So glad we did this book for book club! And thank you to the anonymous commentator who reminded me of it. I read this book as a kid and loooooooooooved it, and by golly it holds up! Not deep or anything, but super super fun!
Quick Plot Summary:
It’s all about the heroine Marguerite. She was raised middle-class in France by her beloved brother, is brilliant, became a famous actress and leading intellectual, and then surprised herself by falling in love with a dull but sincere wealthy British Lord Blakeney. On their wedding night, he confronted her with rumors that she had denounced and caused the death of an entire aristocratic family. She was too proud to offer excuses, he was too hurt to ever ask questions, so they moved to England publicly happily married but privately strangers. And then Marguerite is approached by an old acquaintance who now works for the French secret service and blackmails her with evidence against her brother to help him find out who is the secret hero Scarlet Pimpernel that is helping aristocrats escape France. Marguerite succeeds, only to realize too late that the Scarlet Pimpernel is HER OWN HUSBAND. She rushes from England to France to warn him, risking her own life. By proving her total loyalty and love, she wins back the trust of her husband and, after he successfully escapes capture again, they are reunited and more in love than ever.
If we set aside the “of it’s time” attitude towards class and ethnicity, that time being early 1900s England when the novel was written, then the biggest flaw I find is it isn’t actually that clever? We are told Scarlet Pimpernel is a genius of planning and blah blah blah, and also constantly told that Marguerite is the “Most intelligent woman in Europe”. And yet, the author isn’t quite able to come up with super SUPER brilliant twists.
I’ll let it go though because the story, although ultimately, simple is so original! The idea of a superhero hiding in plain sight behind the disguise of a wealthy simpleton, and a wife accidentally betraying her own husband, that is so good that it has been used again and again and again in fiction! And then as the topping to this whole delightful cake, you have the complexity of the Blakeney marriage/romance.
That is the part that has stuck with me since I first read this book as a child. The idea that Marguerite was in love with her husband because he was kind, honorable, trustworthy, and loved her deeply and passionately. And that was a side he ALSO kept hidden. So our hero is three people, the private lover who reveals his deepest feelings of honor and love and pride only to his wife, the fearless brilliant leader who is only known by his faithful group of followers, and the pleasant gentle fop only known by larger society. Orczy, the author, manages to show how none of these faces are “disguises”, really, they are just separate parts of the same person. Marguerite knows that her passionate lover and honorable husband truly doesn’t like to talk a lot at parties, would rather sit in the corner and be lazy and smile, and keeps his deepest feelings to himself. She loves both sides, the kind silly public person who makes life pleasant for all around him, and the very private person only she knows. His group of followers enjoy his kind and silly habits, while appreciating his enormous bravery and intelligence. And the rest of the world likes him because he is so harmless and sweet and inoffensive, which is truly his character as well.
That’s the thing that the best “two identity” stories manage to capture! It’s not “in disguise as….” one or the other, it’s just two sides to the same coin.
What I wish is that I was able to read this book when it first released, when Orczy first invented the whole plot design. I believe her intention was to make the reader think it was a story of the Blakeney’s marriage, them finding their way back to each other, and the Scarlet Pimpernel himself would just be a cameo at the end to bless their reunion. The reveal that Blakeney WAS the Scarlet Pimpernel would have been just as much a shock to the reader as it was to his wife. That’s kind of how the follow-up books are structured, they focus on small stories in the Scarlet Pimpernel universe with the Blakeney’s just sweeping in and out to start things happening.
Okay, discussion questions!
- What is up with the feet stuff? Her feet are all torn up at the end, he kisses her feet, and earlier he kisses her footsteps? Is it just a symbol of how much he honors her that even her feet are precious? Is it that she is so magical that her feet (which on other humans would be the dirtiest roughest part) are beautiful and delicate? Or is it a slightly weird thing that says more about the author than the characters?
- Did you buy the story of the romance? That Marguerite thought him dull and slow, but also understood his deep sense of honor and love for her and that is why she married him, without knowing he was secretly a genius?
- Did you want more backstory on why Lord Blakeney turned out like he did? I thought what we got was really interesting, this solitary childhood with a mad mother, and sort of explained why he was so deeply private and silent. But I wanted more!!! Was his mother actually crazy? If so, in what manner? How did his parents die? How old was he? Who actually raised him, servants or what? Where did he grow up?
- What later stories did this book MOST remind you of?
