Category talk:Scarlet Pimpernel

Can I do an entry on the 1982 tv movie version? How about the Pink Carnation and the Purple Gentian by Laura Willig?

21:06, 6 June 2006 (CDT)~Enda80

The 1982 TV movie version should only get his own entry if the TV movie was very, very different from the original work. Say, as different as Batman: The Animated Series was from the original Batman comics. If the differences were more subtle, the 1982 TV movie version should only be included in a subsection of a full-fledged entry on the original Scarlet Pimpernel. Generally, adaptations with small changes don't merit an entire universe category of their own.

As for The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, that's totally deserving of a universe category all its own, and you're welcome to make entries from it. (Again, though, anything on the Pimpernel belongs in a Pimpernel entry.) Just make sure you note the connection to the original Pimpernel stories!

To see an example of what I'm talking about, look at the Mr. Hyde entry. Jeb 22:15, 6 June 2006 (CDT)

Ok, here is what I had in mind for a summary.

In the 1790's, as the French Revolution had progressed to guillotinings, Sir Percy Blakenly, pretending to play the fop when in aristocratic society, decided to become the Scarlet Pimpernel. While he did not wear a costume, he used various disguises to smuggle out aristocrats targeted for execution. He worked with other British aristocrats such as Sir Anthony Dewhurst and Timothy Hastings, who curiously did not attempt to conceal their identities from the aristocrats that they saved, in the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. The League's success was modest at best (as assessed by Public Safety agent Paul Chauvelin), since they could not operate at too large a size without sacrificing secrecy, but the French leader Robespierre feared he would inspire the hopes of those who thought they could restore the monarchy.

One day, Blakenly managed to scare off some hoodlums hired to attack Armand St. Just, who had apparently been seen with the daughter of the Marquis de St. Cyr. Armand St. Just served as an aid to Chauvelin. Blakenly and St. Just became friends and confidants, Percy revealing his second identity to St. Just, and Percy married Armand's sister, Marguerite, a stage star. Blakenly sought to free the heir to the throne, held in the Temple prison and supervised by jailer Duvall. Chauvelin, who had previously been Marguerite's fiancé, enraged that she would marry an aristocrat, had the Marquis arrested and his entire family killed, and many came to believe that Marguerite had put him up to it.

Chauvelin also sought to ferret out the Scarlet Pimpernel. Deducing that the Pimpernel was probably a wealthy man and an aristocrat, he decided to become the ambassador to Great Britain. Armand came with him to his position at the consulate. Chauvelin's agents murdered a courier they surmized as serving the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, and retrieved a missive from the Pimpernel to St. Just. With this watertight evidence in hand, Chauvelin ordered Armand to return to France, and proceeded to blackmail Marguerite to serve as a spy for him. With an important society ball coming up, Chauvelin predicted that members of the League might use it as an opportunity to surreptiously pass communiqués. They did, and Marguerite managed to retrieve a scrap of paper that a League member had tried to burn referring to a meeting in the library at midnight. Chauvelin, however, was distracted when a female aristocrat asked him to dance, and not wanting to raise suspicion, Chauvelin went along. This delay allowed Marguerite to go to the library and warn the Pimpernel (who she did not see) of Chauvelin's arrival. Sir Percy, thinking quickly, pretended to slumber on the couch. Chauvelin did arrive at midnight and saw Percy there, but thinking him a fop, thought nothing of it-until he saw that one of Lady Blakenly's earrings had fallen off.

Chauvelin returned to France, only to learn that Armand had ordered that Duvall be replaced as jailer for the heir, allegdly per a directive from Chauvelin having to do with Duvall being in debt and thus prone to bribery. However, Chauvelin had given no such directions; though Duvall's replacements were loyal citizens, the man sent to move the property of the Duvalls from the Temple prison was a disguised Percy Blakenly, who absconded with the heir and left a dummy behind.