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Originally Posted by fantasyfan
I found that Marguerite was a particularly interesting heroine. She certainly seemed rather ambiguous at her first appearance —particularly when she met the Comtesse. The blackmailing effort of Chauvelin forces her into a further highly questionable position. The conflicting feelings she has about her marriage add additional tension to her decisions. I think she is certainly an effective and credible witness to events and while I agree that she plays a subsidiary part in the action, her presence adds a great deal of excitement to the story.
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I think it's fair enough that Marguerite's famed wit and intellect didn't necessarily correlate with the ability to plot, and at least she was able to act swiftly when the occasion demanded it. I agree that her conflicting feelings about her marriage and Percy also helped make her a multi-dimensional personality. I think Orczy herself hadn't quite made up her mind about Marguerite; I did get tired of variations of the word "child" to describe Marguerite.
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In the end that blazing plot of The Scarlet Pimpernel sweeps the reader along and I found it quite irresistible.
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Yes! The tension is at a high level at more than one point of the story, but most especially at the ball and the end game.