- Zath's Lair: Library: Irking Chauvelin -

** Once upon a time I stumbled across a site claiming to be a list of "101 Ways To Annoy Chauvelin." It was asking for submissions, and I decided I'd try to send in a few, so I sat down and thought of a couple, then a couple more. A day or two later, I had 35. Then, I got really carried away.... They mostly have to do with the Wildhorn/Knighton musical version of The Scarlet Pimpernel, but some of them are from the books and movies. Why is this here when the items are already on the main list, you may ask. The answer is that my page's library is pathetically empty, and I'm desperate for a little content :) Most of them are pretty silly, but then so is the idea of thinking up a big long list of ways to annoy a fictional character, so at this point you shouldn't be surprised by something like that. The surprising part is the fact that despite all this, Chauvelin is actually my favorite character.**

My Contributions To The "301 Ways To Annoy Chauvelin" List
By Zath Chauvert

Claim he is more of an aristocrat and therefore a greater threat to the Republic than Sir Percy, because he is a marquis while Percy is only a baronet.
Call him "ChauChau."
Call him "Chaubertin."
Make fun of his cravat.
Make fun of his fondness for black clothes.
Let a white cat shed on his black clothes.
Chase him with a squirt-gun full of bleach.
Steal all his black clothes and replace them with loud Hawaiian shirts, tie-dyed sweatpants and ugly argyle socks.
Try to find out if even his underwear is black.
Tell him that the Scarlet Pimpernel always wins because Percy knows how to dress for success.
Steal his snuff box.
Show him disgusting pictures of the tumors that can be caused by prolonged use of snuff or other tobacco products.
Ask him why he's so obsessed with finding and destroying a red zit when they usually go away on their own after a couple of days.
Ask him if he's going to jump off a bridge like Javert.
Foil his carefully made plans.
Publicly remind him of how you foiled his carefully made plans at some time in the past.
Pretend to fall asleep while he's talking to you.
Point over his shoulder (or into the audience) and claim you think you see the Scarlet Pimpernel "right over there."
Fool him with silly disguises.
Pretend to be a Belgian spy and give him false information.
Tell him you lost the fight on purpose.
Gag him, wrap him in fishnets, and tell local fishermen he is the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Gag him, tie him to the guillotine, and leave incriminating evidence on him that indicates he is the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Instantly recognize him when he thinks he is cleverly disguised.
Slap him on the back, making him choke on his soup.
Put pepper in his snuffbox.
Save people from the guillotine.
Steal the guillotine.
Lock him in a small room with Percy.
Let Percy give him a makeover.
Stare at him continuously. Whenever he looks in your direction, giggle.
Throw spitballs at him while he's trying to have a dramatic moment.
Grease the stairs and the railings of the guillotine right before he sings "Falcon in the Dive."
(if you are a guy) Marry his ex-girlfriend.
(if you are a girl) Refuse to be seduced by him even if he sings sexy songs for you.
Dress exactly like he does and follow him around, mimicking his every move.
If he asks what you are doing, tell him that you have been officially appointed by the Committee to be "Mini-Chau" and if he has a problem with that he should take it up with Robespierre.
If he actually does complain to Robespierre, claim that he is only whining about trivial matters in order to draw attention away from his failure to capture the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Suggest that he should join a 12 step program to kick his nasty snuff habit.
Tell him you think Sir Percy Blakeney is the greatest poetic genius of the 18th century.
Uproot all the grass from his lawn and replace it with little red flowers.
Replace his doorbell chimes with a recording of Percy's most inane laugh.
Pretend you think he's the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Tell him he's a fictional character created by an aristocrat living in England.
Tell him the Baroness always liked Percy better.
Ask him if he means to look like Dracula or if it's just a coincidence.
Tie a little black bell around his neck so he can't sneak up on Percy.
Return to save the day after he thinks you've been executed.
After his defeat, explain all the details of your plan so he knows exactly how well you outsmarted him.
Flood the stage with helium right before any of his solos.
Flood the stage with *anything* right before any of his solos.
Have Bounders in drag tie up his soldiers with jump-ropes.
Pretend to be Caesar's ghost. Speak Latin.
Make him help catch 123 geese.
Tell him he has a name like a little dog, then bark in his face.
Continually run into him on purpose, but blame it on him.
Put banana peals on both ends of the foot bridge while Percy is singing "She Was There" so Chauvelin falls when making his entrance and again on his exit.
Steal his tricolor sash and replace it with one that has every color *except* red white and blue.
Tell him he reminds you of Sir Percy.
Set him up on a blind date with Madame Defarge. (I won't be the one to write the awful thing, but I smell a scary SP/Tale Of Two Cities crossover brewing somewhere out there, and it's a romance!)
Whenever you see him, shout "It's the Citizen!" in a silly voice, point, and wave strangely, making everyone in the room stare at him.
When asking him about the current lack of lace in French fashion, pretend "jabot" is a dirty word and giggle suggestively.
Mock his cute little black tricornered hat.
