The Scarlet Pimpernel the real-life Bernard-François, marquis de Chauvelin, who survived the Revolutionary period to serve as an official under Napoleon. He was a noted liberal Deputy under the Bourbon Restoration. Other historical figures who appear in Orczy's "Pimpernel" series include: Orczy's original play, "The Scarlet Pimpernel", was produced and adapted by Julia Neilson and Fred Terry. It opened on 15 October 1903 at Nottingham's Theatre Royal and was not a success. Terry, however, had confidence in the play and, with a rewritten last act, took it to London's West End where it opened at the New Theatre on 5 January 1905. The
Romantic hero love interest, him or herself victimised by the hero's rebellious tendencies, with their fates intertwined for decades, sometimes from their youths to their deaths. (See Tatyana Larina, Elizabeth Bennet, Eugenie Grandet, et al.) The Romantic hero first began appearing in literature during the Romantic period, in works by such authors as Byron, Keats, Goethe, and Pushkin, and is seen in part as a response to the French Revolution. As Napoleon, the "living model of a hero", became a disappointment to many, the typical notion of the hero as upholding social order began to be challenged. Classic literary examples of the