Marguerite St Just, Lady Blakeney, is the heroine of Baroness Emmuska Orczy’s romantic novel The Scarlet Pimpernel, and features in five of its many sequels (The Elusive Pimpernel, Lord Tony’s Wife, Eldorado, Mam’zelle Guillotine, and The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel). The character has also been represented many times on the stage and screen, beginning with Julia Neilson in 1903.
French-born Marguerite is the wife of wealthy Englishman Sir Percy Blakeney, Baronet. They met at Versailles, during the infamous banquet held for the Flanders regiment on October 3, 1789, and were married two years later at the Église Saint-Roch. A former actress with the Comédie-Française, Marguerite is a celebrated beauty and leader of fashionable society in London. Aged ‘scarcely five-and-twenty’ in the first novel, she is described as ‘tall above the average’, with reddish-golden hair and blue eyes[1]. Her only family apart from Sir Percy is her brother, Armand (her elder by eight years in The Scarlet Pimpernel, but mysteriously younger in Eldorado).
Lady Blakeney is also a member of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, and has shared her husband’s adventures in several stories (Eldorado, Mam’zelle Guillotine). Her loyalty to her husband, the Scarlet Pimpernel, has never wavered even though it has been tested many times. Marguerite has suffered emotional strain and physical hardships since learning of her husband’s dual identity, but she has also found a soul mate and earned the love of a noble, adventurous and passionate individual – somebody a lot like herself.
Marguerite sacrificed fame and influence by retiring from the Paris stage to marry Sir Percy and move to England, but she still holds true to the ideals of the Republic in her judgement of others; individual merit and generosity of spirit mean more to her than wealth and position. Marguerite is also very impulsive in her actions, and is often guided by instinct, rushing into danger and trusting in the wrong people. She has an ardent and loving nature, dedicating herself wholly to those she cares for. Her selfless concern for others has on occasion imperilled those she would give her life to save (The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Elusive Pimpernel, The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel), so powerful is her desire to actively defend those closest to her.
References
- ^ Orczy, E: "The Scarlet Pimpernel", page 48. Simon and Schuster, 2004.
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