Did I miss some plan in The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel?
Chauvelin's appearance at the fortuneteller's in the beginning suggests that using Theresias as a Honey Trap was originally his idea, but seriously thinking any woman could successfully seduce the Scarlet Pimpernel seems too genre blind even for Chauvelin! True, he implemented a different plan and used Theresias in a different way after she realized such a plan was impossible, but did he expect her to initially fail?- He could have been playing Xanatos Speed Chess.
We could have avoided all this in Eldorado
While reading Eldorado for the first time, when I reached Part II, I initially wondered why Chauvelin didn't pull an I Have Got Your Wife with Marguerite like in The Elusive Pimpernel and try to force Sir Percy to give up his information that way. I then actually considered, "Maybe he's actually learned his lesson that that never works"... until Part III, where he goes and holds Marguerite hostage to force her husband's hand! If, in context, Chauvelin sees no problem with using this plan again, why didn't he just do that in the first place as soon as he located Marguerite in Paris instead of waiting another 10 days? Is there any way to explain this besides genre blindness?Fate of St. Cyr's daughter?
In chapter 8 of the original story, we are told that Marguerite gives the Revolution information on the Marquis de St. Cyr because Armand had once sent St. Cyr's daughter a love poem, and St. Cyr had Armand severely beaten in retaliation. This information resulted in St. Cyr being "sent to the guillotine, whilst his family, his wife and his sons, shared in this awful fate."Um, what happened to the daughter, who was the start of all this? And if she was beheaded as well, Armand was okay with that?
- Maybe therein lies the reason behind his pre-book Heel Realization.
- Assuming that the text is correct in stating the daughter was not included in the executions it could be because she was married and out of the Revolution's reach. St. Cyr was conspiring with the Austrian court, possibly his daughter had married an Austrian nobleman.
- If we assume a less pleasant fate for the St. Cyr daughter, then remember that Armand is a member of the League and, while a republican, is a moderate opposed to the excesses of the Reign of Terror. One can assume that the brutal execution of a young woman he had feelings for and who was, apparently, guilty of little more than being in a privileged family might have something to do with this.
How did Percy know that Marguerite had betrayed him and why?
As we see Percy Blakney is extremely intelligent. He is aware of Marguerite's former friendship with Chauvelin and already distrustful of his wife so it wouldn't be a big leap for him to suspect that Marguerite has something to do with Chauvelin's stake out of the dining room. Marguerite holds back several key points in her conversation with Percy after the ball but she tells him enough for him to deduce she has been blackmailed into doing whatever it was she'd done to set Chauvelin on Percy's track and that Armand is her hostage to Chauvelin. Thus he rides off fully clued in and busy reassessing his opinion of his wife.