The Scarlet Pimpernel

By the time it ceases operations for the day, the guillotine in Paris’s Place de la Grève has sliced off 100 aristocratic heads, including men, women, and children. Peasants from the bloodthirsty audience surge toward the gates of the city, where more entertainment awaits as guards catch escaping nobility: “And they did try to hide, and tried to fly: that was just the fun of the whole thing” (2). Were they to escape, they might rouse other countries against the “glorious Revolution” that has overthrown the king and his ruling class.

At the West Gate, Sergeant Bibot has a knack for sniffing out disguised aristocrats. He toys with suspects, lets them go, then suddenly arrests them. Lately, though, an especially large number of nobles have escaped, often in daring ways, possibly aided by a plucky, audacious Englishman, the Scarlet Pimpernel. Members of the ruling Committee of Public Safety sometimes receive notes in their pockets announcing yet another rescue. The notes are signed with an image of a red pimpernel flower. The gate guards are doubled, rewards are posted, and a sergeant who let a group of nobles slip through the North Gate is guillotined for his mistake.