The Old Curiosity Club discussion

Hello Curiosities,

At the beginning of this week’s read, the narrator takes us back to France, where we will stay for about three chapters before going back to London. After all, it is a tale of two cities, and that’s why we should not forget about Paris.

Chapter 7, which is called “Monseigneur in Town”, starts in the French capital, and here the narrator uses the opportunity to voice scathing criticism of the situation in pre-revolutionary France. We learn, among other things, of the problem of nepotism and simony, which resulted in incapable military and civil officers, of ridiculously high taxes (created, among other things, by the greed of tax-farmers) which reduce a large part of the population to a life on the fringes of or in poverty, and – I think this is typical of Dickens – of women who aim at looking twenty when in fact they are sixty, as well as of the fact that fashions at the time made mothers ashamed of their motherhood and anxious to have their babies be looked after by nurses. While the narrator lists up all these grievances, we are at the levee of a French church dignitary, who actually needs four people to prepare his chocolate for him, and of whom the narrator bitterly says,

”Monseigneur was about to take his chocolate. Monseigneur could swallow a great many things with ease, and was by some few sullen minds supposed to be rather rapidly swallowing France […]”

In a way, the Church Dignitary is probably only a way of opening the chapter, because it is not he who is important for the story but one of the people who paid their respects to him. This man, who is a Marquis, quickly expresses his wish that the Church Dignitary might go to hell when he is alone with himself, and the narrator describes him as an extremely refined man, whose face, nevertheless, would show signs of treacherousness and cruelty at times. Later we learn that the face resembles a fine mask in that its owner has learned to control his feelings and not to let them get the better of him. All in all, this new character reminded me of Mr. Chester in Dickens’s other historical novel, Barnaby Rudge.

When he is driven through Paris in his coach, something terrible happens: The coach runs over a little child, and the Marquis, instead of showing concern and pity, gives the distraught father a gold coin and behaves “with the air of a gentleman who has accidentally broken some common thing, and had paid for it.” He also gives another gold coin to Monsieur Defarge, whose stoical (and bitterly ironic) advice to the broken-hearted father amuses him and makes him call Defarge a philosopher. When the Marquis enters his coach and gives the sign to drive on, a gold coin is flung into the coach, but the indignant Marquis sees no trace of M. Defarge anymore. Instead, where the vine merchant has been standing, there is a woman now, knitting. The Marquis is aware that it would not become his reputation to lose his temper in front of these people, whom he considers no better than “rats”, and drives on.

In Chapter 8, “Monseigneur in the Country”, we see him travel towards his château. Noticing that a man who is repairing the roads keeps looking at the coach in a peculiar way, the Marquis stops in a nearby village – next to a fountain, as it was next to a fountain that the little child had been run over by his coach – in order to question the man. He says that he had seen a man riding as a stowaway underneath the coach – a man

”’[a]ll covered with dust, white as a spectre, tall as a spectre!’”

The Marquis is alarmed at the news, but also indignant at the witness’s lack of quick-wittedness, which would have made it incumbent on him to stop the coach right then – because now the stowaway has disappeared. The narrator also uses this chapter to give us some insight into the poverty of French farmers at the time and to show us more about the character of the Marquis. For example, he repeatedly uses the image of Furies following the coach, and he also uses this passage that I really liked:

”A blush on the countenance of Monsieur the Marquis was no impeachment of his high breeding; it was not from within; it was occasioned by an external circumstance beyond his control—the setting sun.”

Not only do I like it because it is quite a sarcastic remark but also because the image of the setting sun aptly suggests what is going to happen in the next chapter, which is called …

”The Gorgon’s Head”. Once again, we get a marvellous example of how Dickens achieves the characterization of a person, or even of the social order he stands for, by way of the description of the place where this person lives. I might not say too much about it now because it would be a good point of discussion: In what respect does the château illustrate the Ancien regime, or the Marquis’s character?

The Marquis is expecting the arrival of his nephew from England, which is finally going to come about – and we notice that the nephew is none other but Charles Darnay. Uncle and nephew do not get on very well with each other, for they have different attitudes with regard to the social and political situation in France and with regard to their own family’s share in it. Apparently, the uncle is even afraid of his nephew’s accession to the family’s titles and possessions after his own death, and he would not deign to prevent it if opportunity arose. Were he not so much out of favour with the truly powerful circles in Paris, the Marquis might even have used one of the infamous lettres de cachet, warrants granted to let unbeloved persons disappear in French prisons, even though they have committed no crime, against his own nephew.The Marquis also enquires whether Charles has not made the acquaintance of an emigré doctor and his daughter in England, and the reader asks himself why the Marquis, who is obviously interested in himself only, would like to know this. We also learn another detail which might prove important later on, namely that Charles Darnay’s father was the Marquis’s twin.

