The Scarlet Pimpernel quotes

No wonder that on this fine afternoon in September the crowd round Bibot’s gate was eager and excited.

The lust of blood grows with its satisfaction, there is no satiety: the crowd had seen a hundred noble heads fall beneath the guillotine today, it wanted to make sure that it would see another hundred fall on the morrow.

Bibot was sitting on an overturned and empty cask close by the gate of the barricade; a small detachment of citoyen soldiers was under his command. The work had been very hot lately.

“

B-r-r-r-r! I am as wet as a herring! Dieu! has anyone ever seen such a contemptible climate?

”

… Blakeney, Bart., one of the richest men in England, leader of all the fashions, and intimate friend of the Prince of Wales, had astonished fashionable society in London and Bath by bringing home, from one of his journeys abroad, a beautiful, fascinating, clever, French wife.

He, the sleepiest, dullest, most British Britisher that had ever set a pretty woman yawning, had secured a brilliant matrimonial prize for which, as all chroniclers aver, there had been many competitors.

Marguerite St. Just had first made her debut in artistic Parisian circles, at the very moment when the greatest social upheaval the world has ever known was taking place within its very walls.

“

I had the pick of the market, Madame, and my taste is unerring.

”

Here in England, Monsieur,” he added, with wonderful charm and dignity, “we but name the Scarlet Pimpernel, and every fair cheek is suffused with a blush of enthusiasm. None have seen him save his faithful lieutenants.

We know not if he be tall or short, fair or dark, handsome or ill-formed; but we know that he is the bravest gentleman in all the world, and we all feel a little proud, Monsieur, when we remember that he is an Englishman.

”

All this, from the moment that Marguerite had caught sight of Sir Andrew leaning against the doorway, until she followed him into the little boudoir beyond, had occurred in less than a minute.

Fate is usually swift when she deals a blow.

Now Lady Blakeney had suddenly ceased to exist. It was Marguerite St. Just who was there only: Marguerite St. Just who had passed her childhood, her early youth, in the protecting arms of her brother Armand.

As she felt her husband’s strong arm beside her, she also felt how much more he would dislike and despise her, if he knew of this night’s work.

Thus human beings judge of one another, with but little reason, and no charity.

She despised her husband for his inanities and vulgar, unintellectual occupations; and he, she felt, would despise her still worse, because she had not been strong enough to do right for right’s sake, and to sacrifice her brother to the dictates of her conscience.

Pride had conquered, and he cared naught for her. The grey light of dawn was gradually yielding to the rosy light of the rising sun. Birds began to twitter; Nature awakened, smiling in happy response to the warmth of this glorious October morning.

Only between these two hearts there lay a strong, impassable barrier, built up of pride on both sides, which neither of them cared to be the first to demolish.

He had bent his tall figure in a low ceremonious bow, as she finally, with another bitter little sigh, began to mount the terrace steps.

“Nay! Sir Andrew, do not jest! Alas! I have often since last night caught myself wishing for that fiend’s death. But what you suggest is impossible!

The laws of this country do not permit of murder! It is only in our beautiful France that wholesale slaughter is done lawfully, in the name of Liberty and of brotherly love.

”

The sound of the distant breakers made her heart ache with melancholy. She was in the mood when the sea has a saddening effect upon the nerves.

It is only when we are very happy, that we can bear to gaze merrily upon the vast and limitless expanse of water, rolling on and on with such persistent, irritating monotony, to the accompaniment of our thoughts, whether grave or gay.

When they are gay, the waves echo their gaiety; but when they are sad, then every breaker, as it rolls, seems to bring additional sadness, and to speak to us of hopelessness and of the pettiness of all our joys.

The weariest nights, the longest days, sooner or later must perforce come to an end.

Marguerite had spent over fifteen hours in such acute mental torture as well-nigh drove her crazy. After a sleepless night, she rose early, wild with excitement, dying to start on her journey, terrified lest further obstacles lay in her way.

Marguerite noticed with a shudder that, instead of the laughing, merry countenance habitual to her own countrymen, their faces now invariably wore a look of sly distrust.

Every man nowadays was a spy upon his fellows: the most innocent word uttered in jest might at any time be brought up as a proof of aristocratic tendencies, or of treachery against the people.

Even the women went about with a curious look of fear and of hate lurking in their brown eyes; and all watched Marguerite as she stepped on shore, followed by Sir Andrew, and murmured as she passed along: “Sacrés aristos!” or else “Sacrés Anglais!”

Indeed, she had forgotten!

With the sublime selfishness of a woman who loves with her whole heart, she had in the last twenty-four hours had no thought save for him.

His precious, noble life, his danger—he, the loved one, the brave hero, he alone dwelt in her mind.

“The tall stranger may show fight. In any case no shooting, remember, except as a last resort. I want that tall stranger alive … if possible.”

He laughed, as Dante has told us that the devils laugh at the sight of the torture of the damned.

Marguerite had thought that by now she had lived through the whole gamut of horror and anguish that human heart could bear;

“La! you see it’s no business of mine, and our demmed government is all on your side of the business.

Old Pitt daren’t say ‘Bo’ to a goose.

You are in a hurry, sir,” he added, as Chauvelin once again took out his watch; “an appointment, perhaps. … I pray you take no heed of me. … My time’s my own.”

He took a pinch of snuff.

Only he, who has ever by accident sniffed vigorously a dose of pepper, can have the faintest conception of the hopeless condition in which such a sniff would reduce any human being.

Chauvelin felt as if his head would burst—sneeze after sneeze seemed nearly to choke him;

Once or twice the screams rose to her throat—as if by instinct: then, before her eyes there stood the awful alternative: her brother and those three men shot before her eyes, practically by her orders: she their murderer.

Oh! that fiend in human shape, next to her, knew human⁠—female⁠—nature well. He had played upon her feelings as a skilful musician plays upon an instrument.

He had gauged her very thoughts to a nicety.

… had done so before the thirty men had arrived on the cliff was, of course, fairly clear, but how he had come over in Reuben Goldstein’s cart, all the way from Calais, without being sighted by the various patrols on duty was impossible of explanation.

It really seemed as if some potent Fate watched over that daring Scarlet Pimpernel, and his astute enemy almost felt a superstitious shudder pass through him, as he looked round at the towering cliffs, and the loneliness of this outlying coast.

But surely this was reality! and the year of grace 1792: there were no fairies and hobgoblins about.

If Marguerite had not taken up his time, if the soldiers had had a grain of intelligence, if … it was a long “if,” and Chauvelin stood for a moment quite still, and enrolled thirty odd people in one long, overwhelming anathema.

Nature, poetic, silent, balmy, the bright moon, the calm, silvery sea spoke of beauty and of rest, and Chauvelin cursed nature, cursed man and woman, and above all, he cursed all long-legged, meddlesome British enigmas with one gigantic curse.

The howls of the Jew behind him, undergoing his punishment sent a balm through his heart, overburdened as it was with revengeful malice. He smiled.

The howls of the Jew behind him, undergoing his punishment sent a balm through his heart, overburdened as it was with revengeful malice. He smiled.

It eased his mind to think that some human being at least was, like himself, not altogether at peace with mankind.

He turned and took a last look at the lonely bit of coast, where stood the wooden hut, now bathed in moonlight, the scene of the greatest discomfiture ever experienced by a leading member of the Committee of Public Safety.