- Did you ultimately like Marguerite or find her irritating?
- Did you ultimately like Percy or just want to shake him and yell at him to TALK TO HIS WIFE?
dontcallitbollywood 
Wait — ON THEIR WEDDING NIGHT??? Like, no sex because she’s was a snitch? And was she a snitch?
I’m confused.
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Yep! She accidentally said something that got people cared, and was so ashamed she didn’t risk telling him until after the wedding.
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“cared” — must be a typo but I can’t figure out what word you were intending.
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Killed, actually, on the guillotine. So maybe no wedding night is a modest punishment.
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Interesting take. I didn’t really get the three personalities – I thought the passionate side that got her interested in him was part of the” hero” side of him. And that he did hide and suppress that side of him when he returned to England. On my reread I was especially interested in the timeline of their romance vs the first appearance of the Scarlet Pimpernel. And it kind of checks out that he first met her three years ago, then started courting her when he returned two years later – when the Scarlet Pimpernel also first appeared. So he might have already been planning to use his more foppish side as a front of sorts, to keep people from guessing his identity. We do see him put in the time under the guillotine as the old hag, for example, so he just might be prepared to put in all that effort.
Marguerite says at some point that he never talked much, even then. And he would just not have spoken up at her intellectual salon. So she might have just assumed him to be stupid.
I’m very sure that he did plan to tell her his secret after their marriage, and then she would have continued to see his passionate side, and probably also the brave and brilliant one, but the St Cyr matter got in the way.
I would have liked to know the reaction of a contemporary audience, too. At what point would Orczy have expected her readers to see through the most important disguises, the fop and the Jew? How much does the narrator share Chauvelin’s prejudice? How about the author? I thought her style sometimes left it unclear who was thinking/speaking at any given moment.
In the first chapter, too, she seemed to be jumping between the thoughts of the mob and the irony of the narrator. That seemed to me quite an impassioned bit of writing on her part. And it got me wondering what the general view of the French revolution was around 1900. I think in some period piece or other I’ve seen it before that at the time, the English were much more sympathetic with the French nobility than the plebeians. But I would have thought that the attitude had changed by 1900. I mean, I skipped the French revolution in school, but I am much more used to seeing Marie Antoinette depicted as a villain than described as Austria’s “fairest daughter”.
And maybe Orczy published under the name “Baroness” to at least acknowledge where she was coming from.
What else? Oh, did you catch how much Percy and Marguerite are meant for each other? Obviously the smart guy and accomplished actor would go in for the smart woman and accomplished actress. She even shows the same outward calm under stress during that fateful ball scene. And her name means Daisy – as in, another small wayside flower. Which seemed even more impressive when I hadn’t heard your three personalities theories and was thinking more along the lines that Percy’s real identity is more like the Scarlet Pimpernel, and Sir Percy a mask.
Oh, and that idea also lead me to the observation that we never really see the Scarlet Pimpernel undisguised. We see a glimpse of him in Percy’s eyes when he leaves Marguerite after almost making up. But if Sir Percy Blakeney is the disguise, then we only ever see that mask, and that of the hag and the Jew. Which inspired my casting idea. I went by outside appearance: tall and powerfully built. And the actor only needs to do extreme disguises or “inane”. Which actually left me with Salman.
Last point, I promise: If you read this book in class, I wonder whether the boys will be more disappointed that Percy doesn’t actually get to fight or the girls that Marguerite doesn’t really seem to achieve anything.
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Ooooooooo! Good catch on the timeline! So he meets her, then has to go away for a year (possibly to start setting up the whole Scarlet Pimpernel system?), then returns to romance her having established his team. And of course their whole romance is in France, where “Sir Percy” seems fairly unknown and unnoticed, so he can be more of himself. Versus England, where he has to constantly play a role.
My guess is that Orczy was reflecting the most moderate acceptable opinions of her time. It was another era of upset and revolution and the class “old ways” were being questioned. So she seemed to draw a line of “the individual people are innocent, especially women and children, but the system was corrupt and needed reform”. What felt more ahistorical to me is how she ignores the upsets going on in England at the time! King George was going mad, the Prince of Wales was illegally married and spending like crazy, it was not super stable there either. But she creates the impression of England as sanity and safety and security and “good” aristocracy.