The next morning, there is great alarm in the château and its vicinity, because the Marquis has been found murdered in his bed. He was stabbed into his heart, which must have been a very difficult feat since the organ must have been of an uncommonly small size and thus easy to be missed, and there is a letter wrapped around the hilt of the knife: “Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.”

Jacques? Jacques? Jacques? – There are so many Jacques in this novel that it will be difficult to pin the murder on any one. Or do you think differently? I couldn’t help giving three cheers to M. Defarge at this point, if I may be honest.

While I was riveted by the first three chapters this week, I did not particularly like Chapter 10, which is about “Two Promises”. At the beginning we learn that more than one year has passed since the events described in the preceding chapter, and that Charles Darnay has settled down as a successful teacher of French language and literature, where he earns a modest pay but is, all in all, a satisfied man. Now he makes up his mind to tell Doctor Manette about his feelings for Lucie, and briefly, he asks Doctor Manette for Lucie’s hand in marriage. Of course, Charles is sensitive enough not to press his case, given the special relation between a father who has so long been separated from his daughter. He does not even want the Doctor to speak in a positive way about him to Lucie because he does not want to influence Lucie via her father. When Charles finishes the conversation, he says that he actually has to tell the doctor something about his family connections and his true name – but, strangely, the doctor waives all further words aside and says that there might be a time when they should revert to this subject.

Why on earth does the doctor not want to know? Another strange thing is that this very night, Lucie has the impression that her father has reverted to his shoemaker’s bench again. Have you any theory as to why?

Now let’s turn to the last three chapters of this week’s reading plan: In Chapter 11, we see “A Companion Picture”. Carton is again hard at work, and at drink, for Stryver, when the latter by and by informs him about his intentions of offering marriage to Lucie Manette. Still more big-headed than he used to be, the lawyer expatiates on Carton’s lack of refinement and sensitiveness and advises him to find himself a possible bride, too, preferably in the landlady way, i.e. with a view to being looked after. Now, to make an aside, this reminded me of a peculiar German expression, namely of the word “Bratkartoffelverhältnis”, which is literally “a fried potato relationship”. It means a loose affair in which the man also tries to enjoy commodities like warm meals and other services. I wonder if the English language has a word for it or if this is a typically German thing.

Again, to come back to the chapter, I quite admired Carton’s repartee with Stryver, and I was surprised at the cold-bloodedness with which he greeted the news of his big-headed friend. Maybe he could muster up so much cold-bloodedness because something tells him that Lucie would not be likely to marry Stryver.

On his way to the Manettes – we are now in the next chapter –, Stryver gets the idea to drop by at Tellson’s Bank and to tell Mr. Lorry about his plans, which he accordingly does in a very self-complacent and all-hat-no-cattle way: “’I am going to make an offer of myself in marriage to your agreeable little friend, Miss Manette, Mr. Lorry.’” Now that’s really, really a “Fellow of Delicacy”! To his surprise, Mr. Lorry is not very much convinced that his suit will be a successful one, and he is clever enough to have Mr. Lorry see how the land is lying. When that very evening Mr. Lorry comes to Stryver’s place in order to inform him that there is little or no hope for Stryver to obtain Lucie’s hand, the lawyer has already decided on a course of action – namely on that of the fox who wasn’t able to reach the grapes he had actually wanted. He now pretends to have almost forgotten of the whole thing and to be actually glad for himself, but still a little bit sad for the young girl, whose fastidiousness was too much in her way.

Chapter 13 deals with “The Fellow of No Delicacy”, Mr. Carton, and it is set a few weeks after the events described before. Now Mr. Carton pays a visit to Miss Lucie, in which he pours out his heart to her, basically telling her that he knows that his life is without aim and purpose and value but that if it were not so, he would find it in his heart to strife for her love. But since it is not so … well. What might have made Sydney do such a thing? He must be very much in despair indeed, as the following words show:

”’I am like one who died young. All my life might have been!’”

As I said, I find that a very modern attitude, and this might be discussed in this week’s thread. But, of course, everybody is welcome to write what they liked or disliked or wondered about most.

Tristram wrote: "Hello Curiosities,

At the beginning of this week’s read, the narrator takes us back to France, where we will stay for about three chapters before going back to London. After all, it is a tale of t..."

I have always found these chapters very confusing: first because there is a Monseigneur, who it turns out is not our focus character but rather Monsieur the Marquis is--but then Monsieur the Marquis becomes Monseigneur--so that's both of them? Which one were we talking about in the city? And then there's all the bit about stone faces and which stone faces are really stone faces (the gargoyles outside the chateau) and which are not (the dead man on the pillow), and I still can't tell you without looking back again who or what the Gorgon is. It took me a great deal of time to sort all this out when I first read it, and I still go through a bit of a headspin trying to keep the people straight--including all the town and country people.

