The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel
Baroness Emma Orczy
Adventure Fiction
Published 1922
Synopsis
The enigmatic English hero known as the Scarlet Pimpernel returns to Paris in April–July 1794 amid the escalating French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. He soon finds himself entangled with historic revolutionary figures including Thérésa Cabarrus and Jean-Lambert Tallien, as he navigates political intrigue that culminates in the parliamentary revolt against the statesman Maximilien Robespierre. The Pimpernel tries to influence Tallien’s actions and blunt the revolution’s cruelty while saving innocents from execution by guillotine, in a society that is unraveling under paranoia and bloodshed. It is a time when the Pimpernel embodies chivalry and resistance while democratic ideals descend into indiscriminate terror.
Novel Excerpt
Theresia Cabarrus, who had obtained a divorce from her husband, the Marquis de Fontenay (by virtue of a decree of the former Legislative Assembly, which allowed—nay, encouraged—the dissolution of a marriage with an émigré who refused to return to France), Theresia Cabarrus was, in this year 1794, in her twenty-fourth year, and perhaps in the zenith of her beauty and in the plenitude of that power which had subjugated so many men. In what that power consisted the historian has vainly tried to guess; for it was not her beauty only that brought so many to her feet. In the small oval face, the pointed chin, the full, sensuous lips, so typically Spanish, we look in vain for traces of that beauty which we are told surpassed that of other women of her time; whilst in the dark, velvety eyes, more tender than spiritual, and in the narrow arched brows, we fail to find an expression of that esprit which had moulded Tallien to her will and even brought Robespierre out of the shell of his asceticism—a willing victim to her wiles.
But who would be bold enough to analyse that subtle quality, acknowledged by all, possessed by a very few, which is vaguely denoted by the word “charm”? Theresia Cabarrus must have possessed it to a marvellous degree—that, and an utter callousness for the feelings of her victims, which would leave her mind cool and keen to pursue her own ends, whilst theirs was thrown into that maze of jealousy and of passion wherein prudence flies to the winds and the fever of self-immolation gets into the blood.
At this moment, in the sparsely furnished room of her dingy apartment, she looked like an angry goddess. Her figure, which undeniably was superb, was drawn to its full height, its splendid proportions accentuated by the clinging folds of her modish gown—a marvel of artistic scantiness, which only half concealed the perfectly modelled bust, and left the rounded thigh, in its skin-tight, flesh-coloured undergarment, unblushingly exposed. Her blue-black hair was dressed in the new fashion, copied from ancient Greece and snooded by a glittering antique fillet; and her small bare feet were encased in satin sandals. Truly a lovely woman, but for that air of cold displeasure coupled with fear, which marred the harmony of the dainty, child-like features.