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The League and the Musketeers do make for an interesting comparison. The high-mindedness of the League's members was all very noble, but really they were a bunch of thrill-seeking young men who no doubt still thought they were immortal. As you do in your twenties.
I agree with you issybird - the Dumas is the better book, for all that people were put off by the central characters. But surely being appalled by their behaviour is a sign that Dumas has written a convincing and three-dimensional narrative?
The characters in The Scarlet Pimpernel are far less nuanced, though of course Orczy may have developed them more in later books. (I did read many of them in my youth, but have no recollection of their plots at all.) Remembering that it was originally a play, it would have been about action rather than about subtleties of character.
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