I noticed that the very first time the “Jew” is introduced, it’s mentioned how stooped over he is. Which was enough of a clue for me to guess. I think she wrote it like an Agatha Christie, in that you can enjoy trying to “solve” it, and she does give clues along the way to help, or you can just go for the ride and wait for the twists. With Sir Percy, we know someone at the inn dropped a Scarlet Pimpernel note at the opening, and we know he was asleep in the dining room at Lord Grenville’s ball. So yes, I think she wanted it both ways, try to guess if you want and I will give hints, or leave it as a surprise becuase the hints are so tiny.
Ooooo! I did not catch how much Perce and Margaurite are meant for each other in that they are both actors! Although, now that I think about it, that also goes back to their initial introduction as the Top of Society. Both of them are able to act the required part to dominate the social scene, while being privately miserable. They wouldn’t be such a power couple if they didn’t compliment each other so well.
Ooooo, young Salman and Madhuri would be GREAT in this! Or maybe present day Salman and Kat? Very much the “simple but kind” vibe with a beautiful brilliant woman.
I hope the boys won’t be disappointed Percy doesn’t fight! Fighting is dumb, it’s much cooler to trick everyone and win that way.
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Well, he spent most of his youth abroad. And I think it’s established that he only rose to the top of society during this last year, after their marriage. So even in Britain, I don’t think “Sir Percy the Fop” was well established before that. Was the revolution already that bad in 1789 that he would have been been planning the Pimpernel while officially leaving for the east? I don’t know.
I’m actually not seeing much moderation about the revolution. The best Orczy has to say is that it’s an impossible utopia. Yes, she seems to be on Armand’s side against St. Cyr. And I read the narration as pretty forgiving of Marguerite’s misguided revenge. (That’s where I disagree with that stupid analysis site, by the way.) But not only is England painted in the rosiest colors in comparison to France, it’s repeatedly called a land of freedom – bitterest irony considering the “liberté” in the revolutionary slogan.
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I enjoyed the book. 3/5 stars on goodreads, but I don’t think I’d ever really want to read it again. I think I’ve seen the movie version at some point (at least one of them if not both). What I found most interesting was the influence of this work on the history of romance genre fiction. There’s even a whole recent series by Lauren Willig starting with The Secret History of the Pink Carnation that is an homage. Also I see the author’s influence on Georgette Heyer and many later romance authors, especially with the tropes of disguised hero and marriage in trouble.
I also don’t get the foot thing (definitely a bit fetish-y). I also don’t quite see why she married him unless he really did let slip some of his true personality when he courted her.
I was on the way to a four star but the anti-Semitism at the end bothered me (though it’s the villain’s treatment of the Jewish person that is used to show his evil…the way it was all written also borrowed too much from stereotypes and tropes of the time…turn of the century…as well).
~filmilibrarian
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Yeah, the anti-Semitism really bothered me too. It reminded me of Agatha Christie in that both of them say “prejudice is a weakness, the Bad People are tricked by using their prejudices”, but at the same time the story does play into those same prejudices to some degree. There was also earlier on a big of that turn of the century proto-Eugenics stuff with “Anglo-Saxon” faces versus “French” faces. It’s the same face! They really aren’t that different! You can’t tell by looking!
And that is why I want to read the others! She kept writing well into the 1940s and I am super curious how the perspective on all this stuff shifted over the series.
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It feels tricky to me to pin down the antisemitism, because we never get Orczy describing someone who’s really Jewish. And Percy is definitely consciously playing to all the stereotypes not because he believes them but because they give him wiggle room. Maybe he is just less prejudiced than his author.
Also, do you think he brought that wig with him from home? He would have realized why Chauvelin was in the dining room as soon as Marguerite told him her worries about Armand? And why would the real Reuben have had a fake wig lying about? I think planning ahead this far, counting on the stereotypical Jewish stoop, would also justify his reputation for brilliance.
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Yeah, I guess the proto-superhero thing is misleading. The book is really much more of a romance.
But even where he works as a proto-superhero, I actually think it’s cool that he doesn’t even once use violence. More realistic too, I guess. I think I read somewhere that later there was an organization inspired by the Scarlet Pimpernel that smuggled Jews out of Europe.
Although it does help Percy in the French pub that he *looks* strong and Chauvelin doesn’t dare attack him on his own.
