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X
Book the Third: The Track of a Storm
Chapter X.
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, *** 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
"'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 peasant's, 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 ***.'
"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 torn.
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!