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Book 3 - 10
The Substance of the Shadow
"I, Alexandre Manette, unfortunate physician, native of Beauvais,
and afterwards resident in Paris, write this melancholy paper in my
doleful cell in the Bastille, during the last month of the year,
1767. I write it at stolen intervals, under every difficulty.
I design to secrete it in the wall of the chimney, where I have
slowly and laboriously made a place of concealment for it. Some
pitying hand may find it there, when I and my sorrows are dust.
"These words are formed by the rusty iron point with which I write
with difficulty in scrapings of soot and charcoal from the chimney,
mixed with blood, in the last month of the tenth year of my captivity.
Hope has quite departed from my breast. I know from terrible
warnings I have noted in myself that my reason will not long remain
unimpaired, but I solemnly declare that I am at this time in the
possession of my right mind--that my memory is exact and
circumstantial--and that I write the truth as I shall answer for
these my last recorded words, whether they be ever read by men or not,
at the Eternal Judgment-seat.
"One cloudy moonlight night, in the third week of December (I think
the twenty-second of the month) in the year 1757, I was walking on a
retired part of the quay by the Seine for the refreshment of the
frosty air, at an hour's distance from my place of residence in the
Street of the School of Medicine, when a carriage came along behind
me, driven very fast. As I stood aside to let that carriage pass,
apprehensive that it might otherwise run me down, a head was put out
at the window, and a voice called to the driver to stop.
"The carriage stopped as soon as the driver could rein in his horses,
and the same voice called to me by my name. I answered. The carriage
was then so far in advance of me that two gentlemen had time to open
the door and alight before I came up with it.
I observed that they were both wrapped in cloaks, and appeared to
conceal themselves. As they stood side by side near the carriage
door, I also observed that they both looked of about my own age, or
rather younger, and that they were greatly alike, in stature, manner,
voice, and (as far as I could see) face too.
"`You are Doctor Manette?' said one.
"I am."
"`Doctor Manette, formerly of Beauvais,' said the other; `the young
physician, originally an expert surgeon, who within the last year or
two has made a rising reputation in Paris?'
"`Gentlemen,' I returned, `I am that Doctor Manette of whom you speak
so graciously.'
"`We have been to your residence,' said the first, `and not being so
fortunate as to find you there, and being informed that you were
probably walking in this direction, we followed, in the hope of
overtaking you. Will you please to enter the carriage?'
"The manner of both was imperious, and they both moved, as these
words were spoken, so as to place me between themselves and the
carriage door. They were armed. I was not.
"`Gentlemen,' said I, `pardon me; but I usually inquire who does me
the honour to seek my assistance, and what is the nature of the case
to which I am summoned.'
"The reply to this was made by him who had spoken second.
'Doctor, your clients are people of condition. As to the nature of
the case, our confidence in your skill assures us that you will
ascertain it for yourself better than we can describe it. Enough.
Will you please to enter the carriage?'
"I could do nothing but comply, and I entered it in silence. They
both entered after me--the last springing in, after putting up the
steps. The carriage turned about, and drove on at its former speed.
"I repeat this conversation exactly as it occurred. I have no doubt
that it is, word for word, the same. I describe everything exactly
as it took place, constraining my mind not to wander from the task.
Where I make the broken marks that follow here, I leave off for the
time, and put my paper in its hiding-place.
* * * *
"The carriage left the streets behind, passed the North Barrier, and
emerged upon the country road. At two-thirds of a league from the
Barrier--I did not estimate the distance at that time, but afterwards
when I traversed it--it struck out of the main avenue, and presently
stopped at a solitary house, We all three alighted, and walked, by a
damp soft footpath in a garden where a neglected fountain had
overflowed, to the door of the house. It was not opened immediately,
in answer to the ringing of the bell, and one of my two conductors
struck the man who opened it, with his heavy riding glove, across the
face.
"There was nothing in this action to attract my particular attention,
for I had seen common people struck more commonly than dogs.
But, the other of the two, being angry likewise, struck the man in
like manner with his arm; the look and bearing of the brothers were
then so exactly alike, that I then first perceived them to be twin
brothers.
"From the time of our alighting at the outer gate (which we found
locked, and which one of the brothers had opened to admit us, and had
relocked), I had heard cries proceeding from an upper chamber. I was
conducted to this chamber straight, the cries growing louder as we
ascended the stairs, and I found a patient in a high fever of the brain,
lying on a bed.
