There has of late years crept so much confusion into the mind of the student as well as of the general reader as to the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel with that of the Gascon Royalist plotter known...

And yet people found the opportunity to amuse themselves, to dance and to go to the theatre, to enjoy music and open-air cafés and promenades in the Palais Royal. New fashions in dress made their appe...

And yet people found the opportunity to amuse themselves, to dance and to go to the theatre, to enjoy music and open-air cafés and promenades in the Palais Royal. New fashions in dress made their appe...

This was Armand S. Just’s first visit to Paris since that memorable day when first he decided to sever his connection from the Republican party, of which he and his beautiful sister Marguerite had at ...

St. Just would have given much to be back in his lonely squalid lodgings now. Too late did he realise how wise had been the dictum which had warned him against making or renewing friendships in France...

The greenroom was crowded when de Batz and St. Just arrived there after the performance. The older man cast a hasty glance through the open door. The crowd did not suit his purpose, and he dragged his...

It was close on midnight when the two friends finally parted company outside the doors of the theatre. The night air struck with biting keenness against them when they emerged from the stuffy, overhea...

It was a narrow, ill-ventilated place, with but one barred window that gave on the courtyard. An evil-smelling lamp hung by a chain from the grimy ceiling, and in a corner of the room a tiny iron stov...

Once more he was being led through the interminable corridors of the gigantic building. Once more from the narrow, barred windows close by him he heard the heartbreaking sighs, the moans, the curses w...

“That is the way we conduct our affairs, citizen,” said Héron gruffly, as he once more led his guest back into his office. It was his turn to be complacent now. De Batz, for once in his life cowed by ...

“Yesterday you were unkind and ungallant. How could I smile when you seemed so stern?” “Yesterday I was not alone with you. How could I say what lay next my heart, when indifferent ears could catch th...

The tension on her nerves relaxed; there was the inevitable reaction. Her knees were shaking under her, and she literally staggered into the room. But Armand was already near her, down on both his kne...

Armand never could say definitely afterwards whither he went when he left the Square du Roule that evening. No doubt he wandered about the streets for some time in an absent, mechanical way, paying no...

“Well, now, Armand, what is it?” asked Blakeney, the moment the footsteps of his friends had died away down the stone stairs, and their voices had ceased to echo in the distance. “You guessed, then, t...

The night that Armand St. Just spent tossing about on a hard, narrow bed was the most miserable, agonising one he had ever passed in his life. A kind of fever ran through him, causing his teeth to cha...

He had not actually fainted, but the exertion of that long run had rendered him partially unconscious. He knew now that he was safe, that he was sitting in Blakeney’s room, and that something hot and ...

And now the shades of evening had long since yielded to those of night. The gate of La Villette, at the northeast corner of the city, was about to close. Armand, dressed in the rough clothes of a labo...

Blakeney was not at his lodgings when Armand arrived there that evening, nor did he return, whilst the young man haunted the precincts of St. Germain l’Auxerrois and wandered along the quays hours and...

Chauvelin! The presence of this man here at this moment made the events of the past few days seem more absolutely like a dream. Chauvelin!⁠—the most deadly enemy he, Armand, and his sister Marguerite ...

Chauvelin no longer made any pretence to hold Armand by the arm. By temperament as well as by profession a spy, there was one subject at least which he had mastered thoroughly: that was the study of h...

Héron was not at his lodgings when, at last, after vigorous pulls at the bell, a great deal of waiting and much cursing, Chauvelin, closely followed by Armand, was introduced in the chief agent’s offi...

“You can leave de Batz and his gang alone, citizen Héron,” said Chauvelin, as soon as he had closed the door behind him; “he had nothing to do with the escape of the Dauphin.” Héron growled out a few ...

It was an exceptionally dark night, and the rain was falling in torrents. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, wrapped in a piece of sacking, had taken shelter right underneath the coal-cart; even then he was getting...

Blakeney had more than one pied-à-terre in Paris, and never stayed longer than two or three days in any of these. It was not difficult for a single man, be he labourer or bourgeois, to obtain a night’...

At half-past ten that same evening, Blakeney, still clad in a workman’s tattered clothes, his feet bare so that he could tread the streets unheard, turned into the Rue de la Croix Blanche. The porte-c...

The grey January day was falling, drowsy, and dull into the arms of night. Marguerite, sitting in the dusk beside the fire in her small boudoir, shivered a little as she drew her scarf closer round he...

