![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlode"The Elusive Pimpernel" in an odd sense serves as a sequel in parallel to *both* the original novel "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and to its follow-up, "I Will Repay"; it is far closer to the former in setting and content, being a return to the familiar characters and tropes of the original hit, and yet the beginning of the story directly references the events of "I Will Repay", and uses Juliette Marny and her family jewels as a trigger for the main plot. (Although the brief allusions that do occur don't actually appear all that consistent -- I would guess that the author didn't reread her own work!)
In this book we get to see for the first time the after-effects of the events of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" upon Marguerite Blakeney's marriage, and their public life in England now that she knows the truth about her husband. The secret is still closely guarded, but while his ostensible attitude towards her has not changed ("No one could assert that Sir Percy was anything but politely indifferent to his wife's obvious attentions"), she has made no attempt to conceal her new happiness, or the fact that, "contrary to all usages and customs of London society", she is clearly passionately in love with her own husband. The fashionable world is bemused, but suspects nothing; Marguerite continues to make fun of his supposed dull wits, and he to play his role precisely as before. Only, of course, she now has to live with the knowledge that during those absences from home during which the world presumes him to be neglecting her -- "fishing in Scotland or shooting in Yorkshire" -- he is instead risking his neck in France for the sake of complete strangers, and, ultimately, however much he may love her, for the pure thrill of the adventure.
We also get to find out what happened to Chauvelin as a result of his humiliating failure at the hands of the Pimpernel a year earlier. From the complete absence of his name from among the various influential members of the Republican establishment who feature in "I Will Repay", and the executions there for generals who failed to win battles or accusers who failed to secure convictions, one might perhaps have assumed that he had duly paid with his life for his blunder. (Though despite the threats issued in the direction of Citizen-Deputy Merlin, the antagonist of that book, at the end of "I Will Repay" -- and the foreshadowing that like his victims he too would end on the guillotine -- "that vampire Merlin" is mentioned as still enthusiastically active at the beginning of this sequel.)
But at the start of "The Elusive Pimpernel" we are told that Chauvelin had simply "been left to moulder in obscurity" after his downfall, which gives Orczy the opportunity to bring him back as a returning antagonist, now with a personal grudge against his quarry and a great deal more at stake: Robespierre, having summoned him for the sake of his past experience, makes it quite clear that if he does not bring back the goods this time Chauvelin's own head will be forfeit -- "Your second failure will be punished by death, wherever you may be". (It is in fact, as it turns out, an empty threat, since Orczy proceeds to bring him back in several further novels: in "Eldorado", the next sequel, he informs Armand St. Just that "my life is granted me out of pity for my efforts, which were genuine if not successful", although this claim may well be untrue. But neither the author nor the character has any reason to anticipate mercy at the current point.)
At any rate Orczy evidently decided that Chauvelin was far too good a character to waste; it is hard not to feel a certain sympathy for him (small and slight in build, highly intelligent, isolated among his colleagues, and vulnerable not to physical danger but ridicule) and while the format of the genre means that he is always doomed to lose, one feels that this tug of appeal is almost certainly intentional on the part of the author. In the opening scene with Robespierre we are given quite a new perspective on Chauvelin, being told that he had once been part of the ruling group alongside Robespierre, but that the latter had subsequently consciously attempted to sideline him as a potential threat because he was not only "keen and clever", "trusted and respected", but "possessed all those qualities of selfless patriotism" which the other, characterised as "the most ambitious, self-seeking demagogue of his time", conspicuously lacked: in other words, Chauvelin is a danger because he genuinely embodies those virtues for which Robespierre, famously dubbed 'the sea-green Incorruptible', is known in public.
In this passage the author deliberately sets up a contrast between her 'good Terrorist' (as, in those days before random slaughter of civilians, the Jacobins were dubbed), motivated by the desire to serve his country, and 'bad Terrorist', who is characterised as being driven entirely by personal ambition, and in the process she raises the stakes -- for in order for Chauvelin, busy mortgaging his future to the man who is toying with him like a cat with a mouse, to survive, the Scarlet Pimpernel must be destroyed. (And, since we can guess that this is unlikely to happen, she is thereby soliciting concern from the reader on his behalf; Chauvelin, whose courage and qualities are repeatedly lauded in the face of Robespierre's cold-blooded intimidation, is definitely being held up as an admirable figure, which is certainly an unexpected way to start a book of this genre!)
