The Scarlet Pimpernel - Fiction and Fact - Rosemary Morris

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About Rosemary Morris

Before I could read, I admired the pictures in my story books. At five-years-old learned to read and, in later life, shared my favourite children’s fiction. For example, at Christmas, I gave my two older granddaughters A Little Princess and The Secret Garden.

Recently, I visited old favourites among which are Baroness Orczy’s series about The Scarlet Pimpernel then researched the life of this talented novelist, the whose life was as interesting as her novels.

The Scarlet Pimpernel

Fiction and Fact

                             “They seek him here, they seek him there,

                             Those French men seek him everywhere.

                             Is he in Heaven? – Is he in hell?

                             That damned annoying Pimpernel.”

The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy’s most famous character, is Percy, the gallant daredevil, Sir Percival Blakeney Bart.  He is the hero of her novels and short stories set in The French Revolution, so aptly nick-named The Reign of Terror.   

Orczy was a royalist with no sympathy for the merciless Jacobins who spared no efforts to achieve their political ambitions.  Historical accounts prove everyone in France was at risk of being arrested and sent to the guillotine.  Orczy’s works of fiction about the Scarlet Pimpernel display her detailed knowledge about revolutionary France and capture the miserable atmosphere which prevailed.

When writing about her novel The Laughing Cavalier, Percy’s ancestor, Orczy described Percival’s “sunny disposition, irresistible laughter, a careless insouciance and adventurous spirit”.

As I mentioned in my February Insider Blog about Baroness Orczy, Percy revealed himself to Orczy while she was waiting for a train at an underground station. She saw his apparition dressed in exquisite clothes that marked him as a late eighteenth century gentleman, noted the monocle he held up in his slender hand and heard both his lazy drawl and quaint laugh.  Inspired she wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel in five weeks.

On the second of August 1792, Percy founded his gallant League of Gentlemen composed of nine members.  When ten more members enrolled in January 1793 there was “one to command and nineteen to obey.” Percy and his league saved innocents from the French Revolutionary Government’s tool, Madame Guillotine.

London society speculated about the identity of The Scarlet Pimpernel but, with the possible exception of the Prince Regent, only the members of Percy’s league knew his true identity.

  Percy, a man of wealth and influence well-acquainted with the Prince Regent, heir to the throne, married Marguerite St. Just, a French actress.  Until Percy discovered Marguerite was responsible for an aristocratic family’s death he was an adoring husband. Percy kept his alias, The Scarlet Pimpernel, secret from Marguerite for fear she would betray him.  Still loving Marguerite in spite of her crime, he feigned indifference, treated her coldly, shunned her company and acted the part of a fool so successfully that he bored her. However, Marguerite discovered the truth about Percy and saved his life.  After the romantic couple’s reconciliation, Marguerite is mentioned as a member of the league in Mam’zelle Guillotine.

At the beginning of each of Orczy’s novels about The Scarlet Pimpernel and his league, the current events of the French Revolution are summarised.  Thus, Orczy weaves fiction and fact by not only featuring English and French historical figures such as Robespierre, d’Herbois, The Prince of Wales, and Sir William Pitt, the younger, but by making use of historical events.  For example, in Eldorado Orczy describes the Dauphin in the care of the brutal shoemaker, Simon, who teaches the prince to curse God and his parents. 

In the midst of horror, Orczy uses romance and heroism to defeat evil, as she did as a child when playing the part of a fearless prince while her sister acted the part of a damsel in distress.

Orczy spent 1900 in Paris that, in her ears, echoed with the horrors of the French Revolution.  Surely, she had found the setting for her magnificent hero, The Scarlet Pimpernel, who would champion the victims of The Terror.   But why did she choose such an insignificant flower for Percy’s alias?   It is not unreasonable to suppose a Parisian royalist organisation’s triangular cards, which were hand painted with roses that resemble scarlet pimpernels, fuelled Orczy’s imagination. 

Further fuel might have been added by a man called Louis Bayard, a young man with similarities to the real life Scarlet Pimpernel, although he might not have been motivated by Percy’s idealism

William Wickham, the first British spymaster, engaged the nineteen-year old Louis Bayard. Louis proved himself to be as elusive as Percy. Like Percy, Louis had many aliases. Not only did Orczy’s fictional hero and Louis fall in love with actresses, they appeared and disappeared without causing comment. Real life Louis’s and fictional Percy’s lives depended on being masters of disguise. 

In disguise, Percy fools his archenemy, Citizen Chauvelin, who Orczy gives the role of official French Ambassador to England. It is an interesting example of her distortion of historical personalities and incidents for them to feature in her works of fiction.  In fact, it is doubtful that Bernard-Francois, marquis de Chauvelin ever assumed a false identity as he did in Orczy’s novel, The Scarlet Pimpernel, about Percy and his League of Gentlemen, among whom are such fictional but memorable characters such as Armand St Just, Marguerite’s brother, Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, Lord Hastings and Lord Antony Dewhurst.

Another example of Orczy weaving fact and fiction is Louis-Antoine St Just, a fanatical revolutionary, who she describes as Marguerite’s cousin.  Louis-Antoine St Just, a young lawyer, was Maximillian Robespierre’s follower. He supported the punishment of traitors as well as that of anyone who was a ‘luke-warm’ revolutionary.  In The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel Marguerite’s brother, the fictional, Armand St Just, meets with Robespierre and other Jacobins.  Orczy portrays him as young, fervent and articulate as the real-life Louis-Antoine St Just.

Throughout the history of publishing countless authors, who became famous and whose work is still enjoyed as books, films, plays and television adaptations, found it difficult to place their work.  Orczy’s most famous novel was no exception.  Percy took the leading role in her play called The Scarlet Pimpernel and captured the audience’s hearts. Subsequently the novel was published, and Percy became famous.  His fame increased with each sequel about his daring exploits.

Orczy did not write her novels featuring Percy and his brave companions in historical sequence, but for readers who might prefer to read them in that order instead of the order in which she wrote them, they are as follows.

Novels

              Title        Chronology                                          Published                                             

*The Laughing Cavalier     January 1623                                                                1913

*The First Sir Percy                      March 1624                                                     1920

**The Scarlet Pimpernel                September – October 1792                              1905

Sir Percy Leads the Band                          January 1793                                        1936

I Will Repay                                                          August-September 1793                       1906

The Elusive Pimpernel                                            September–October 1793                    1908

Lord Tony’s Wife                                      November-December 1793                  1917

The Way of the Scarlet Pimpernel              late 1793                                                          1933

Eldorado                                                               January1794                                         1913

Mam’zelle Guillotine                                              January 1974                                        1940

Sir Percy Hits Back                                               May – June 1794                                             1927

A Child of the Revolution                           July 1794                                                         1932

The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel                                                                                 1922

***Pimpernel and Rosemary                                 1917-1924                                                       1924

*   About Sir Percy’s ancestor.

** Play 1903.

***    About Sir Percy’s descendant.

Short Stories

The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel          July 1793                                                         1919

Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel           Possibly 1794                                       1929

Of Further Interest.

Links in the Chain of Life.  Baroness Orczy’s biography.

A Gay Adventurer.  A biography of Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart (1935) written by ‘John Blakeney’ pseudonym of Baroness Orczy’s son John Montagu Baroness Orczy Barstow.