The Scarlet Pimpernel

Percy Blakeney:
Marriage isn't a word, it's a sentence.

Percy Blakeney:
To love your wife, frightfully unfashionable.

Lady Blakeney:
They say love's a disease and marriage the cure for it.

Percy Blakeney:
They seek him here.

Prine of Wales:
They seek him there.

Percy Blakeney:
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.

Prince of Wales:
Is he in heaven?

Percy Blakeney:
Or is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel!

Sir Percy:
The poets tell us love is blind.

Lady Blakeney:
The miracle of marriage opens our eyes.

Chauvelin:
I want his name.

Danby:
The Scarlet...Pimpernel.

Chauvelin:
I was beginning to think you'd lost your tongue along with your toenails.

Percy:
Clean bowled by God, sir! That's a cricketing expression, Monsieur Shuffle-on.

Chauvelin:
Chauvelin.

Percy:
Whatever.

Percy:
What is a wife but inexplicability in petticoats?

Marguerite:
What is a husband but a bully in britches?

Percy and Guests:
(singing) Ah, ca ira, ca ira, ca ira, over in France there's a revolution! Ah, ca ira ca ira, ca ira, watch what you say or you'll lose your head! Ah, ca ira, ca ira, ca ira, pass some time, see an execution! Ah, ca ira, ca ira, ca ira, une deux trois and you fall down dead! Ah ca ira, ca ira, ca ira, hear the tale of Marie Antoinette-a! Ah, ca ira, ca ira, ca ira, a bloodier sight you have never seen!

Sir William Wetherby:
Now, we have three league members in the square at this end and another ten by the entrance.

Percy Blakeney:
How do we tell each other apart?

Sir William Wetherby:
They look like us. Tramps and beggars.

Percy Blakeney:
Oh, that lowers the tone considerably!

[Claudette exaggerates her rescue from France by the Pimpernel to the Prince of Wales and his friends in the garden]

Claudette de Bridoire:
Our situation was desperate. We were outnumbered twenty to one!

Percy Blakeney:
[to Sir William] Why not forty to one?

Claudette de Bridoire:
He whipped up the reins and we just flew!

Percy Blakeney:
[to Sir William] Like the wind?

Claudette de Bridoire:
We flew like the wind!

[Sir William and Percy laugh]

[Percy and William speak to Nana after they find her trying to save Claudette at the trial]

Sir William Wetherby:
Forgive our appearance, Madamoiselle, this is not idle fancy, I assure you. We are...

Sir Percy:
[nods approval]

Sir William Wetherby:
We are members of the League of the Pimpernel.

Nana:
[huffs in disbelief and turns to leave]

Sir Percy:
Madam. [Reveals his ring with the Pimpernel flower seal]

Nana:
Ah! You are a great man!

Sir Percy:
[Shakes head] I have a great cause.

Percy Blakeney:
A rescue is like one of your scientific equations: a whole lot of pluses and minuses, two parts of this to one part of that, and a whole host of unstable elements which, when all mixed together, one hopes - if you'll pardon the expression - won't blow up in your face.

Robespierre:
Citizen Robespierre, ain't it? Sir Percival Blakeney!

Robespierre:
I know very well who you are.

Percy Blakeney:
So the Republic is selling off the family furniture to pay for more cannon balls, eh? Well done, sir! Wars are such expensive affairs. Who the devil can afford it now a days?

Robespierre:
France has to afford it, if she is to survive. Good day.

Percy Blakeney:
[bows] Ah!

Percy Blakeney:
Sir my most abject and humble apologies, I completely drowned your cravat. How can I possible make amends for such clumsiness?

Chauvelin:
It's of no consequents it's only a cravat.

Percy Blakeney:
Only a cravat? Oh, my dear sir. A cravat is the apotheosis of all neckwear. A cravat desigeshes a man of refinement from the merely ordinary it sneers at the severity of the stock. It is the only item of dress the expresses true individuality. And whether is be made of lace or silk or the finest loom it thrives on ingenuity, on originality, and above all on personality down to the last skilled of twist of bow or knot

Chauvelin:
They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere. is he in heaven, is he in hell? no. He's sitting right in front of me.

Percy Blakeney:
But it don't rhymn, Chuffnal, and it ain't a proper poem if it don't rhymn.