I do find it hard to visualise Robespierre, who like Napoleon was notoriously a small man (at least according to the scholarship of the era in which Orczy was writing) as towering over anybody. When he is described as very much taller than the ex-ambassador, one has to wonder just how diminutive Chauvelin is imagined to be :-p
Later in the book we are given another exercise in contrasts when Chauvelin is teamed up with Collot d'Herbois, notorious for mass executions; the Committee of Public Safety is of the opinion that while Chauvelin "has a wonderful head for devising plans, he needs a powerful hand to aid him", and thus we get Citizen Collot. Like Merlin in "I Will Repay", he is depicted as deliberately uncouth in his dress and habits, seeking to be 'prolier than thou' in adopting the appearance of the gutter, and Orczy portrays him as strongly-built but stupid, as opposed to Chauvelin, who is particular in his personal habits and relies on his cunning rather than physical strength. But she also makes a point of indicating that they are nonetheless two sides of the same coin, and that Chauvelin holds every bit as much responsibility for mass-murder as those of his colleagues who actually carried it out, the only difference being that he contrived to do so "with physically clean hands and in an immaculately-cut coat" (despite Sir Percy's frequent animadversions on the subject of the latter). Collot d'Herbois actually enjoys the anticipation of bloody reprisals for their own sake; Chauvelin is that far more objectively dangerous thing, a cold-blooded idealist who will calmly sacrifice anyone and anything if he considers it necessary to attain the desired end... which is the impression I get of the real-life Robespierre, as opposed to Orczy's more sadistic version.
In this particular case, however, as Robespierre takes care to point out in their opening interview, Chauvelin is not nearly so disinterested in his motives as he might like to appear. He is no longer acting in defence of his country or his cause, but out of raw hatred and desire for revenge on the Scarlet Pimpernel.
And that opening scene is effective also in that it introduces the name of Desirée Candeille in advance, so that when Marguerite meets the young woman at the fete in Richmond there is an instant frisson of danger in the scene. Chauvelin, however, displays a hitherto unanticipated talent at dissimulation at their initial encounter which would scarcely disgrace Sir Percy himself: we see him shrunken, greyed, and humbled enough to beg for "one thought of pity and one of pardon".
In retrospect it is not objectively clear what he hopes to achieve in terms of this ploy, which very nearly succeeds; Marguerite, whose impulse is to be kind, is on the point of consenting to forgive and forget, but being dismissed from her life "with a half-expressed promise of oblivion" would scarcely serve his subsequent purposes. But it is hard not to hear a ring of truth behind his rejoinder that "the triumphant and happy have ever very little to say to the humiliated and defeated", or the bitter terms in which he describes himself: "My failure is complete. I do not complain, for I failed in a combat of wits... but I failed... I failed... I failed... I am almost a fugitive and I am quite disgraced." Like the grey hairs, this is an all too genuine reminder of the year he has just passed, with those same words tolling in his own thought again and again and again. There is not, one suspects, all that much acting required to play the part with such conviction.
The other unexpected morsel of information that is dropped in the course of this book, entirely as an aside -- whereas in a modern novel it would doubtless feature as a major element of backstory! -- is that Chauvelin, like Lafayette or Philippe-Égalité, was apparently himself an 'aristo' who had espoused Republican ideals: "this man, who was of gentle birth, of gentle breeding... had once been called M. le Marquis de Chauvelin". When Merlin jibes at him earlier for being "too much of an aristocrat" for failing to use the new Revolutionary calendar in his letter to the Committee of Public Safety, the natural assumption in the climate of the day is that this is simply a reflexive insult, but to the surprise of this reader at least it is later confirmed, almost in passing, to be quite literally true: Citizen Chauvelin, who "firmly believed that the French aristocrat was the most bitter enemy of France... [and] would have wished to see every one of them annihilated", was in origin a renegade member of the nobility, motivated by a burning belief in social equality and scorn for the role played by the emigrés abroad. Oddly enough Orczy makes almost no use of this, though it does provide a plausible context for his apparently longstanding diplomatic experience and familiarity with English society -- my guess would be that it probably slipped in as a nod to the 'real' Marquis de Chauvelin.
