The Scarlet Pimpernel

The schooner Day Dream, owned by Sir Percy Blakeney, transports him and guests from London out into the English Channel, where it sails from Dover to Calais and the north coast of France on missions of mercy, taking escaped innocents from the deadly peril of the French Revolution to the peaceful safety of England. With its tall, triangular sails, the beautiful craft is well manned and modern; it’s a symbol of the Scarlet Pimpernel’s vast resources; its appearance always bodes rescue.

The Fisherman’s Rest is an inn at Dover, a fishing town on the southeast English coast where the Scarlet Pimpernel’s League members bring to shore French aristocrats whom they’ve rescued from the Reign of Terror. It’s also where Chauvelin and his spies learn of the League’s plans to rescue the Comte de Tournay.

It’s many decades old and, despite its quaint locale, highly respected:

The pewter on the fine old dressers, the brass above the gigantic hearth, shone like gold and silver—the red-tiled floor was as brilliant as the scarlet geranium on the window sill—this meant that his servants were good and plentiful, that the custom was constant, and of that order which necessitated the keeping up of the coffee-room to a high standard of elegance and order (8).

Tidy, well run, and well cared for, the Fisherman’s Rest contrasts sharply with the book’s descriptions of Calais’ miserable inns and sullen people across the channel in France. It’s part of the author’s portrayal of late-1700s England as a more advanced society than France, an idea popular with English audiences.

Also called “Madame la Guillotine” (3, 5), the guillotine becomes the chief form of execution during the French Revolution. The condemned are placed in stocks at the bottom of a tall frame, and a weighted, angled metal blade slides down quickly and heavily from the top of the frame to slice off their heads. It’s considered more humane than older methods involving a good deal of chopping. Its adoption for use in all executions, from criminals to kings, gave it an aura of egalitarian fairness. It also was very efficient: With it, as many as 100 people a day could be relieved of their craniums. Thus, the guillotine represents the ruthlessly efficient fanaticism of the revolution.

Sir Percy possesses a ring embossed with the symbol of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Marguerite discovers it and realizes that her husband is the secretive hero. The ring appears in only one scene, but it acts as a plot point, its effect on Marguerite hurling the story in a new direction.