The grey January day was falling, drowsy, and dull into the arms of night. Marguerite, sitting in the dusk beside the fire in her small boudoir, shivered a little as she drew her scarf closer round he...

Sir Andrew had just come in. He was trying to get a little warmth into his half-frozen limbs, for the cold had set in again, and this time with renewed vigour, and Marguerite was pouring out a cup of ...

That same evening Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, having announced his intention of gleaning further news of Armand, if possible, went out shortly after seven o’clock, promising to be home again about nine. Marg...

Marguerite, accompanied by Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, walked rapidly along the quay. It lacked ten minutes to the half hour; the night was dark and bitterly cold. Snow was still falling in sparse, thin flak...

Was there some instinct of humanity left in the soldier who allowed Marguerite through the barrier into the prisoner’s cell? Had the wan face of this beautiful woman stirred within his heart the last ...

The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husb...

“I am sorry, Lady Blakeney,” said a harsh, dry voice close to her; “the incident at the end of your visit was none of our making, remember.” She turned away, sickened with horror at thought of contact...

It was close on midnight now, and still they sat opposite one another, he the friend and she the wife, talking over that brief half-hour that had meant an eternity to her. Marguerite had tried to tell...

The morning found her fagged out, but more calm. Later on she managed to drink some coffee, and having washed and dressed, she prepared to go out. Sir Andrew appeared in time to ascertain her wishes. ...

The two women, both so young still, but each of them with a mark of sorrow already indelibly graven in her heart, were clinging to one another, bound together by the strong bond of sympathy. And but f...

Armand sat in the armchair in front of the fire. His head rested against one hand; in the other he held the letter written by the friend whom he had betrayed. Twice he had read it now, and already was...

“Well? How is it now?” “The last phase, I think.” “He will yield?” “He must.” “Bah! you have said it yourself often enough; those English are tough.” “It takes time to hack them to pieces, perhaps. In...

“Well? How is it now?” “The last phase, I think.” “He will yield?” “He must.” “Bah! you have said it yourself often enough; those English are tough.” “It takes time to hack them to pieces, perhaps. In...

Silence reigned in the narrow cell for a few moments, whilst two human jackals stood motionless over their captured prey. A savage triumph gleamed in Chauvelin’s eyes, and even Héron, dull and brutal ...

Citizen Chauvelin had drawn his colleague with him to the end of the cell that was farthest away from the recess, and the table at which the prisoner was sitting. Here the noise and hubbub that went o...

What occurred within the inner cell of the Conciergerie prison within the next half-hour of that 16th day of Pluviôse in the year II of the Republic is, perhaps, too well known to history to need or b...

Two hours after midnight Armand St. Just was wakened from sleep by a peremptory pull at his bell. In these days in Paris but one meaning could as a rule be attached to such a summons at this hour of t...

He carefully locked the outer door. Then he lit the lamp, for the candle gave but a flickering light, and he had some important work to do. Firstly, he picked up the charred fragment of the letter, an...

In a small upstairs room in the Rue de Charonne, above the shop of Lucas the old-clothes dealer, Marguerite sat with Sir Andrew Ffoulkes. Armand’s letter, with its message and its warning, lay open on...

The little cortége was turning out of the great gates of the house of Justice. It was intensely cold; a bitter northeasterly gale was blowing from across the heights of Montmartre, driving sleet and s...

Rain! Rain! Rain! Incessant, monotonous and dreary! The wind had changed round to the southwest. It blew now in great gusts that sent weird, sighing sounds through the trees, and drove the heavy showe...

“Now, then, citizen, don’t go to sleep; this is Crècy, our last halt!” Armand woke up from his last dream. They had been moving steadily on since they left Abbeville soon after dawn; the rumble of the...

Progress was not easy, and very slow along the muddy road; the two coaches moved along laboriously, with wheels creaking and sinking deeply from time to time in the quagmire. When the small party fina...

Chauvelin and his picked escort had in the meanwhile detached themselves from the main body of the squad. Soon the dull thud of their horses’ hoofs treading the soft ground came more softly⁠—then more...

The sergeant’s voice broke in upon her misery. The man had apparently done as the citizen agent had ordered, and had closely examined the little building that stood on the left⁠—a vague, black mass mo...

Armand had wakened from his attack of faintness, and brother and sister sat close to one another, shoulder touching shoulder. That sense of nearness was the one tiny spark of comfort to both of them o...

It seems that in the pocket of Héron’s coat there was a letter-case with some few hundred francs. It was amusing to think that the brute’s money helped to bribe the ill-tempered keeper of the halfway ...