As for Marguerite, we are constantly reminded that she is "the beautiful woman." She is "pretty," "young," "fresh," etc. on every page. We are not allowed to forget for an instant that she is known as "the cleverest woman in Europe" and the best-looking one to boot. Everywhere she goes she is accompanied by a hoard of admiring gentlemen dying to kiss her hand or help her into her carriage. The hand in question is described as "dainty," "tiny," and so forth at every mention. Her laugh is "childlike," as is her voice, and her feet are apparently as small as her hands. We are not allowed to forget this for even an instant. Apart from the Baroness' descriptions, the book is also fraught with ludicrous displays of emotion. At one point an aristocratic refugee cries for her husband who's stuck back in France and her daughter (who is also "dainty," and "tiny," and all the rest of it) throws herself in her arms and kisses her tears away. Or when Sir Percy himself feels the need to show his love for his wife after she has left the vicinity, he lies in the dirt on his belly and kisses every spot on the ground which her "dainty foot" (yes, it's dainty again) happened to touch.
But this is all well and good. Part of the fun of reading any swashbuckling story lies in its innocence and unintentional absurdity. But The Scarlet Pimpernel isn't innocent: that's the problem.
The book starts off with a look at Revolutionary France. It's not clear that Baroness Orczy did a scrap of research or read a single book on the Revolution or the Reign of Terror. The depictions are wildly inaccurate and offensive. It's almost funny, in fact, the way Orczy makes her opinions so obvious. Here's the first sentence of the book: "A surging seething crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate." That's the people of Paris, according to Orczy. And what is this surging mass doing? Why, it's butchering aristocrats of course-men, women, and children. Hundreds of them every day, as Orczy would have it. She takes the Dickens bit about Madame Defarge knitting while the heads roll and runs wild with it. She has a whole row of hideous old hags, sporting crops of human hair taken from the guillotine's victims, all of them sitting in front of the device, knitting, and watching it go to work. They are so close, in fact, that they are sprayed periodically with blood. Of course, even your most bloodthirsty revolutionary would, in real life, probably object to being sprayed with human blood, but not so in Orczy's book. And of course, the ones responsible for all of this are the people. Orczy's look at the working class of Paris is wildly offensive and reactionary. They are portrayed as sadistic, unfeeling, filthy, stinking, and evil-minded. Orczy's point is obvious enough: give the people an inch and they'll take a mile. Once they lose their fear and awe of the rich and powerful they become capable of anything. This is, of course, undemocratic and offensive, but it's also bad history, as I will explain later. But now, back to the novel.
After that lovely little glance at Parisian politics, the novel focuses on a little English inn. The working classes are where they ought to be-serving food to lords and ladies. And everyone is all the happier for it, according to the Baroness. Meanwhile, we are introduced to the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, which is made up of English aristocrats-various sirs and lords who get their kicks saving other rich people from the guillotine. It's the sort of class solidarity Marx would have loved had it been the working class instead of the landed gentry. The League has recently rescued an aristocratic family from certain doom. Because the League, of course, is English. And because it is made up of fine, upstanding gentlemen with a code of honor and a family name. The Baroness was writing for an English audience and, as such, she reads like an extreme jingo chauvinist. There are all kinds of remarks about "free, honest England," and about the noble English character. A character which would never be sullied by revolution like those demmed Frenchies.
We meet Marguerite, her brother Armand, and the wicked Chauvelin, who "despised all social inequalities." This is added not as a compliment, but as evidence of his evil mind. Chauvelin, by the way, is a likeable outsider in high London society. He is a visiting French diplomat trapped in a world of wealthy English hypocrites with powdered wigs and upturned noses. (Percy Blakeney is, we are told, the wealthiest man in England. Every one of his outfits is described in a lengthy paragraph, and his wealth is worshipped and adored by the author at every opportunity.) But if we feel for Chauvelin, the Baroness quickly makes sure to crush that sympathy. He obtains compromising information about Marguerite's brother and asks her to spy on the Scarlet Pimpernel in return for his safety. Most of the novel deals with this dilemma, which eventually leads her to run to France in order to save the two men, one of whom turns out to be her husband. The Scarlet Pimpernel tricks Chauvelin again and again before finally escaping aboard his luxury yacht with another batch of aristocrats. We hear more about his sumptuous outfit, and that is literally how the novel ends.