One thing I am still not sure of: Darnay went off to bed, presumably in the chateau, after he was dismissed by his uncle. So presumably he's also still around when his uncle turns up dead? He knows his uncle is dead?

Anyway: all still very good stuff. I guess the Marquis is kind of cartoonishly evil but I admire how quickly he is dispatched so we can get onto more complicated villainy, and in the meantime his presence (along with Dr. Manette's) does give us a sense of why France needs to change.

Tristram wrote: "Another strange thing is that this very night, Lucie has the impression that her father has reverted to his shoemaker’s bench again. Have you any theory as to why?"

I'm still stuck on why he continues to keep the shoemaker's bench around at all, but I like it. It's this quiet lurking reminder in the middle of their idyllic cottage that they haven't left the past as far behind as they might think they have.

but, strangely, the doctor waives all further words aside and says that there might be a time when they should revert to this subject.

Okay, not just *any* time: he says in the event that you're about to marry my daughter, tell me your family name on the morning of your wedding. Isn't that maybe a little too late?

This reminds me of Frankenstein, in which Victor tells Elizabeth he will explain all the crazy weird things *including deaths* that are happening all around them, tell her absolutely everything--as soon as they are married. Which works out every bit as badly as it sound like it will.

Unless Dr. Manette wants it to be too late when he finds out?

Tristram wrote: "this reminded me of a peculiar German expression, namely of the word “Bratkartoffelverhältnis”, which is literally “a fried potato relationship”. It means a loose affair in which the man also tries to enjoy commodities like warm meals and other services. I wonder if the English language has a word for it or if this is a typically German thing."

As far as I know all we have is "friends with benefits," and the benefits are not fried potatoes.

In chapter 8, what is difference between Monseigneur and Monsieur?

I noted that the monsieur (running his eyes over crowd) said " as if they had been mere rats coming out their holes." Sounds like the Marquis would say that. But I am not sure.

I'd forgotten all about the Marquis until his carriage started careening around bends, and then the coming scene came crashing back into my mind. The Marquis is worse than Skimpole.

Like Julie, I wondered where Darnay was and how he escaped his uncle's fate, but this particular attack seems to have been targeted.

When Darnay was meeting with the good doctor, was anyone else reminded of Prince and Caddy in Bleak House, with their assurances that their union would in no way take Prince away from Mr. Turveydrop? What is is with Dickens and these needy parents? I guess it was something with which he had personal experience.

I'm warming up to the story as it goes along. I do miss the humor and quirky characters. In fact, it's good that this novel has a smaller cast. Without the physical and verbal tics, it's harder to keep these characters straight - or would be if there were more of them. The interaction between Mr. Lorry and Stryver was mildly amusing, and didn't come a moment too soon!

Julie, I acknowledge the differences you pointed out between Lucie and "the other Marys". :-) Her attempts at convincing Carton that he could still turn his life around were admirable (and not overly soppy). I'll try to be open-minded and see how she continues to compare as the novel goes on.

Peter, I listened to this installment (rather than reading it), so might have missed some details. Did we have any mirrors? I think there may have been some mention of them when the Marquis was in his rooms, visiting with Darnay but, if so, they didn't register in that moment.

A "fried potato relationship" in its literal sense sounds like heaven. I love fried potatoes (with a little garlic). My favorite story of German culture that my kids had when they lived there was that the Kartoffelmann regularly came through their neighborhood selling potatoes, the way we have ice cream trucks coming around in the summertime. Not prepared (although that would have been even better!), just a cart of raw potatoes. But I digress....

Who said there was no humor in A Tale of Two Cities? Dickens without humor or satire (which I usually regard as humor) is not Dickens; he always points a finger at the vain, the proud, the obscene. Chapter 7 is just lovely. I laughed though all of it when Monseigneur keeps so many waiting until he can "take his chocolate" and has to have three strong men besides the cook create it for him. All of his "attendants" are so perfect, as is the great man as he carefully, slowly walks among the lowly petitioners. Not only does he walk among them, he turns around and walks back - just like the participants in the Miss America contest. Keep reading. After Monseigneur "eased" the four men of their burden of chocolate, he caused the doors of the "Holiest of Holiests" to be "thrown open" and he issued forth. I almost felt that I was reading the Bible.
The Marquis has a nasty little speech after his reckless carriage driver has killed a child, "It is extraordinary to me that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children." This is cruel but humorous. (Always putting the blame on others.) Of course, the later part is not so humorous for him.
peace, janz

Mary Lou wrote: "I'd forgotten all about the Marquis until his carriage started careening around bends, and then the coming scene came crashing back into my mind. The Marquis is worse than Skimpole.