I am intrigued to note that, in addition to his eyes changing colour from yellow to grey (just as Marguerite's hair has lost its reddish hue), Chauvelin is described in this book as having "a high intellectual forehead", whereas Sir Percy is consistently characterised with "a low, smooth forehead", apparently as a term of approbation. Nowadays a character with a low forehead would be assumed to be coded as a knuckle-dragging brute, but it clearly had different connotations in 1908...
Like Collot d'Herbois, however, I have to feel that Chauvelin's plans are complicated and obscure; he *must* have had some back-up idea for contriving to get Sir Percy Blakeney to France, because the concept of the duel is dependent on so many coincidences, and only succeeds because of the cooperation of the target in ignoring a direct command from the Prince of Wales. On the other hand, that line about "the origin of the Blakeney millions" is definitely inspired; after all, nobody *does* know where all that money comes from and whether it genuinely is simply an inheritance, and rumour could do a great deal of harm in suggesting that this convenient wealth has unsavoury sources. Mirabeau, for example, was dramatically dethroned -- even if only posthumously -- from his role as one-time idol of the people by the revelation that he had been profiting by payments from the enemy.
And he was certainly one step ahead in realising that the Scarlet Pimpernel would simply proceed to kidnap the hostages *as well as* Marguerite in order to save his wife, a possibility that hadn't even dawned on me until it was pre-emptively countered! The idea of threatening one's own population in order to ensure the good behaviour of the enemy does seem more or less infinitely extensible, however; presumably there is nothing in theory preventing the Committee of Public Safety from announcing that it will decimate the population of random French cities until the Scarlet Pimpernel hands himself over... or, more realistically, carrying out multiple reprisals in kind for every prisoner who escapes execution thanks to the League :-(
It is unexpected that this masterstroke actually originates from Collot and not from Chauvelin; the latter "hailed the fiendish suggestion with delight" and perceives the full potential in it once the idea is put into his head, but apparently his mind doesn't instinctively work along these lines, whereas Collot d'Herbois (in Orczy's world, where he gets the credit for Carrier's noyades at Nantes) is currently fresh from a series of excessively ferocious large-scale executions. Is the author making a point about Chauvelin's personality: that he has absolutely no scruples about this sort of thing where useful, but has no natural inclination towards butchery, as opposed to Collot who relishes the excuse? or, as I rather suspect, merely seeking to provide some plot function for Collot d'Herbois other than as a character foil!
As mentioned above, the start of this book features a role for Juliette Marny from "I Will Repay" -- although she and Paul Déroulède are described by Marguerite as "the two young people", which jars in comparison to the former novel, in which Déroulède is a bull-necked middle-aged orator, a credible member of the National Convention who is a dozen years Marguerite's senior. Having recently read Juliette's original backstory I also found it jarring that her motivation here is supposed to be her passionate attachment to her dead mother's jewels; when we first meet Juliette as a child her relationship is entirely with her aging father while her mother appears to have died years previously, so if she has any memory of family jewels at all it can only be from a dim and distant past. She spends years agonising over the deaths of her father and brother and never once mentions her mother's existence (nor that of the Abbé Fouquet) throughout that entire novel, so it made no sense to me that this suddenly becomes a major motivation for the action of the sequel. Her role in the plot doesn't even require her to have been rescued by the Scarlet Pimpernel or to be aware of his true identity, so I feel it would have come across as less of a forced connection if Orczy had just created a completely new character for the purpose. (And in the case of Juliette, wouldn't it be Déroulède who might be expected to defend her honour -- or, more in character, attempt to defuse the situation -- rather than Sir Percy?)
After all, Orczy cheerfully creates and characterises entire groups of random 'extras' both in Richmond and in Boulogne simply as scene-setting, whether it's the stubborn Norman fisherman Jean-Marie or sententious old Clutterbuck with his penchant for citing 'the poets' to back up his pronouncements. She could equally well have inserted any other outraged penniless aristocrat like the Comtesse de Tournay in "The Scarlet Pimpernel"... although it's true that, like the Comtesse, women of that stamp might not have been prepared to be on such intimate terms with the plebian and formerly Republican Marguerite St. Just.
I note that Marguerite in this book justifies her very obviously misguided action in deciding to pursue her husband to France -- exactly as Chauvelin's scheme relies upon her to do -- with the claim that the last time she had done so, she had served to create a useful distraction! This version of the past does at least supply some rationale for her decision, although the character is evidently misremembering; to be fair, Marguerite's role in the climax of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" is largely that of providing a useful audience point-of-view through which we can witness the events in question, but her motivation is at any rate to deliver what she believes to be a vital warning, even if her presence achieves nothing save to oblige her husband to return and submit to a beating because he cannot abandon her there.