Belittle his attempt at maniacal laughter.
Make fun of the way he says "Peeem-per-nell."
Tell him that "Where's The Girl" is being cut out of the show to make room for a longer handkerchief dance during "Creation Of Man."
Tell him that Frank Wildhorn has gone nuts and decided to cut ALL of his songs so that Percy, Marguerite, and The Bounders can each sing a reprise of Facade, regardless of the fact that it's from the wrong show.
Tell him that in an attempt to appeal to younger audiences, he is being assigned a talking ferret as a sidekick which he must take with him wherever he goes.
Tell him that Disney has bought the rights to the story and he is being REPLACED by a talking ferret who is Robespierre's sidekick.
Shout "Yes, you will!" after he says "I'll never be duped by this scurrilous phantom again" during "Falcon In The Dive."
Shout "You could have fooled me!" after he says "I wasn't born to sack and slaughter" or after "I'm not a man to hunger for blood."
When he sings about raising his spear, ask him if it's twelve feet long.
Show up for the duel he had challenged you to in order to lure you back to France but never expected to actually have to fight because he thought you'd be too busy trying to leave the country once you had escaped from his clutches.
Tell him that Robespierre has grown tired of the Reign of Terror and is now trying to promote the image of a new "kinder and gentler" France, so his services will no longer be required by the Committee of Public Safety. (and no, he can't chop off one last head for old times' sake)
When speaking to him, begin every sentence with either "La" or "Sink me."
Insist on looking at everything through a quizzing glass with a lazy, bemused expression on your face. When you think he isn't paying attention (or even if he is), use it to try to focus the sun's light and set his cravat or tricolor sash on fire.
Tell him Percy and Marguerite make such a cute couple.
Say "Even an idiot like Sir Percy knows who the Scarlet Pimpernel is! Why can't you figure it out?"
Write silly fanfic about him in which he does strange, sometimes even stupid, out of character things.
Tell him that the plot of "French psycho stalks famous female singer, attempting to seduce her away from her rich and handsome lover" has already been done by the Phantom of the Opera, so he'll have to find a new gimmick. If he tries to protest, tell him Andrew Lloyd Webber is a very powerful man with more lawyers than you can shake a guillotine at.
Superglue his sword into its scabbard right before his duel with Percy.
During the duel, shout "There can be only one!"
Once Percy and Marguerite leave after the duel, tickle his nose with a feather so it itches but he can't scratch it because both his hands are tied to the guillotine's scaffold.
While he's watching, use the guillotine to slice lunchmeat. Offer him a sandwich. Tell him it's headcheese. (that stuff is disgusting as well as an awful pun)
On a hot summer day, replace the blade of the guillotine with a large piece of foil-wrapped chocolate. "Slice! Come paradise!" becomes "Squish! What a sticky mess!"
Train several birds, preferably scarlet macaws, to land on outstretched arms and then release them near the end of "Falcon In The Dive."
Stand up and shout "I'm right over here!" during "Where's The Girl." (this would be especially disturbing it you are several decades older than he is and/or male)
Shout in a high childish voice, "Oh my god, he killed Percy! You bastard!" when he guillotines Blakeney.
Quietly sneak up behind him during "Falcon In The Dive" and cut the guillotine's rope, dropping the blade mere inches from his butt. (or, better yet, time it so it chops off his coattails)
Videotape him singing WTG to Marguerite and blackmail him, saying he has to wait on you hand and foot for a month or you'll show the tape to Robespierre.
Show the tape to Robespierre anyway.
As he walks away from the garden with Marguerite's scarf stuffed in his coat, if you can see it sticking out at all, laugh and pretend you think it's his underwear
Steal the scarf, blow your nose on it, then give it back to him.
Tell him you know that the real reason he took the scarf is because he secretly wants to join the Bounders in their Creation Of Man handkerchief dance.
Tell him exactly how Percy escaped from him at Calais in the first book, emphasizing the fact that he unknowingly gave up the opportunity to personally beat the snot out of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Pretend that he, like Javert, has no official first name and give him a different one every time you see him.
Refer to him as "the other Armand."
Tell him that he would make a much more interesting villain if he drank a little HJ7 every once in a while. (Would it turn him into someone like Edward Hyde or someone like Percy's fop character? Either way the results would be amusing.)
While he's waiting in the garden for Marguerite, give him a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich (with strawberry jelly so it will leave scarlet stains if he gets any on his cravat) and then refuse to give him anything to drink. Let's see him sing "Where's The Girl" with *that* stuck to the roof of his mouth!
Don't tell Marguerite that he's waiting for her in the garden. Instead, send him a Bounder in drag, claiming to be Marguerite. When he demands to see the real Marguerite, send him another Bounder in drag. Repeat this until he goes back to France in disgust.
Walk into the garden and start trimming the hedges while he's trying to sing "Where's The Girl." Tell him that you're the groundskeeper and he should just pretend you're not there. If he turns his back, spray him with the garden hose.
