Chauvelin - "Falcon in the Dive"

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, there is only black and white - the French are seen as true villains - or are they? As obsessed as Chauvelin is, we still get the feeling that he once believed in the ideals of the French Revolution -

These are the days! Yes! Days of glory! Days of rage! And the dream of Paris preys on my bones

Discuss Chauvelin as a symbol of the French Revolution - high ideals which have gone bad with the lust for power.

Compare Chauvelin with another obsessive French manhunter, Javert from Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.

Why do we love villians? Describe the attraction of the "Bad Guy" in adventure stories.

Discuss the character of Chauvelin using this quote from Shakespeare's Macbeth: "I have no sput/ To prick the sides of my intent, but only/ Vaulting ambition, which o'er - leaps itself,/ And falls on the other." (Act I, scene 8)

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