In "The Elusive Pimpernel", however, she consciously acts in a way that she knows he would forbid, and for no other reason than that she cannot bear not to know what is going on. And her claim that "she could not be a hindrance" is disastrously wrong; her presence is precisely the lever that Chauvelin needs in order to put his plans into motion. (Although I was taken aback by the idea that until Marguerite breaks down in his presence and betrays "a tale of love and passion which he had not even suspected before" he had no idea that there was any particular bond between Blakeney and his wife, since his whole scheme had pivoted on using her as bait. I suppose the Scarlet Pimpernel could not very well be seen to abandon his wife knowingly to the mercies of his enemies even if there was no more than social convention between them!)
But however reprehensible Marguerite's behaviour -- given that far from being of assistance she represents her husband's weak point, and therefore needs for his sake to stay as far away from the action as possible -- it is to Orczy's credit that we nonetheless end up desperately anxious as to what will become of her. Chauvelin, who "always knew how to deal with vehemence", achieves one victory at least over both of them alike; he manages to break Sir Percy's self-control and sting him into precipitate action, and the fact that the action in question is an attempt to strangle him to death is genuinely immaterial. Any surrender to provocation is an admission of weakness, and both adversaries are aware of it.
Which is why Sir Percy spends so much of his time being flamboyantly and annoyingly obtuse, a tactic which is unfortunately as grating on the reader as it is on the opposition. I suspect we all live for those moments when the Scarlet Pimpernel drops the mask and reveals himself as the quick-thinking, charismatic leader or as the impassioned lover, but Orczy only allows us one or two of those per book; she is having far too much fun writing Sir Percy using his act to wind everyone else up. In "The Elusive Pimpernel" we get a couple of heartfelt interchanges with Marguerite, but even there he has a tendency to withdraw into flippancy in sheer self-defence.
Another thing that becomes obvious, but only once it has been pointed out, is that for the sake of the story Orczy cannot show us her hero's own point of view; like Dr Watson, we must always be left looking on admiringly from outside without being made privy to his plans or observations, which would destroy all the suspense! (In this light it is interesting to consider the one chapter in "I Will Repay" which actually does take place from Blakeney's perspective, since at that point *he* is the side character observing the protagonists...)
Given that Marguerite's actions have effectively destroyed any plan he had previously intended, his scheme in this book appears to have been the simple one of noting Chauvelin's proclaimed intentions for the city, stalling by whatever means possible until the scheduled arrival of the procession, and then taking advantage of it to serve as a distraction. The fact that the crowd does burst up onto the battlements and demand to view the Scarlet Pimpernel is arguably due to prompting from those members of the League who were present in it, but since their leader without knowing what situation he would find once inside the fort had been unable to give them any specific instructions, and indeed Lord Tony specifically says that they did not know what was coming until *after* they saw Blakeney take up the candlesticks in order to darken the room -- they were simply to mingle with any crowd in the area -- the successful escape this time appears to have been due to a large dose of convenient coincidence... or else a very shrewd knowledge of human nature!
I wonder if this is the only book in which Sir Percy does not in fact use any form of disguise, but appears in his own person throughout? His principal tactic is simply to make up his mind as quickly as possible and then relax in order to be ready for eventual action, while exhausting his opponent by keeping him in a state of acute and ongoing nervous tension; it is a lesson that Chauvelin takes all too acutely to heart and proceeds to turn against him in the next book, "Eldorado".
I did appreciate the fact that Orczy brings back a mention of the sword of Lorenzo Cenci shortly after the point at which it happened to have crossed my mind to wonder, for the first time in many pages, what had become of that blade. But I'm afraid that particular heirloom set has been sacrificed -- without a backward glance, in view of what else was at stake.