"The patient was a woman of great beauty, and young; assuredly not
much past twenty. Her hair was torn and ragged, and her arms were
bound to her sides with sashes and handkerchiefs. I noticed that
these bonds were all portions of a gentleman's dress. On one of
them, which was a fringed scarf for a dress of ceremony, I saw the
armorial bearings of a Noble, and the letter E.
"I saw this, within the first minute of my contemplation of the
patient; for, in her restless strivings she had turned over on her
face on the edge of the bed, had drawn the end of the scarf into her
mouth, and was in danger of suffocation. My first act was to put out
my hand to relieve her breathing; and in moving the scarf aside, the
embroidery in the corner caught my sight.
"I turned her gently over, placed my hands upon her breast to calm
her and keep her down, and looked into her face. Her eyes were
dilated and wild, and she constantly uttered piercing shrieks, and
repeated the words, `My husband, my father, and my brother!' and
then counted up to twelve, and said, `Hush!' For an instant, and no
more, she would pause to listen, and then the piercing shrieks would
begin again, and she would repeat the cry, `My husband, my father,
and my brother!' and would count up to twelve, and say, `Hush!' There
was no variation in the order, or the manner. There was no cessation,
but the regular moment's pause, in the utterance of these sounds.
"`How long,' I asked, `has this lasted?'
"To distinguish the brothers, I will call them the elder and the
younger; by the elder, I mean him who exercised the most authority.
It was the elder who replied, `Since about this hour last night.'
"`She has a husband, a father, and a brother?'
"`A brother.'
"`I do not address her brother?'
"He answered with great contempt, `No.'
"`She has some recent association with the number twelve?'
"The younger brother impatiently rejoined, `With twelve o'clock?'
"`See, gentlemen,' said I, still keeping my hands upon her breast,
'how useless I am, as you have brought me! If I had known what I was
coming to see, I could have come provided. As it is, time must be
lost. There are no medicines to be obtained in this lonely place.'
"The elder brother looked to the younger, who said haughtily, `There
is a case of medicines here;' and brought it from a closet, and put
it on the table.
* * * *
"I opened some of the bottles, smelt them, and put the stoppers to my
lips. If I had wanted to use anything save narcotic medicines that
were poisons in themselves, I would not have administered any of those.
"`Do you doubt them?' asked the younger brother.
"`You see, monsieur, I am going to use them,' I replied, and said no
more.
"I made the patient swallow, with great difficulty, and after many
efforts, the dose that I desired to give. As I intended to repeat it
after a while, and as it was necessary to watch its influence, I then
sat down by the side of the bed. There was a timid and suppressed
woman in attendance (wife of the man down-stairs), who had retreated
into a corner. The house was damp and decayed, indifferently
furnished--evidently, recently occupied and temporarily used.
Some thick old hangings had been nailed up before the windows, to
deaden the sound of the shrieks. They continued to be uttered in
their regular succession, with the cry, `My husband, my father, and
my brother!' the counting up to twelve, and `Hush!' The frenzy was
so violent, that I had not unfastened the bandages restraining the
arms; but, I had looked to them, to see that they were not painful.
The only spark of encouragement in the case, was, that my hand upon
the sufferer's breast had this much soothing influence, that for
minutes at a time it tranquillised the figure. It had no effect upon
the cries; no pendulum could be more regular.
"For the reason that my hand had this effect (I assume), I had sat by
the side of the bed for half an hour, with the two brothers looking
on, before the elder said:
"`There is another patient.'
"I was startled, and asked, `Is it a pressing case?'
"`You had better see,' he carelessly answered; and took up a light.
* * * *
"The other patient lay in a back room across a second staircase,
which was a species of loft over a stable. There was a low plastered
ceiling to a part of it; the rest was open, to the ridge of the tiled
roof, and there were beams across. Hay and straw were stored in that
portion of the place, fagots for firing, and a heap of apples in sand.
I had to pass through that part, to get at the other. My memory is
circumstantial and unshaken. I try it with these details, and I see
them all, in this my cell in the Bastille, near the close of the
tenth year of my captivity, as I saw them all that night.
"On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under his head, lay
a handsome peasant boy--a boy of not more than seventeen at the most.
