The Scarlet Pimpernel - Historical Allusions

Historical Allusions

As a writer Baroness Orczy often alluded to historical events and figures but adapted these freely in creating her tales.

Citizen Chauvelin, the recurring villain of the Scarlet Pimpernel series, is based to some extent on the real-life Bernard-François, marquis de Chauvelin, who survived the Revolutionary period to serve as an official under Napoleon I of France. He was a noted liberal Deputy under the Bourbon Restoration.

Other real life historical figures who appear in Orczy's Pimpernel series include:

  • Maximilien Robespierre
  • Louis de Saint-Just
  • Jean-Lambert Tallien
  • Thérésa Cabarrus
  • Georges Danton
  • François Chabot
  • Fabre d'Églantine
  • Claude Bazire
  • Baron Jean de Batz
  • Jean-Paul Marat
  • Paul Barras
  • Georges Couthon
  • Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac
  • Éléonore Duplay

Read more about this topic:  The Scarlet Pimpernel

Famous quotes containing the word historical:

    Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years.
    William Golding (b. 1911)