In this book we get to see for the first time the after-effects of the events of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" upon Marguerite Blakeney's marriage, and their public life in England now that she knows the truth about her husband. The secret is still closely guarded, but while his ostensible attitude towards her has not changed ("No one could assert that Sir Percy was anything but politely indifferent to his wife's obvious attentions"), she has made no attempt to conceal her new happiness, or the fact that, "contrary to all usages and customs of London society", she is clearly passionately in love with her own husband. The fashionable world is bemused, but suspects nothing; Marguerite continues to make fun of his supposed dull wits, and he to play his role precisely as before. Only, of course, she now has to live with the knowledge that during those absences from home during which the world presumes him to be neglecting her -- "fishing in Scotland or shooting in Yorkshire" -- he is instead risking his neck in France for the sake of complete strangers, and, ultimately, however much he may love her, for the pure thrill of the adventure.
We also get to find out what happened to Chauvelin as a result of his humiliating failure at the hands of the Pimpernel a year earlier. From the complete absence of his name from among the various influential members of the Republican establishment who feature in "I Will Repay", and the executions there for generals who failed to win battles or accusers who failed to secure convictions, one might perhaps have assumed that he had duly paid with his life for his blunder. (Though despite the threats issued in the direction of Citizen-Deputy Merlin, the antagonist of that book, at the end of "I Will Repay" -- and the foreshadowing that like his victims he too would end on the guillotine -- "that vampire Merlin" is mentioned as still enthusiastically active at the beginning of this sequel.)
But at the start of "The Elusive Pimpernel" we are told that Chauvelin had simply "been left to moulder in obscurity" after his downfall, which gives Orczy the opportunity to bring him back as a returning antagonist, now with a personal grudge against his quarry and a great deal more at stake: Robespierre, having summoned him for the sake of his past experience, makes it quite clear that if he does not bring back the goods this time Chauvelin's own head will be forfeit -- "Your second failure will be punished by death, wherever you may be". (It is in fact, as it turns out, an empty threat, since Orczy proceeds to bring him back in several further novels: in "Eldorado", the next sequel, he informs Armand St. Just that "my life is granted me out of pity for my efforts, which were genuine if not successful", although this claim may well be untrue. But neither the author nor the character has any reason to anticipate mercy at the current point.)
At any rate Orczy evidently decided that Chauvelin was far too good a character to waste; it is hard not to feel a certain sympathy for him (small and slight in build, highly intelligent, isolated among his colleagues, and vulnerable not to physical danger but ridicule) and while the format of the genre means that he is always doomed to lose, one feels that this tug of appeal is almost certainly intentional on the part of the author. In the opening scene with Robespierre we are given quite a new perspective on Chauvelin, being told that he had once been part of the ruling group alongside Robespierre, but that the latter had subsequently consciously attempted to sideline him as a potential threat because he was not only "keen and clever", "trusted and respected", but "possessed all those qualities of selfless patriotism" which the other, characterised as "the most ambitious, self-seeking demagogue of his time", conspicuously lacked: in other words, Chauvelin is a danger because he genuinely embodies those virtues for which Robespierre, famously dubbed 'the sea-green Incorruptible', is known in public.
In this passage the author deliberately sets up a contrast between her 'good Terrorist' (as, in those days before random slaughter of civilians, the Jacobins were dubbed), motivated by the desire to serve his country, and 'bad Terrorist', who is characterised as being driven entirely by personal ambition, and in the process she raises the stakes -- for in order for Chauvelin, busy mortgaging his future to the man who is toying with him like a cat with a mouse, to survive, the Scarlet Pimpernel must be destroyed. (And, since we can guess that this is unlikely to happen, she is thereby soliciting concern from the reader on his behalf; Chauvelin, whose courage and qualities are repeatedly lauded in the face of Robespierre's cold-blooded intimidation, is definitely being held up as an admirable figure, which is certainly an unexpected way to start a book of this genre!)
I do find it hard to visualise Robespierre, who like Napoleon was notoriously a small man (at least according to the scholarship of the era in which Orczy was writing) as towering over anybody. When he is described as very much taller than the ex-ambassador, one has to wonder just how diminutive Chauvelin is imagined to be :-p
Later in the book we are given another exercise in contrasts when Chauvelin is teamed up with Collot d'Herbois, notorious for mass executions; the Committee of Public Safety is of the opinion that while Chauvelin "has a wonderful head for devising plans, he needs a powerful hand to aid him", and thus we get Citizen Collot. Like Merlin in "I Will Repay", he is depicted as deliberately uncouth in his dress and habits, seeking to be 'prolier than thou' in adopting the appearance of the gutter, and Orczy portrays him as strongly-built but stupid, as opposed to Chauvelin, who is particular in his personal habits and relies on his cunning rather than physical strength. But she also makes a point of indicating that they are nonetheless two sides of the same coin, and that Chauvelin holds every bit as much responsibility for mass-murder as those of his colleagues who actually carried it out, the only difference being that he contrived to do so "with physically clean hands and in an immaculately-cut coat" (despite Sir Percy's frequent animadversions on the subject of the latter). Collot d'Herbois actually enjoys the anticipation of bloody reprisals for their own sake; Chauvelin is that far more objectively dangerous thing, a cold-blooded idealist who will calmly sacrifice anyone and anything if he considers it necessary to attain the desired end... which is the impression I get of the real-life Robespierre, as opposed to Orczy's more sadistic version.