He lay on his back, with his teeth set, his right hand clenched on
his breast, and his glaring eyes looking straight upward. I could
not see where his wound was, as I kneeled on one knee over him;
but, I could see that he was dying of a wound from a sharp point.
"`I am a doctor, my poor fellow,' said I. `Let me examine it.'
"`I do not want it examined,' he answered; `let it be.'
"It was under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move his hand
away. The wound was a sword-thrust, received from twenty to twenty-
four hours before, but no skill could have saved him if it had been
looked to without delay. He was then dying fast. As I turned my
eyes to the elder brother, I saw him looking down at this handsome
boy whose life was ebbing out, as if he were a wounded bird, or hare,
or rabbit; not at all as if he were a fellow-creature.
"`How has this been done, monsieur?' said I.
"`A crazed young common dog! A serf! Forced my brother to draw upon him,
and has fallen by my brother's sword--like a gentleman.'
"There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or kindred humanity, in this
answer. The speaker seemed to acknowledge that it was inconvenient
to have that different order of creature dying there, and that it
would have been better if he had died in the usual obscure routine of
his vermin kind. He was quite incapable of any compassionate feeling
about the boy, or about his fate.
"The boy's eyes had slowly moved to him as he had spoken, and they
now slowly moved to me.
"`Doctor, they are very proud, these Nobles; but we common dogs are
proud too, sometimes. They plunder us, outrage us, beat us, kill us;
but we have a little pride left, sometimes. She--have you seen her, Doctor?'
"The shrieks and the cries were audible there, though subdued by the
distance. He referred to them, as if she were lying in our presence.
"I said, `I have seen her.'
"`She is my sister, Doctor. They have had their shameful rights,
these Nobles, in the modesty and virtue of our sisters, many years,
but we have had good girls among us. I know it, and have heard my
father say so. She was a good girl. She was betrothed to a good
young man, too: a tenant of his. We were all tenants of his--that man's
who stands there. The other is his brother, the worst of a bad race.'
"It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy gathered bodily
force to speak; but, his spirit spoke with a dreadful emphasis.
"`We were so robbed by that man who stands there, as all we common
dogs are by those superior Beings--taxed by him without mercy, obliged
to work for him without pay, obliged to grind our corn at his mill,
obliged to feed scores of his tame birds on our wretched crops, and
forbidden for our lives to keep a single tame bird of our own,
pillaged and plundered to that degree that when we chanced to have a
bit of meat, we ate it in fear, with the door barred and the shutters
closed, that his people should not see it and take it from us--I say,
we were so robbed, and hunted, and were made so poor, that our father
told us it was a dreadful thing to bring a child into the world, and
that what we should most pray for, was, that our women might be barren
and our miserable race die out!'
"I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed, bursting forth
like a fire. I had supposed that it must be latent in the people
somewhere; but, I had never seen it break out, until I saw it in the
dying boy.
"`Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married. He was ailing at that
time, poor fellow, and she married her lover, that she might tend and
comfort him in our cottage--our dog-hut, as that man would call it.
She had not been married many weeks, when that man's brother saw her
and admired her, and asked that man to lend her to him--for what are
husbands among us! He was willing enough, but my sister was good and
virtuous, and hated his brother with a hatred as strong as mine.
What did the two then, to persuade her husband to use his influence
with her, to make her willing?'
"The boy's eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowly turned to the
looker-on, and I saw in the two faces that all he said was true.
The two opposing kinds of pride confronting one another, I can see,
even in this Bastille; the gentleman's, all negligent indifference;
the peasants, all trodden-down sentiment, and passionate revenge.
"`You know, Doctor, that it is among the Rights of these Nobles to
harness us common dogs to carts, and drive us. They so harnessed him
and drove him. You know that it is among their Rights to keep us in
their grounds all night, quieting the frogs, in order that their
noble sleep may not be disturbed. They kept him out in the unwholesome
mists at night, and ordered him back into his harness in the day.
But he was not persuaded. No! Taken out of harness one day at noon,
to feed--if he could find food--he sobbed twelve times, once for
every stroke of the bell, and died on her bosom.'
"Nothing human could have held life in the boy but his determination
to tell all his wrong. He forced back the gathering shadows of death,
as he forced his clenched right hand to remain clenched, and to cover
his wound.
