Glancing back at "The Scarlet Pimpernel" I observe that Chauvelin's eyes have apparently changed colour over the intervening years from 'pale yellow' to 'grey' (nowadays, of course, the mark of the Romantic Hero, but in Orczy's day it would have been blue ;-) And of course his atypical penchant for wearing simple black when the fashion was for peacock colours and expensive dyes would, a generation later, become the mark of exquisite taste. Clearly born out of his time :-p
But I'm afraid being short and scrawny has never been fashionable...