(no subject)

[skygiants]

The first Scarlet Pimpernel sequel, I Will Repay, demonstrates very clearly that Baroness Orczy has A Kink and that kink is 'Woman Betrays Man, Then Attempts to Fix It Through Desperate Sacrifice Which He Must Rescue Her From But Also Finds Very Hot!"

I Will Repay stars two French aristocrats, Juliette de Marny and Paul Deroulede. Paul Deroulede killed Juliette's brother in a duel that totally wasn't his fault, because Juliette's brother was an idiot; nonetheless, Juliette's father! on his deathbed!! made Juliette SWEAR VENGEANCE!!!

Fast-forward ten years to the French Revolution, where Paul Deroulede is somehow cool with the Committee for Public Safety despite being a former aristocrat and an all-around Baroness Orczy Approved Gentleman. Juliette tricks her way into his house, and They Fall In Love, but alas! she is honor-bound to betray him!

Enter: The Scarlet Pimpernel!

PERCY: So, things are looking bad, are you ready to flee the country yet like I've been asking you to for months?
PAUL: Nope! Question for you: are you ready to help me rescue Marie Antoinette like I've been asking you for months?
PERCY: I repeat: HARD NO.
PAUL: But you're supposed to be a superhuman rescuer! You've never failed!
PERCY: Yes, I have never failed because I've never done anything THIS STUPID. You know why my plans work? Because I only rescue people who are willing to put on gross disguises and ride in the bottom of an apple cart for three weeks. You know who's not willing to put on a gross disguise and ride in the bottom of an apple cart for three weeks? MARIE FUCKING ANTOINETTE.
PAUL: Come on, I've written out twelve different ways we could make this work!
PERCY: You wrote them down? Oh, boy. Oh .... oh, boy.

PERCY: OK so enough about this, how's your love life? Would your girlfriend, for example, denounce you and your TWELVE DETAILED WRITTEN MARIE ANTOINETTE ESCAPE PLANS to the Committee of Public Safety?
PAUL: oh she's not my girlfriend, I wouldn't dare touch this immaculate Madonna
PERCY:
PAUL: a perfect angel with a soul 100% unspotted who has never done anything wrong in her life, ever
PERCY:
PAUL: a beautiful cinnamon roll too good for this world, too pure
PERCY: Paul, my pal, here is my prediction: your girlfriend is definitely going to betray you to the Committee of Public Safety and .... it is going to be so much better for your romance than this Madonna bullshit, I speak from experience, everyone should try it!
PAUL:
PERCY: I promise, you'll thank me later.

(As a sidenote, Paul also lives with his old mother and a Tragic Lame Cousin who is in love with him, but whom he can never love back, because ablism. This girl spends the entire first half of the book ALSO being like "your girlfriend whose brother you stabbed is 100% going to betray you," and nobody listens, because ablism.)

So, of course, Juliette definitely betrays Paul to the Committee of Public Safety, and then immediately is like "WHOOPS NO I DIDN'T MEAN IT" and tries to hide the evidence, which means that she gets hauled into prison instead of him.

But it's OK! The Scarlet Pimpernel is on the case! In this case ... DISGUISED AS A BRAND NEW MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY.

CITIZEN LENOIR WHO IS DEFINITELY NOT THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL: I have a brilliant plan! Instead of just executing her, let's haul her up on public trial so he'll confess trying to defend her, and the mob turns against him, and then we'll execute them both!
THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY: huzzah! brilliant! marvelous! we have no idea who you are, but you're so right!
CITIZEN LENOIR WHO IS DEFINITELY NOT THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL: And then while the slathering Parisian mob is acting like the zombies in a monster movie, we can sneak them away in the chaos, AND ALSO Paul's reputation will be so completely ruined he'll HAVE to flee the country the way I've been asking him to for months instead of trying to rescue Marie Antoinette!
THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY: what was that?
CITIZEN LENOIR WHO IS DEFINITELY NOT THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL: Nothing! I am very French! Hon hon!

(A direct canonical description of Percy speaking French: "the voice, with its strange, unaccountable accent, which seemed to belong to no province of France." PERCY, YOU'RE NOT EVEN TRYING.)

The book concludes with a dramatic trial, during which Paul tries very hard to get Juliette off the hook by giving a long speech about how girls are incapable of rational actions: "Would you extract vinegar from rose leaves? Just as readily could you find reason in a young girl's head. Is that a crime?"

I should add that Juliette is, at the start of this trial, sentenced to public whipping and a stay in a reformatory -- obviously not fun, but survivable -- and by the end of it, she and Paul are both sentenced to death, so, you know, good work there.