Staple, glue, or sew Marguerite's scarf to her dress, so no matter how hard he tries, he won't be able to get it off her.
Tell him "Chauvelin" sounds like the name for some sort of soggy French custard served for dessert in pretentious, overpriced restaurants frequented by gullible yuppies.
After he rides the guillotine offstage at the end of "Falcon in the Dive," walk up to him dressed as a highway patrol officer and try to give him a $500 fine for driving a scaffold without a license.
If he's stupid enough to give you the money, spend it all on Scarlet Pimpernel merchandise and mail him the receipts with the name of each item circled (in scarlet ink of course).
Hire singing telegram people to show up at his house and sing "They Seek Him Here" at strange hours of the night... every night... for a year!
Start making fun of his black clothes, go off on a tangent about how much you like chocolate cake, forget what you were talking about, then wander away.
Tell him that the phrase "bloody bouquets" is actually the code word for the Scarlet Pimpernel (think "red flowers"), who the women of France imagine to be just as sexy as the women of England think he is, only they must disguise their lust for him for fear of retribution from the Committee. (this only works in the SP1 version of Madame Guillotine)
Disguise yourself as a prostitute and try to seduce his soldiers into giving you information regarding the whereabouts of prisoners he hopes to use as bait to capture the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Put glue inside Marguerite's wig (this one will probably annoy both of them), so when he's trying to look cool in front of his soldiers by yanking off her wig after recognizing her, it won't come off as if it's real hair. He'll look silly in front of his men and she'll probably smack him.
Or, put the glue on the OUTSIDE of the wig, so that when he yanks it off and then smells it, it gets stuck to his face.
Tell him that between the scarf and the wig, his obsession with smelling things he steals from Marguerite is really strange and is probably the sign of some perverted fetish or major mental illness.
Tell him you have a fanfic where Marguerite dumps Percy for him, then refuse to let him read it.
Suggest that he should reconsider wearing all that black, at least until he "does something about that horrible case of dandruff." (for added irritation, give Percy's inane laugh and then dust off his shoulders using a frilly lace handkerchief)
Reconfigure the guillotine so that outwardly it looks exactly the same, but when you pull the rope all it does is hit the victim in the face with a cream pie.
Dress up as an exterminator and claim that the guillotine is infested with termites and he can't have any more executions until it has been fumigated.
Then, tell him your schedule is already booked solid for the next two years and, France being the country of equality that it is, he'll just have to wait his turn like everyone else.
Call him Monsieur instead of Citizen.
Call him an aristo.
Get other people to mispronounce his name the same way you do.
Tell him you thought that, of all the versions of the story, the A&E movie had the most accurate portrayal of his character.
Spill wine on his cravat, and then give him a big long lecture on the importance of cravats when he claims not to care.
When he recites his own version of Percy's poem, make fun of the fact that it doesn't rhyme.
Call him "Shove-Along."
Call him "Chauvy-Bear."
Call him "a frog hoping for a kiss." (Okay, so he wasn't there to hear it when Percy said this, but I'm sure that if he was, he would have been annoyed)
Rescue the dauphin.
At Lord Grenville's Ball, just as he's sitting down to pretend to be asleep in the dining room to wait for 1am so he can see who the Scarlet Pimpernel is, stick a whoopee cushion under him, then claim Percy did it.
The moment he closes his eyes, garb him by the shoulders and start shaking him, shouting for him to wake up, saying "some nut just spent half an hour running around the dining room completely naked, claiming that he was the Scarlet Pimpernel and he was looking for Sir Andrew Ffoulkes! He made so much noise that Sir Percy got disgusted and left! How on earth did YOU manage to sleep through it?!? If you hurry, you can still catch him!" Then haul him off the sofa and throw him out of the room, locking the door behind him before he can protest.
Cause some sort of disturbance to attract everyone's attention so that at 1am there are nearly a hundred people gathered in the dining room, any one of whom could be that demmed elusive Pimpernel.
Sing "God Save The King."
Replace the guillotine with a replica that is a perfect copy with the exception of being a few inches smaller than the original. Repeat the process every day so it gets smaller and smaller and smaller. See how long it takes him to notice.
Make fun of those freaky giant red (or should I say scarlet?) striped lapels on his coat.
Pretend to be frightened of his clothing. (All that black, and so close up!)
Suggest that he would look better in purple fur.
Then tell him you liked the idea so much that you sent a petition to Longbottom, Wildhorn, and Knighton, and they liked it so much that they immediately ordered the new costume and it becomes an official part of the show as of next Wednesday.
When he says "All you beauties who towered above me," shout, "It's not their fault you're so short!"
After the "Marguerite disguised as a tart" incident, tell him he might have better luck with the Les Mis lovely ladies.
Claim that he doesn't say "Seize him!" with enough authority, then demonstrate by saying it yourself and having the soldiers seize him instead of you.
Ask him if he has any final words, then stuff a gag in his mouth before he can say anything.
Tell him that if he's really trying to get rid of "the stink of the street," he should ditch the guillotine and try a bar of soap.

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