In this particular case, however, as Robespierre takes care to point out in their opening interview, Chauvelin is not nearly so disinterested in his motives as he might like to appear. He is no longer acting in defence of his country or his cause, but out of raw hatred and desire for revenge on the Scarlet Pimpernel.
And that opening scene is effective also in that it introduces the name of Desirée Candeille in advance, so that when Marguerite meets the young woman at the fete in Richmond there is an instant frisson of danger in the scene. Chauvelin, however, displays a hitherto unanticipated talent at dissimulation at their initial encounter which would scarcely disgrace Sir Percy himself: we see him shrunken, greyed, and humbled enough to beg for "one thought of pity and one of pardon".
In retrospect it is not objectively clear what he hopes to achieve in terms of this ploy, which very nearly succeeds; Marguerite, whose impulse is to be kind, is on the point of consenting to forgive and forget, but being dismissed from her life "with a half-expressed promise of oblivion" would scarcely serve his subsequent purposes. But it is hard not to hear a ring of truth behind his rejoinder that "the triumphant and happy have ever very little to say to the humiliated and defeated", or the bitter terms in which he describes himself: "My failure is complete. I do not complain, for I failed in a combat of wits... but I failed... I failed... I failed... I am almost a fugitive and I am quite disgraced." Like the grey hairs, this is an all too genuine reminder of the year he has just passed, with those same words tolling in his own thought again and again and again. There is not, one suspects, all that much acting required to play the part with such conviction.
The other unexpected morsel of information that is dropped in the course of this book, entirely as an aside -- whereas in a modern novel it would doubtless feature as a major element of backstory! -- is that Chauvelin, like Lafayette or Philippe-Égalité, was apparently himself an 'aristo' who had espoused Republican ideals: "this man, who was of gentle birth, of gentle breeding... had once been called M. le Marquis de Chauvelin". When Merlin jibes at him earlier for being "too much of an aristocrat" for failing to use the new Revolutionary calendar in his letter to the Committee of Public Safety, the natural assumption in the climate of the day is that this is simply a reflexive insult, but to the surprise of this reader at least it is later confirmed, almost in passing, to be quite literally true: Citizen Chauvelin, who "firmly believed that the French aristocrat was the most bitter enemy of France... [and] would have wished to see every one of them annihilated", was in origin a renegade member of the nobility, motivated by a burning belief in social equality and scorn for the role played by the emigrés abroad. Oddly enough Orczy makes almost no use of this, though it does provide a plausible context for his apparently longstanding diplomatic experience and familiarity with English society -- my guess would be that it probably slipped in as a nod to the 'real' Marquis de Chauvelin.
I am intrigued to note that, in addition to his eyes changing colour from yellow to grey (just as Marguerite's hair has lost its reddish hue), Chauvelin is described in this book as having "a high intellectual forehead", whereas Sir Percy is consistently characterised with "a low, smooth forehead", apparently as a term of approbation. Nowadays a character with a low forehead would be assumed to be coded as a knuckle-dragging brute, but it clearly had different connotations in 1908...
Like Collot d'Herbois, however, I have to feel that Chauvelin's plans are complicated and obscure; he *must* have had some back-up idea for contriving to get Sir Percy Blakeney to France, because the concept of the duel is dependent on so many coincidences, and only succeeds because of the cooperation of the target in ignoring a direct command from the Prince of Wales. On the other hand, that line about "the origin of the Blakeney millions" is definitely inspired; after all, nobody *does* know where all that money comes from and whether it genuinely is simply an inheritance, and rumour could do a great deal of harm in suggesting that this convenient wealth has unsavoury sources. Mirabeau, for example, was dramatically dethroned -- even if only posthumously -- from his role as one-time idol of the people by the revelation that he had been profiting by payments from the enemy.