"`Then, with that man's permission and even with his aid, his brother
took her away; in spite of what I know she must have told his
brother--and what that is, will not be long unknown to you, Doctor,
if it is now--his brother took her away--for his pleasure and
diversion, for a little while. I saw her pass me on the road.
When I took the tidings home, our father's heart burst; he never
spoke one of the words that filled it. I took my young sister (for
I have another) to a place beyond the reach of this man, and where,
at least, she will never be HIS vassal. Then, I tracked the
brother here, and last night climbed in--a common dog, but sword in
hand.--Where is the loft window? It was somewhere here?'
"The room was darkening to his sight; the world was narrowing around
him. I glanced about me, and saw that the hay and straw were
trampled over the floor, as if there had been a struggle.
"`She heard me, and ran in. I told her not to come near us till he
was dead. He came in and first tossed me some pieces of money; then
struck at me with a whip. But I, though a common dog, so struck at
him as to make him draw. Let him break into as many pieces as he
will, the sword that he stained with my common blood; he drew to
defend himself--thrust at me with all his skill for his life.'
"My glance had fallen, but a few moments before, on the fragments of
a broken sword, lying among the hay. That weapon was a gentleman's.
In another place, lay an old sword that seemed to have been a soldier's.
"`Now, lift me up, Doctor; lift me up. Where is he?'
"`He is not here,' I said, supporting the boy, and thinking that he
referred to the brother.
"`He! Proud as these nobles are, he is afraid to see me. Where is
the man who was here? turn my face to him.'
"I did so, raising the boy's head against my knee. But, invested for
the moment with extraordinary power, he raised himself completely:
obliging me to rise too, or I could not have still supported him.
"`Marquis,' said the boy, turned to him with his eyes opened wide,
and his right hand raised, `in the days when all these things are to
be answered for, I summon you and yours, to the last of your bad race,
to answer for them. I mark this cross of blood upon you, as a sign
that I do it. In the days when all these things are to be answered
for, I summon your brother, the worst of the bad race, to answer for
them separately. I mark this cross of blood upon him, as a sign that
I do it.'
"Twice, he put his hand to the wound in his breast, and with his
forefinger drew a cross in the air. He stood for an instant with the
finger yet raised, and as it dropped, he dropped with it, and I laid
him down dead.
* * * *
"When I returned to the bedside of the young woman, I found her
raving in precisely the same order of continuity. I knew that this
might last for many hours, and that it would probably end in the
silence of the grave.
"I repeated the medicines I had given her, and I sat at the side of
the bed until the night was far advanced. She never abated the
piercing quality of her shrieks, never stumbled in the distinctness
or the order of her words. They were always `My husband, my father,
and my brother! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten, eleven, twelve. Hush!'
"This lasted twenty-six hours from the time when I first saw her. I
had come and gone twice, and was again sitting by her, when she began
to falter. I did what little could be done to assist that opportunity,
and by-and-bye she sank into a lethargy, and lay like the dead.
"It was as if the wind and rain had lulled at last, after a long and
fearful storm. I released her arms, and called the woman to assist
me to compose her figure and the dress she had to. It was then that
I knew her condition to be that of one in whom the first expectations
of being a mother have arisen; and it was then that I lost the little
hope I had had of her.
"`Is she dead?' asked the Marquis, whom I will still describe as the
elder brother, coming booted into the room from his horse.
"`Not dead,' said I; `but like to die.'
"`What strength there is in these common bodies!' he said, looking
down at her with some curiosity.
"`There is prodigious strength,' I answered him, `in sorrow and despair.'
"He first laughed at my words, and then frowned at them. He moved a
chair with his foot near to mine, ordered the woman away, and said in
a subdued voice,
"`Doctor, finding my brother in this difficulty with these hinds,
I recommended that your aid should be invited. Your reputation is
high, and, as a young man with your fortune to make, you are probably
mindful of your interest. The things that you see here, are things
to be seen, and not spoken of.'
"I listened to the patient's breathing, and avoided answering.
"`Do you honour me with your attention, Doctor?'
"`Monsieur,' said I, `in my profession, the communications of
patients are always received in confidence.' I was guarded in my
answer, for I was troubled in my mind with what I had heard and seen.
"Her breathing was so difficult to trace, that I carefully tried the
pulse and the heart. There was life, and no more. Looking round as
I resumed my seat, I found both the brothers intent upon me.
