While studying the French Revolution, I dug out a DVD I had purchased recently at the used bookstore.
For a couple of dollars, I decided to see what the Scarlet Pimpernel was about.
Although I’ve heard of him, I’ve never seen or read anything about him.
This movie was great!
It takes the side of the Royalists during the dark days of terror under the Rule of Twelve, headed by the dreaded Robespierre.
Even in the movie he looked dreadfully of death and sounded cooly of the same.
Eerily he evoked caution and dread, creating great drama and suspense.
On the other hand, the delightful Pimpernel brought light, hope, and rescue to many.
PART III OF A SERIES
Apparently, this is a from book three, about the Dauphin when he was ten, after his parents were executed.
After a bit of digging I read that the movie is as accurate as it can be in known, then a bit fanciful in the unknown parts, which goes greatly in providing hope in the darkness of the terror.
I’ve read that after his mother’s death, the Dauphin was taken to an orphanage where he was brainwashed to forget who he was, which was chillingly shown in the movie.
Now historians believe that the Dauphin died of tuberculosis and was buried in a common grave.
A doctor noticed and took out his heart, a common custom for later burial.
The heart was passed to the Spanish crown, related to the French royal family.
Eventually the heart was recovered in recent years and DNA testing asserts that this was the heart of the Dauphin.
RUMORS
In the in-between years of all this research, a rumor arose that the Dauphin had escaped and a look alike took his place in the orphanage, who later died.
Like Anastasia and her little brother Alexei whose bodies cannot be found with the rest of their executed family from the Bolshevik Revolution, rumors developed that they escaped.
Many over the years have claimed to be one of these royal people who had mysteriously disappeared.
RHETORIC LEVEL MOVIE
Although my kids enjoyed this movie, now that they are in 11th grade and college, they never would have lasted as youngers due to the violent manner of the French Revolution.
