How many mothers, sisters, wives, think you, at the present moment, would fail to lay hands on the English adventurer, if a husband's or a son's life or freedom happened to be at stake ?...

I have some records there," he continued, pointing in the direction of the table, "which tell me that there are five and thirty natives of Boulogne in the local prisons, a dozen more in the prisons of Paris; of these at least twenty have been tried already and are condemned to death.

Every hour that the Scarlet Pimpernel succeeds in evading his captors so many deaths lie at his door.

If he succeeds in once more reaching England safely three score lives mayhap will be the price of his escape....

Nay! but I see your ladyship is shivering with cold..." he added with a dry little laugh, "shall I close the window?
or do you wish to hear what punishment will be meted out to Boulogne, if on the day that the Scarlet Pimpernel is captured, Lady Blakeney happens to have left the shelter of these city walls ?" "I pray you proceed, Monsieur," she rejoined with perfect calm.
"The Committee of Public Safety," he resumed, "would look upon this city as a nest of traitors if on the day that the Scarlet Pimpernel becomes our prisoner Lady Blakeney herself, the wife of that notorious English spy, had already quitted Boulogne.