And he was certainly one step ahead in realising that the Scarlet Pimpernel would simply proceed to kidnap the hostages *as well as* Marguerite in order to save his wife, a possibility that hadn't even dawned on me until it was pre-emptively countered! The idea of threatening one's own population in order to ensure the good behaviour of the enemy does seem more or less infinitely extensible, however; presumably there is nothing in theory preventing the Committee of Public Safety from announcing that it will decimate the population of random French cities until the Scarlet Pimpernel hands himself over... or, more realistically, carrying out multiple reprisals in kind for every prisoner who escapes execution thanks to the League :-(
It is unexpected that this masterstroke actually originates from Collot and not from Chauvelin; the latter "hailed the fiendish suggestion with delight" and perceives the full potential in it once the idea is put into his head, but apparently his mind doesn't instinctively work along these lines, whereas Collot d'Herbois (in Orczy's world, where he gets the credit for Carrier's noyades at Nantes) is currently fresh from a series of excessively ferocious large-scale executions. Is the author making a point about Chauvelin's personality: that he has absolutely no scruples about this sort of thing where useful, but has no natural inclination towards butchery, as opposed to Collot who relishes the excuse? or, as I rather suspect, merely seeking to provide some plot function for Collot d'Herbois other than as a character foil!
As mentioned above, the start of this book features a role for Juliette Marny from "I Will Repay" -- although she and Paul Déroulède are described by Marguerite as "the two young people", which jars in comparison to the former novel, in which Déroulède is a bull-necked middle-aged orator, a credible member of the National Convention who is a dozen years Marguerite's senior. Having recently read Juliette's original backstory I also found it jarring that her motivation here is supposed to be her passionate attachment to her dead mother's jewels; when we first meet Juliette as a child her relationship is entirely with her aging father while her mother appears to have died years previously, so if she has any memory of family jewels at all it can only be from a dim and distant past. She spends years agonising over the deaths of her father and brother and never once mentions her mother's existence (nor that of the Abbé Fouquet) throughout that entire novel, so it made no sense to me that this suddenly becomes a major motivation for the action of the sequel. Her role in the plot doesn't even require her to have been rescued by the Scarlet Pimpernel or to be aware of his true identity, so I feel it would have come across as less of a forced connection if Orczy had just created a completely new character for the purpose. (And in the case of Juliette, wouldn't it be Déroulède who might be expected to defend her honour -- or, more in character, attempt to defuse the situation -- rather than Sir Percy?)
After all, Orczy cheerfully creates and characterises entire groups of random 'extras' both in Richmond and in Boulogne simply as scene-setting, whether it's the stubborn Norman fisherman Jean-Marie or sententious old Clutterbuck with his penchant for citing 'the poets' to back up his pronouncements. She could equally well have inserted any other outraged penniless aristocrat like the Comtesse de Tournay in "The Scarlet Pimpernel"... although it's true that, like the Comtesse, women of that stamp might not have been prepared to be on such intimate terms with the plebian and formerly Republican Marguerite St. Just.
I note that Marguerite in this book justifies her very obviously misguided action in deciding to pursue her husband to France -- exactly as Chauvelin's scheme relies upon her to do -- with the claim that the last time she had done so, she had served to create a useful distraction! This version of the past does at least supply some rationale for her decision, although the character is evidently misremembering; to be fair, Marguerite's role in the climax of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" is largely that of providing a useful audience point-of-view through which we can witness the events in question, but her motivation is at any rate to deliver what she believes to be a vital warning, even if her presence achieves nothing save to oblige her husband to return and submit to a beating because he cannot abandon her there.
In "The Elusive Pimpernel", however, she consciously acts in a way that she knows he would forbid, and for no other reason than that she cannot bear not to know what is going on. And her claim that "she could not be a hindrance" is disastrously wrong; her presence is precisely the lever that Chauvelin needs in order to put his plans into motion. (Although I was taken aback by the idea that until Marguerite breaks down in his presence and betrays "a tale of love and passion which he had not even suspected before" he had no idea that there was any particular bond between Blakeney and his wife, since his whole scheme had pivoted on using her as bait. I suppose the Scarlet Pimpernel could not very well be seen to abandon his wife knowingly to the mercies of his enemies even if there was no more than social convention between them!)