* * * *
"I write with so much difficulty, the cold is so severe, I am so
fearful of being detected and consigned to an underground cell and
total darkness, that I must abridge this narrative. There is no
confusion or failure in my memory; it can recall, and could detail,
every word that was ever spoken between me and those brothers.
"She lingered for a week. Towards the last, I could understand some
few syllables that she said to me, by placing my ear close to her lips.
She asked me where she was, and I told her; who I was, and I told her.
It was in vain that I asked her for her family name. She faintly
shook her head upon the pillow, and kept her secret, as the boy had done.
"I had no opportunity of asking her any question, until I had told
the brothers she was sinking fast, and could not live another day.
Until then, though no one was ever presented to her consciousness
save the woman and myself, one or other of them had always jealously
sat behind the curtain at the head of the bed when I was there.
But when it came to that, they seemed careless what communication I
might hold with her; as if--the thought passed through my mind--I
were dying too.
"I always observed that their pride bitterly resented the younger
brother's (as I call him) having crossed swords with a peasant, and
that peasant a boy. The only consideration that appeared to affect
the mind of either of them was the consideration that this was highly
degrading to the family, and was ridiculous. As often as I caught
the younger brother's eyes, their expression reminded me that he
disliked me deeply, for knowing what I knew from the boy. He was
smoother and more polite to me than the elder; but I saw this.
I also saw that I was an incumbrance in the mind of the elder, too.
"My patient died, two hours before midnight--at a time, by my watch,
answering almost to the minute when I had first seen her. I was
alone with her, when her forlorn young head drooped gently on one
side, and all her earthly wrongs and sorrows ended.
"The brothers were waiting in a room down-stairs, impatient to ride
away. I had heard them, alone at the bedside, striking their boots
with their riding-whips, and loitering up and down.
"`At last she is dead?' said the elder, when I went in.
"`She is dead,' said I.
"`I congratulate you, my brother,' were his words as he turned round.
"He had before offered me money, which I had postponed taking. He
now gave me a rouleau of gold. I took it from his hand, but laid it
on the table. I had considered the question, and had resolved to
accept nothing.
"`Pray excuse me,' said I. `Under the circumstances, no.'
"They exchanged looks, but bent their heads to me as I bent mine to
them, and we parted without another word on either side.
* * * *
"I am weary, weary, weary-worn down by misery. I cannot read what I
have written with this gaunt hand.
"Early in the morning, the rouleau of gold was left at my door in a
little box, with my name on the outside. From the first, I had
anxiously considered what I ought to do. I decided, that day, to
write privately to the Minister, stating the nature of the two cases
to which I had been summoned, and the place to which I had gone: in
effect, stating all the circumstances. I knew what Court influence
was, and what the immunities of the Nobles were, and I expected that
the matter would never be heard of; but, I wished to relieve my own
mind. I had kept the matter a profound secret, even from my wife;
and this, too, I resolved to state in my letter. I had no apprehension
whatever of my real danger; but I was conscious that there might be
danger for others, if others were compromised by possessing the
knowledge that I possessed.
"I was much engaged that day, and could not complete my letter that
night. I rose long before my usual time next morning to finish it.
It was the last day of the year. The letter was lying before me just
completed, when I was told that a lady waited, who wished to see me.
* * * *
"I am growing more and more unequal to the task I have set myself.
It is so cold, so dark, my senses are so benumbed, and the gloom upon
me is so dreadful.
"The lady was young, engaging, and handsome, but not marked for long
life. She was in great agitation. She presented herself to me as
the wife of the Marquis St. Evremonde. I connected the title by
which the boy had addressed the elder brother, with the initial
letter embroidered on the scarf, and had no difficulty in arriving at
the conclusion that I had seen that nobleman very lately.
"My memory is still accurate, but I cannot write the words of our
conversation. I suspect that I am watched more closely than I was,
and I know not at what times I may be watched. She had in part
suspected, and in part discovered, the main facts of the cruel story,
of her husband's share in it, and my being resorted to. She did not
know that the girl was dead. Her hope had been, she said in great
distress, to show her, in secret, a woman's sympathy. Her hope had
been to avert the wrath of Heaven from a House that had long been
hateful to the suffering many.
"She had reasons for believing that there was a young sister living,
and her greatest desire was, to help that sister. I could tell her
nothing but that there was such a sister; beyond that, I knew nothing.
