Eldorado
Baroness Emma Orczy
Adventure Fiction
Published 1913
Synopsis
The elusive Pimpernel returns to France as the still-raging French Revolution continues to claim lives, and the shadow of the guillotine draws ever nearer to the young Dauphin, son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. No one dares to attempt to liberate the Little Prince; no one but the mysterious Sir Percy Blakeney, aka the Scarlet Pimpernel. Sir Percy takes on Robespierre’s agents and the scheming Citizen Chauvelin in an era when social upheaval and political intrigue are the norms, and personal safety is often an illusion.
Novel Excerpt
“Yesterday you were unkind and ungallant. How could I smile when you seemed so stern?”
“Yesterday I was not alone with you. How could I say what lay next my heart, when indifferent ears could catch the words that were meant only for you?”
“Ah, monsieur, do they teach you in England how to make pretty speeches?”
“No, mademoiselle, that is an instinct that comes into birth by the fire of a woman’s eyes.”
Mademoiselle Lange was sitting upon a small sofa of antique design, with cushions covered in faded silks heaped round her pretty head. Armand thought that she looked like that carved cameo which his sister Marguerite possessed.
He himself sat on a low chair at some distance from her. He had brought her a large bunch of early violets, for he knew that she was fond of flowers, and these lay upon her lap, against the opalescent grey of her gown.
She seemed a little nervous and agitated, his obvious admiration bringing a ready blush to her cheeks.
The room itself appeared to Armand to be a perfect frame for the charming picture which she presented. The furniture in it was small and old; tiny tables of antique Vernis-Martin, softly faded tapestries, a pale-toned Aubusson carpet. Everything mellow and in a measure pathetic. Mademoiselle Lange, who was an orphan, lived alone under the duennaship of a middle-aged relative, a penniless hanger-on of the successful young actress, who acted as her chaperone, housekeeper, and maid, and kept unseemly or over-bold gallants at bay.
She told Armand all about her early life, her childhood in the backshop of Maitre Meziere, the jeweller, who was a relative of her mother’s; of her desire for an artistic career, her struggles with the middle-class prejudices of her relations, her bold defiance of them, and final independence.
She made no secret of her humble origin, her want of education in those days; on the contrary, she was proud of what she had accomplished for herself. She was only twenty years of age, and already held a leading place in the artistic world of Paris.