The Scarlet Pimpernel but in reality a formidable swordsman and a quick-thinking escape artist. The band of gentlemen who assist him are the only ones who know of his secret identity. He is known by his symbol, a simple flower, the scarlet pimpernel ("Anagallis arvensis"). Marguerite Blakeney, his French wife, does not share his secret. She is approached by the new French envoy to England with a threat to her brother's life if she does not aid in the search for the Pimpernel. She aids him, and then discovers that the Pimpernel is also very dear to her. She sails to France to
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