Kate Forsyth

to the guillotine, where their head was sliced off in a single swift blow of only six seconds.

Now, the Scarlet Pimpernel is a fictional character, but one that has entered into popular culture.

He was an English lord who concealed his true nature by acting as a fop and a fool.

He dressed beautifully.

He had a

high-pitched, whiny voice, and he spent his life pretending that he lived only for pleasure.

But secretly, he and a band of brave Englishmen were travelling to France and they were rescuing people, mainly aristocrats, from right under the nose of the revolutionaries.

They hid themselves in fascinating disguises.

The Scarlet Pimpernel was able to act out as a man, as a woman, as an old person, as a young person.

He managed to hide himself even though he was extraordinarily tall.

And this story was complicated by the fact that he fell in love with a French woman and married her, only to find that she had actually betrayed him.

someone to the revolutionaries.

And from that moment he closed himself off to her, and he hid his true nature from her, so that she, his wife, too believed that he was just a fop and a fool.

Absolutely, the concealed hero.

The hero who's a mild-mannered man by day and a superhero by night.

That's absolutely right.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is actually, was one of the most successful books of its times.

It sold millions and it went on and made plays and they made films.

And I've got to say, Kate, I think it's long overdue for a remake.

It's a wonderful question because I call them my treasures, much nicer word than objects.