Fortunately, this is all according to Percy's plan, and by the end Paul, Juliette, Paul's mother, Paul's poor tragic unlovable cousin, and Juliette's old nurse are all on their way to England to set up for the next book, which I was planning to write about in this post but will save for the next one because this has already gotten long!

Comments

[sovay]

PERCY: Paul, my pal, here is my prediction: your girlfriend is definitely going to betray you to the Committee of Public Safety and .... it is going to be so much better for your romance than this Madonna bullshit, I speak from experience, everyone should try it!

That is ridiculous but awesome.

(A direct canonical description of Percy speaking French: "the voice, with its strange, unaccountable accent, which seemed to belong to no province of France." PERCY, YOU'RE NOT EVEN TRYING.)

Look, everyone knows the Scarlet Pimpernel is a nigh-supernatural master of disguise; obviously if Citizen Lenoir were secretly the Scarlet Pimpernel, his accent would be much better than that!

Fortunately, this is all according to Percy's plan, and by the end Paul, Juliette, Paul's mother, Paul's poor tragic unlovable cousin, and Juliette's old nurse are all on their way to England to set up for the next book, which I was planning to write about in this post but will save for the next one because this has already gotten long!

Does his cousin get a better subplot in England?

[larryhammer]

obviously if Citizen Lenoir were secretly the Scarlet Pimpernel, his accent would be much better than that!

I think TV Tropes covers this trope. (I am not going to look for it because TV Tropes and I have work to get done.)

[skygiants]

The cousin does not even APPEAR in the next book, which meant I spent this whole book convinced she was either going to turn evil or die in an orgy of self-sacrifice. I was astonished she actually made it to England and hope she promptly found her way to a better narrative!

[sovay]

I was astonished she actually made it to England and hope she promptly found her way to a better narrative!

It's supposed to be a [demi-]paradise!

[castiron]

Now, there's a Yuletide prompt....

[meganbmoore]

I say, let the woman have her blatantly obvious kinks.

I read this shortly after the first and a couple others but only clearly recall the plots of these two and also one had more of I think Margueritte's brother.

[skygiants]

There is definitely a Marguerite's Brother Has A Romance book in my future, but I haven't hit it yet! Also a We Rescue The Dauphin book, which, after reading this one, I sincerely hope it takes half the book just for people to argue Percy into it.

[sophia_sol]

Thank you for reading these so I don't have to, my only attempts to read Orczy beyond the original Scarlet Pimpernel book have made me too frustrated with Orczy to soldier on but I am delighted to know that this is as ridiculous as it is!

[skygiants]

Ridiculous FOR SURE. Orczy is .... very Orczy but the Percy scenes are generally hilarious enough to make it worth it for me. For now. We'll see how far I get!

[bookblather]

Wow, happily married Percy gives no fucks anymore, I love it. I love Percy judging people's life choices because he really is very good at it.

[skygiants]

Happily married Percy is AMAZING and lights up every single scene he is in. (I mean, he did definitely start a riot and probably got several people killed in his brilliant plan of Escape Via Mob, but we'll let it pass.)

[gramarye1971]

I should add that Juliette is, at the start of this trial, sentenced to public whipping and a stay in a reformatory -- obviously not fun, but survivable -- and by the end of it, she and Paul are both sentenced to death, so, you know, good work there.

A classic example of how a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for his client, n'est-ce pas? Though I may dip into this just for Citizen Lenoir.

[skygiants]

It made it very clear to me that Percy's genius plan was definitely primarily to make sure that Paul had no opportunity to even attempt to carry out HIS very stupid plan, because otherwise he'd just have grabbed Juliette from the reformatory and been done with it!

[landofnowhere]

Woman Betrays Man, Then Attempts to Fix It Through Desperate Sacrifice Which He Must Rescue Her From But Also Finds Very Hot!

I enjoyed The Scarlet Pimpernel for this narrative kink when I was a teenager, but would probably have less patience with it now.

Paul, my pal, here is my prediction: your girlfriend is definitely going to betray you to the Committee of Public Safety and .... it is going to be so much better for your romance than this Madonna bullshit, I speak from experience, everyone should try it!

Percy should write an advice column!

[skygiants]

It plays out much better in The Scarlet Pimpernel than it does in I Will Repay, largely because Marguerite is an Actual Adult and Juliette, while technically in her twenties, definitely reads like Panicked Teenager.

PERCY WOULD WRITE THE BEST ADVICE COLUMN.

[genarti]

...

...

WHAT.

[skygiants]

Citizen Lenoir was there at the Jacobin Club the whole time! IT'S FINE. It's fine.

[genarti]

Is this really what fine means, Becca? Is it?




(That said the HARD NOPE on smuggling out Marie Antoinette Who Will Absolutely Not Hide Tamely In A Gross Apple Cart is genuinely cracking me up.)