The Scarlet Pimpernel, a mysterious figure sworn to save helpless men, women, and children from their fate; his implacable foe, the French agent Chauvelin, who is relentlessly hunting him down; and lovely Marguerite Blakeney, a beautiful French exile married to an English lord and caught in a terrible conflict of loyalties—all play roles in a suspenseful tale that spans the squalid slums of Paris.