The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy

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Title: The Scarlet Pimpernel

Author: Baroness Orczy

Release Date: March 7, 2006 [EBook #60]
[This file last updated on August 12, 2010]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL ***

Produced by Conway Yee and David Widger

THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL

By Baroness Orczy

Contents:

I. PARIS: SEPTEMBER, 1792
II. DOVER: "THE FISHERMAN'S REST"
III. THE REFUGEES
IV. THE LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
V. MARGUERITE
VI. AN EXQUISITE OF '92
VII. THE SECRET ORCHARD
VIII. THE ACCREDITED AGENT
IX. THE OUTRAGE
X. IN THE OPERA BOX
XI. LORD GRENVILLE'S BALL
XII. THE SCRAP OF PAPER
XIII. EITHER
XIV. ONE O'CLOCK PRECISELY!
XV. DOUBT
XVI. RICHMOND
XVII. FAREWELL
XVIII. THE MYSTERIOUS DEVICE
XIX. THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
XX. THE FRIEND
XXI. SUSPENSE
XXII. CALAIS
XXIII. HOPE
XXIV. THE DEATH
XXV. THE EAGLE AND THE FOX
XXVI. THE JEW
XXVII. ON THE TRACK
XXVIII. THE PERE BLANCHARD'S HUT
XXIX. TRAPPED
XXX. THE SCHOONER
XXXI. THE ESCAPE

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