But however reprehensible Marguerite's behaviour -- given that far from being of assistance she represents her husband's weak point, and therefore needs for his sake to stay as far away from the action as possible -- it is to Orczy's credit that we nonetheless end up desperately anxious as to what will become of her. Chauvelin, who "always knew how to deal with vehemence", achieves one victory at least over both of them alike; he manages to break Sir Percy's self-control and sting him into precipitate action, and the fact that the action in question is an attempt to strangle him to death is genuinely immaterial. Any surrender to provocation is an admission of weakness, and both adversaries are aware of it.
Which is why Sir Percy spends so much of his time being flamboyantly and annoyingly obtuse, a tactic which is unfortunately as grating on the reader as it is on the opposition. I suspect we all live for those moments when the Scarlet Pimpernel drops the mask and reveals himself as the quick-thinking, charismatic leader or as the impassioned lover, but Orczy only allows us one or two of those per book; she is having far too much fun writing Sir Percy using his act to wind everyone else up. In "The Elusive Pimpernel" we get a couple of heartfelt interchanges with Marguerite, but even there he has a tendency to withdraw into flippancy in sheer self-defence.
Another thing that becomes obvious, but only once it has been pointed out, is that for the sake of the story Orczy cannot show us her hero's own point of view; like Dr Watson, we must always be left looking on admiringly from outside without being made privy to his plans or observations, which would destroy all the suspense! (In this light it is interesting to consider the one chapter in "I Will Repay" which actually does take place from Blakeney's perspective, since at that point *he* is the side character observing the protagonists...)
Given that Marguerite's actions have effectively destroyed any plan he had previously intended, his scheme in this book appears to have been the simple one of noting Chauvelin's proclaimed intentions for the city, stalling by whatever means possible until the scheduled arrival of the procession, and then taking advantage of it to serve as a distraction. The fact that the crowd does burst up onto the battlements and demand to view the Scarlet Pimpernel is arguably due to prompting from those members of the League who were present in it, but since their leader without knowing what situation he would find once inside the fort had been unable to give them any specific instructions, and indeed Lord Tony specifically says that they did not know what was coming until *after* they saw Blakeney take up the candlesticks in order to darken the room -- they were simply to mingle with any crowd in the area -- the successful escape this time appears to have been due to a large dose of convenient coincidence... or else a very shrewd knowledge of human nature!
I wonder if this is the only book in which Sir Percy does not in fact use any form of disguise, but appears in his own person throughout? His principal tactic is simply to make up his mind as quickly as possible and then relax in order to be ready for eventual action, while exhausting his opponent by keeping him in a state of acute and ongoing nervous tension; it is a lesson that Chauvelin takes all too acutely to heart and proceeds to turn against him in the next book, "Eldorado".
I did appreciate the fact that Orczy brings back a mention of the sword of Lorenzo Cenci shortly after the point at which it happened to have crossed my mind to wonder, for the first time in many pages, what had become of that blade. But I'm afraid that particular heirloom set has been sacrificed -- without a backward glance, in view of what else was at stake.
The flour all came off the Pierrots' faces, the blue paper slashings of the drummer-in-chief hung in pulpy lumps against his gorgeous scarlet cloak. The trumpeters' feathers became streaky and bedraggled.
But in the name of that good God who had ceased to exist, who in this world or out of it cared if it rained, or thundered and stormed! This was a national holiday, for an English spy was captured, and all natives of Boulogne were free of the guillotine tonight.
The revellers were making the circuit of the town, with lanthorns fluttering in the wind, and flickering torches held up aloft illuminating laughing faces red with the glow of a drunken joy, young faces that only enjoyed the moments' pleasure, serious ones that withheld a frown at the thought of the morrow. The fitful light played on the grotesque masques of beasts and reptiles, on the diamond necklace of a very earthly goddess, on God's glorious spoils from gardens and country-side, on smothered anxiety and repressed cruelty. [...]
At seven o'clock, so 'twas said, the cannon would boom from the old Beffroi. The guard would throw open the prison gates, and those who had something or somebody to hide, and those who had a great deal to fear, would be free to go whithersoever they chose.
And mothers, sisters, sweethearts stood watching by the gates, for loved ones to-night would be set free, all along of the capture of that English spy, the Scarlet Pimpernel.