The Scarlet Pimpernel
CHAPTER I.
PARIS: SEPTEMBER, 1792
A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human
only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage
creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance
and of hate.
The hour, some little time before sunset, and the place, the West
Barricade, at the very spot where, a decade later, a proud tyrant
raised an undying monument to the nation’s glory and his own vanity.
During the greater part of the day the guillotine had been kept busy
at its ghastly work: all that France had boasted of in the past centuries,
of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for liberty
and for fraternity.
The carnage had only ceased at this late hour of the day because there
were other more interesting sights for the people to witness, a little while
before the final closing of the barricades for the night.
And so the crowd rushed away from the Place de la Grève and made
for the various barricades in order to watch this interesting and amusing
sight.
Le Mouron rouge (en version originale anglaise The Scarlet Pimpernel)
est le surnom du personnage principal d'une série de neuf romans
populaires publiés de 1905 à 1936 en Angleterre par la baronne Emma
Orczy (1865-1947).