Her inducement to come to me, relying on my confidence, had been the
hope that I could tell her the name and place of abode. Whereas,
to this wretched hour I am ignorant of both.
* * * *
"These scraps of paper fail me. One was taken from me, with a
warning, yesterday. I must finish my record to-day.
"She was a good, compassionate lady, and not happy in her marriage.
How could she be! The brother distrusted and disliked her, and his
influence was all opposed to her; she stood in dread of him, and in
dread of her husband too. When I handed her down to the door, there
was a child, a pretty boy from two to three years old, in her carriage.
"`For his sake, Doctor,' she said, pointing to him in tears, `I would
do all I can to make what poor amends I can. He will never prosper
in his inheritance otherwise. I have a presentiment that if no other
innocent atonement is made for this, it will one day be required of
him. What I have left to call my own--it is little beyond the worth
of a few jewels--I will make it the first charge of his life to
bestow, with the compassion and lamenting of his dead mother, on this
injured family, if the sister can be discovered.'
"She kissed the boy, and said, caressing him, `It is for thine own
dear sake. Thou wilt be faithful, little Charles?' The child
answered her bravely, `Yes!' I kissed her hand, and she took him in
her arms, and went away caressing him. I never saw her more.
"As she had mentioned her husband's name in the faith that I knew it,
I added no mention of it to my letter. I sealed my letter, and, not
trusting it out of my own hands, delivered it myself that day.
"That night, the last night of the year, towards nine o'clock, a man
in a black dress rang at my gate, demanded to see me, and softly
followed my servant, Ernest Defarge, a youth, up-stairs. When my
servant came into the room where I sat with my wife--O my wife,
beloved of my heart! My fair young English wife!--we saw the man,
who was supposed to be at the gate, standing silent behind him.
"An urgent case in the Rue St. Honore, he said. It would not detain
me, he had a coach in waiting.
"It brought me here, it brought me to my grave. When I was clear of
the house, a black muffler was drawn tightly over my mouth from
behind, and my arms were pinioned. The two brothers crossed the road
from a dark corner, and identified me with a single gesture. The
Marquis took from his pocket the letter I had written, showed it me,
burnt it in the light of a lantern that was held, and extinguished
the ashes with his foot. Not a word was spoken. I was brought here,
I was brought to my living grave.
"If it had pleased GOD to put it in the hard heart of either of the
brothers, in all these frightful years, to grant me any tidings of my
dearest wife--so much as to let me know by a word whether alive or
dead--I might have thought that He had not quite abandoned them.
But, now I believe that the mark of the red cross is fatal to them,
and that they have no part in His mercies. And them and their
descendants, to the last of their race, I, Alexandre Manette, unhappy
prisoner, do this last night of the year 1767, in my unbearable agony,
denounce to the times when all these things shall be answered for.
I denounce them to Heaven and to earth."
A terrible sound arose when the reading of this document was done. A
sound of craving and eagerness that had nothing articulate in it but
blood. The narrative called up the most revengeful passions of the
time, and there was not a head in the nation but must have dropped
before it.
Little need, in presence of that tribunal and that auditory, to show
how the Defarges had not made the paper public, with the other
captured Bastille memorials borne in procession, and had kept it,
biding their time. Little need to show that this detested family
name had long been anathematised by Saint Antoine, and was wrought
into the fatal register. The man never trod ground whose virtues and
services would have sustained him in that place that day, against
such denunciation.
And all the worse for the doomed man, that the denouncer was a
well-known citizen, his own attached friend, the father of his wife.
One of the frenzied aspirations of the populace was, for imitations
of the questionable public virtues of antiquity, and for sacrifices
and self-immolations on the people's altar. Therefore when the
President said (else had his own head quivered on his shoulders),
that the good physician of the Republic would deserve better still of
the Republic by rooting out an obnoxious family of Aristocrats, and
would doubtless feel a sacred glow and joy in making his daughter a
widow and her child an orphan, there was wild excitement, patriotic
fervour, not a touch of human sympathy.
"Much influence around him, has that Doctor?" murmured Madame Defarge,
smiling to The Vengeance. "Save him now, my Doctor, save him!"
At every juryman's vote, there was a roar. Another and another.
Roar and roar.
Unanimously voted. At heart and by descent an Aristocrat, an enemy
of the Republic, a notorious oppressor of the People. Back to the
Conciergerie, and Death within four-and-twenty hours!
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