The Laughing Cavalier
Baroness Emma Orczy
Historical Romance/Adventure
Published 1913
Synopsis
A swashbuckling adventure set in the Dutch Republic in 1623, nearly two centuries before the French Revolution. It follows Diogenes, a charismatic English mercenary (whose real name is revealed as Percy Blakeney, an ancestor of the Scarlet Pimpernel) through turbulent political intrigue involving assassins, vengeful nobles, and shifting loyalties. When Diogenes accepts a dangerous mission that entangles him with the wealthy Gilda Beresteyn and her influential merchant family, he finds himself torn between duty, vengeance, and growing affections. Gilda’s resilience and moral choices complicate Diogenes’s mission. The novel blends romance, political revenge plots, and philosophical undertones about justice and loyalty amidst the richly textured 17th-century Golden Age of Dutch merchant culture.
Novel Excerpt
Gradually as he spoke his voice became more hoarse and more choked with passion; his excitement gained upon his hearers until both Nicolaes Beresteyn his friend and Jan the paid spy and messenger felt their blood tingling within their veins, their throats parched, their eyes burning as if they had been seared with living fire. The tallow-candle flickered in its socket, a thin draught from the flimsily constructed window blew its flame hither and thither, so that it lit up fitfully the faces of those three men drawn closely together now in a bond of ambition and of hate.
“‘Tis splendidly thought out,” said Beresteyn at last with a sigh of satisfaction. “I do not see how the plan can fail.”
“Fail?” exclaimed Stoutenburg with a triumphant laugh, “of course it cannot fail! There are practically no risks even. The place is lonely, the molens a splendid rallying point. We can all reach it by different routes and assemble there to-morrow eve or early the next day. That would give us another day and night at least to complete our preparations. I have forty barrels of gunpowder stowed away at the mill, I have new pattern muskets, cullivers, swords and pistols … gifts to me from the Archduchess Isabella … enough for our coup…. Fail? How can we fail when everything has been planned, everything thought out? and when God has so clearly shown that He is on our side?”
Jan said nothing for the moment; he lowered his eyes not caring just then to encounter those of his leader, for the remembrance had suddenly flashed through his mind of that other day—not so far distant yet—when everything too had been planned, everything thought out and failure had brought about untold misery and a rich harvest for the scaffold.
Beresteyn too was silent now. Something of his friend’s enthusiasm was also coursing through his veins, but with him it was only the enthusiasm of ambition, of discontent, of a passion for intrigue, for plots and conspiracies, for tearing down one form of government in order to make room for another—but his enthusiasm was not kept at fever-heat by that all-powerful fire of hate which made Stoutenburg forget everything save his desire for revenge.