Born in Hungary in 1865, Baroness Emmuska Orczy moved to England with her family when she was fifteen. She lived there the rest of her life. In 1905 she published her best-known work, The Scarlet Pimpernel. The novel takes place in 1792 during the French Revolution and has a number of important parallels to European life a century later.
The French Revolution. Peasants in eighteenthcentury France endured severe economic and political hardships. Most lived on small farms rented from aristocratic landlords. They worked hard but remained extremely poor, for it was difficult to support a family on the meager income they earned. A peasant spent a large percentage of his annual income paying heavy taxes to the royal government, as well as rent to his noble landlord. The peasant class also owed part of each year's harvest to the Catholic Church. The average peasant earned barely enough to meet all these obligations.
Peasants suffered personal indignities as well. They often watched helplessly as their fields were trampled by nobleman hunters or wild boars and deer under royal protection.
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