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From the author of The Scarlet Pimpernel, comes a series of 12 cozy
British mysteries featuring one of literature s first female
detectives. Molly Robertson-Kirk a.k.a. Lady Molly shares the same
mental prowess as C. Auguste Dupin and Sherlock Holmes but brings a
woman s wit to the table making for a formidable crime buster. Join
her as she solves the crimes that plague the hills and highlands of
Inverness, Scotland.
Citizen Chauvelin, of the Committee of Public Safety, presents
citizen Fouquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor, with the most
extraordinary claim:
"The dangerous English spy known to the world as the Scarlet
Pimpernel," he says, "is now safely under lock and key. He must be
transferred to the Abbaye prison forthwith -- and to the guillotine
as quickly as might be. No one is to take any risks this time.
There must be no question either of discrediting his famous League,
or of obtaining other more valuable information out of him. Such
methods have proved disastrous!"
There are no safe Englishmen these days, except the dead ones --
and it will not take citizen Fouquier-Tinville much thought or time
to frame an indictment against the notorious Scarlet Pimpernel . .
. and "that" will do away with the necessity of a prolonged trial.
The revolutionary government is at war with England now, and short
work can be made of all poisonous spies!
English novelist and playwright Baroness Emmuska Orczy
(1865-1947) achieved enduring success with her novels of politics
and intrigue set during the time of the French Revolution.
So it must also come from those members of the Blakeney family
in whose veins runs the blood of that Sir Percy Blakeney -- who is
known to history as the Scarlet Pimpernel -- for they in a manner
are responsible for the telling of this veracious chronicle.
For the past eight years now -- ever since the true story of The
Scarlet Pimpernel was put on record by the present author -- these
gentle, kind, inquisitive friends have asked me to trace their
descent back to an ancestor more remote than was Sir Percy.
Strangely enough his history has never been written before. it
is to the man himself -- to the memory of him which is so alive
here in Haarlem -- that I am indebted for the true history of his
life, and therefore I feel that but little apology is needed for
placing the true facts before all those who have known him hitherto
only by his picture, who have loved him only for what they
guessed.
The monograph which I now present with but few additions of
minor details, goes to prove what I myself had known long ago,
namely, that the Laughing Cavalier who sat to Frans Hals for his
portrait in 1624 was the direct ancestor of Sir Percy Blakeney,
known to history as the Scarlet Pimpernel.
"There have been more escapes" -- engineered by a band of
Englishmen of unparalleled daring who, in a mad spirit of sheer
meddling, devote their spare hours to snatching away lawful victims
destined for "Madame la Guillotine!"
No one has seen these mysterious Englishmen. As for their
leader, he is never spoken of, save with a superstitious shudder.
Scraps of paper appear from some mysterious source -- announcing
that the band of meddlesome Englishmen are at work . . . and always
it is signed with a singular device drawn in red, of a little
star-shaped flower -- called in England the Scarlet Pimpernel.
English novelist and playwright Baroness Emmuska Orczy
(1865-1947) achieved her greatest success with her 1905 novel set
in the time of Robespierre. Dramatized in collaboration with her
husband that same year, in its movie version, starring Leslie
Howard and James Mason, "The Scarlet Pimpernel" has become a
perennial favorite.
Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support
our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online
at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - 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.
Heroes sometimes come in unlikely packages. Someone is sneaking
aristocrats out of France before they can be executed by
Robespierre's revolutionaries. French agent Chauvelin is determined
to catch this mysterious character, known only as the Scarlet
Pimpernel. To do so he blackmails a beautiful French actress,
recently married to a dimwitted English baronet, Sir Percy
Blakeney. Marguerite Blakeney must make a choice between her
brother and an unknown hero - with many more lives at stake! The
Scarlet Pimpernel, an exhilarating story by the Baroness Orczy, was
a sensation when it first appeared. It spawned an entire series of
novels featuring the masked rescuer.
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