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Oh, I still want your input on my imagined quarrel with the analysis guy, though. He revealed his position when discussing the final resolution, after the French soldiers have already left: “The image of Lady Blakeney chewing through Percy’s ropes with her teeth suggests that she has left all her pride behind. In this position at his feet, she is completely devoted to him and no longer hindered by her crippling pride.” (https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-scarlet-pimpernel/chapter-31-the-escape) Makes me gag every time. To this guy, Percy is perfect and doesn’t even want recognition (what about that little poem, then?). While Marguerite betrayed her values when she chose her beloved brother over the unknown Scarlet Pimpernel, and has to redeem herself by trying to save her husband.
Really, how is it character growth when both times she becomes active is for family, someone she loves?
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I can see where he is going from with the “willing to totally humiliate herself!” ending, but I agree with you that it isn’t “growth”. I think it’s more revealing her true self to her husband just as he is finally revealing himself to her. She has been playing the role of a Grand Lady who only cares for gowns and balls, but that was never who she really was, any more than Percy’s silly fop was who he was. It’s a bigger statement on aristocracy, for the Blakeney’s all the society stuff is just a game, a mask over the human reality of who they are. For the French aristocracy like Countess de Tourney, it is all that they are, no ability to grow beyond it. I just started the next book in the series, and Orczy is even clearer there about acknowledging that the pre-revolutionary system was flawed and France needed a reckonning. I think in her mind, the English version of class is “better” because the English lords and ladies are more egalitarian, ready to flirt with Sally at the bar, able to go in disguise as dirty miserable people, and Maurgaurite fits with that because she herself is not aristocratic, she can both play the role of the fancy lady at balls, and be friendly and at home in tiny pubs.
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Oh! You’re right about French vs British aristocracy. I was looking at it separately, nobility vs peasants and English vs French. But it’s really that the British “quality” are better than the French nobs, who are at least still better than the French mob. That also makes sense of why the narration takes the honorary British Marguerite’s side vs the comtesse. And it explains the function of Sally and her father, who otherwise seemed to be getting a little too much screen time, so to speak.
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And that even has historical validity! England went through the Civil War and Magna Carta and loads of upheaval already, by this point in their history they had parliamentary rule I think, and they had various basic social service concepts.
It also fits with Orczy herself. Her family was run out of Hungary by peasants, but then landed in England where she grew up solidly middle-class and working for a living. She would have seen the difference in her own life between the British version of class and aristocracy versus the older forms.
The sequel book has Pimpernel just as a cameo, the main storyline is between a young aristo girl who falls in love with a revolutionary. They are both very moderate (she lived in a convent and wasn’t used to luxury, and certainly as young woman never had the chance to abuse power, he is a self-made man who donated his whole fortune towards good works and tries to soften the mob rule as a lawyer), so I feel like that makes orczy view clearer. In England, the Better Class System, an educated wealthy self-made man and an aristocratic woman would be close to equals. Versus in France, where their relationship is forbidden both before and during the revolution.
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Maybe I do need to read the sequels at some point.
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It took me a while but I finally finished the FIRST book! What most strikes me is that this book, as well as the other one someone in the middle of the series that I accidentally read, are more about the women surrounding the Scarlet Pimpernel that the Pimpernel himself.
I did not buy that a woman as clever as Marguerite would be so utterly and totally fooled by her husband, actually think him a silly fop, and love him still. It isn’t that I didn’t buy that she didn’t see through his disguise, it is more that she didn’t see the serious parts of him in all their courtship and (wasn’t it three years?) time together. But at the same time I really enjoyed that the story was not of discovering love, but of rediscovering love.
I didn’t really want more backstory in this first book, this book was about Marguerite; but I would in future books like to know more about his mother.
I did like Marguerite, and I liked Percy. I even enjoyed the well fleshed out character of the evil French spy dude. I could have used less pages spent on the Inn in the beginning of the book. I didn’t feel like the book really got going until the opera in London.
I will have to try and see the movie now.
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Watch the Leslie Howard version! It is very silly and fun and ridiculous.
So glad you finally finished it, and read the right book. I saw Maugarite as knowing that Percy was very kind, instinctively kind, even if she didn’t know his bravery and so on. For instance, the way he handled the teenage boy threatening him with a duel in the first scene. He played the idiot, but in a way that defused the situation without anyone losing face.
I read two other books in the series, and they had a similar loooooooooooong set-up and then pay off. Maybe that is how Orczy writes? figures out the complicated situation and takes FOREVER setting it up, and then once the pieces are in place the plot just goes along at record speed.
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