Royalty Incognito: The Scarlet Pimpernel

Instead, he emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant, by becoming like other humans, by having a human appearance.”

– Philippians 2:7

I was first introduced to The Scarlet Pimpernel via the somewhat campy-but-iconic 1982 film adaptation starring Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour.  So enthralled was my tweenaged self, that I promptly devoured the book, which remains an often-reread favorite to this day. 

The Scarlet Pimpernel intertwines many Christian themes, and the standout is that of the “masked hero” – royalty incognito on a rescue mission.

Our first glimpse of the English baronet Percival Blakeney is at an inn, The Fisherman’s Rest, and he hardly seems the stuff of heroism.

Described as having a “certain lazy expression in his deep-set blue eyes, and that perpetual inane laugh which seemed to disfigure his strong, clearly-cut mouth,” Sir Percy is considered a “fop,” whose deepest interests go no further than the latest London fashions. When we are introduced to him in the chapter entitled, “An Exquisite of ’92,” he is summarily dismissed as “the biggest fool in England” by all.

All, that is, except for his followers and closest friends. Known only to each other as the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, outwardly they are an elite and fashionable group of dandies. Clandestinely, they are nineteen men who obey the orders of Sir Percy implicitly, and like their leader and hero, are willing to risk their reputations and their very lives to rescue those perishing across the Channel.

The year is 1792 and the French Revolution has inevitably degraded into the bloody Reign of Terror, where noble bloodline or a mere word of denouncement from a fellow “citizen” could send an entire family – even children – to the guillotine.

It seems that there is no hope or escape from the merciless and endless executions, until daring rescues, often last-minute, begin to occur.  The French authorities are left baffled, and the English can talk of nothing else than the mysterious stranger, known only as “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” after the small flower insignia left at the site of each rescue in France.

But who is he? Surely the censorious and corrupt French government, “The Committee of Public Safety,” would like to know – especially the foxlike Chauvelin – whose own position is threatened by this daring phantom.

Chauvelin is described as “blindly enthusiastic for the revolutionary cause,” and as such, Chauvelin understands that while one man alone cannot rescue every aristocrat in France doomed to the guillotine, he can certainly inspire others to join the rescue. So, the ruthless revolutionary leader sets out to discover the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel and put an end to him.

And thus begins a game of cat-and-mouse between the governing authorities and the incognito rescuer that takes readers on a rousing adventure that had real-life echoes into the 20^th century.

Towards the end of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Sir Percy, who is still in disguise as an elderly Jewish peddler, is asked by his now-penitent wife, Marguerite,

“But if Chauvelin had discovered you,” she gasped excitedly, “Your disguise was good…but he is so sharp.”

“Odd’s fish!” he rejoined quietly, “then certainly the game would have been up. I could but take the risk. I know human nature pretty well by now,” he added with a note of sadness in his cheery, young voice, “and I know these Frenchmen out and out. They so loathe a Jew that they never come nearer than a couple of yards of him…”

When authoress Baroness Emma Orczy penned those lines in 1905, was she thinking of the Dreyfus Affair – a political scandal involving a falsely accused Jewish officer in the French military that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 to 1906, leading to waves of antisemitic riots?

While we may not know for certain, we do know that the story was updated from post-revolutionary France to pre-WWII in the 1941 British propaganda war film, Pimpernel Smith (produced, directed, and starring Leslie Howard, who had played Sir Percy in the 1934 film version of The Scarlet Pimpernel). The film helped Winston Churchill persuade the United States to enter the War and was also the inspiration for Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.

Wallenberg saw the banned (due to Sweden’s neutrality) film in a private showing with his sister Nina, and she recalled that on their way home after the screening, “he told me this was the kind of thing he would like to do.”

Later, Raoul did indeed risk his life like his “Scarlet Pimpernel” hero, rescuing thousands of Jews in German-occupied Hungary during the Holocaust in World War II. 

It seems that Chauvelin, in The Scarlet Pimpernel, was right in worrying about what one man can do, and foolish to assume that it would be someone outwardly admirable!

In 1 Samuel 16, the prophet Samuel is told by God to anoint the next king of Israel, and as the sons of Jesse are brought before him, he sees the firstborn and thinks that surely this must be the one,

“But the Lord said unto Samuel, ‘Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord sees not as man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.’” (v. 7) Instead, Samuel anoints the unlikely shepherd and overlooked-by-all little brother, David, as the king of Israel. From his lineage came the King of Kings – the ultimate royalty in disguise – on the most daring mission of all!

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a story that opens at an inn, where royalty on a rescue mission is overlooked as a fool, clothed as a humble Jewish man, and betrayed to death by the bride that he loves. Having been tricked by an enemy to betray her husband, she finally realizes his true identity – but only when it appears to be too late.

For those who cherish the Gospel message, this is a story replete with redemptive imagery. “Just what exactly is a Scarlet Pimpernel?” The book answers its own question: “Nothing more than a humble wayside flower. Rather common, in point of fact!”

“[the Servant of God] grew up before Him like a tender plant, and like a root out of dry ground; He has no form or comeliness [royal, kingly pomp], that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him.”

– Isaiah 53:2