Like Julie, I..."

Hi Mary Lou

You asked about mirrors so let me see … as for the physical presence of mirrors no, but looking a bit further …

Charles Darnay meets his uncle in an opulent chateau. They are obviously estranged from one another and the Marquis is a very unpleasant man. On two occasions in chapter the Marquis comments that he has learned that Charles in England has met “a compatriot who has found Refuge there? A Doctor.” (A bad pun coming) Dickens often repeats words or phrases for emphasis. If we reflect on this stylistic feature why would the Marquis make such a comment? The comment seems out of joint in their conversation.

This same evening the Marquis is killed. We read that “the Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, and had added the one stone face wanting; the stone face for which it had waited through about two hundred years.” Here is a reference to faces. The face of the Marquis is compared to the faces carved into the stone of the chateau. Dickens titled the chapter “The Gorgon’s head.” The faces of stone one the walls of the chateau and the dead face of the Marquis are thus compared, they look alike in death. So, no mirrors, but a clear comparison of faces. And, of course, Charles Darnay meets his uncle again in this chateau face-to-face.

Peacejanz wrote: "Who said there was no humor in A Tale of Two Cities? Dickens without humor or satire (which I usually regard as humor) is not Dickens; he always points a finger at the vain, the proud, the obscene...."

Hi Peacejanz

I agree with you. While there is very little light gentle humour, harmless quirky characters, slapstick comedy or situational Seinfeld type comedy there is a very bitter angry vein of events that, turned on their heads, can be seen as humourous. Jerry’s wife’s flopping is rather disturbing, in context with a child in the room worrisome, and Jerry’s response insensitive but one could see the episode as funny. The chocolate feeding scene is equally shocking, but if seen onstage could be very funny given the circumstances.

What makes a person laugh is a very subjective. I could not laugh at either the chocolate scene or the flopping scene within the context of the text but could see both a being humourous when done on Saturday Night Live in a different context.

Tristram wrote: "Now, to make an aside, this reminded me of a peculiar German expression, namely of the word “Bratkartoffelverhältnis”, which is literally “a fried potato relationship”. It means a loose affair in which the man also tries to enjoy commodities like warm meals and other services. I wonder if the English language has a word for it or if this is a typically German thing...."

“Bratkartoffelverhältnis”? Is there an English word for it? If there is I hope I never discover it. It is a word only a German would know. I did look it up though, here it is:

"Bratkartoffelverhältnis literally translated means, “fried potato relationship” or one could say an “on-off relationship,” which does not have to be short-lived, just a casual arrangement of mutual convenience. The idiom, “Er hat ein Bratkartoffelverhätnis mit ihr.” translates into “he only see her because she provides water and food for him.” Even stranger, “Er sucht ein Bratkartoffelverhältnis.” which means, “he’s looking for a meal ticket.”

This colloquial expression, for a casual affair, is probably due to the impact WWI had on a man’s basic necessities. Having a woman who provided such things as a warm meal and shelter were more important than purposeful relationships. After the Second World War it was a popular term to describe the casual love relationship between returning veterans and widows, who were living in common-law relationships, to avoid losing the widows’ pensions.

Today, in Germany, it is used casually when referring to relationships that are sporadic or not very serious love affairs; sometimes also used as a metaphor for occasional friendly cooperation in other areas of life. This form of co-existence was considered a breach of good manners until the mid 1970’s. Extending a rental contract to an unmarried couple was seen as facilitating pandering, which was illegal, making the agreement invalid. Until 1969 it was a criminal risk for landlords to enter into these contracts. The protests of 1968 consisted of a worldwide series of protests, largely participated in by an anti-establishment culture. With the change in sexual tolerance since then, non-marital partnerships have been increasingly tolerated in Germany.

Some may ask, “what version of “Bratkartoffelverhältnis” did you mean?” Often it can be a little intimate and friendly relationship, and sometimes it can just be intimate while others say it can be just friendly.

Bratkartofflen are one of the most common side dishes in Germany. Simple, like many of the time-honored dishes in any traditional cuisine, but just perfect. Bratkartoffeln are raw or cooked potatoes fried with bacon and onion, often seasoned with salt and pepper. Bratkartoffeln are served as a side dish with many types of entrees and also make a good breakfast dish when served with “Rühreier” (scrambled eggs). It will take 20 – 30 minutes to cook them to a crispy golden brown, but the wait is worth it. One could call them “German soul food.”

As far as I know we have nothing like it. Thankfully.

Julie wrote: "I have always found these chapters very confusing: first because there is a Monseigneur, who it turns out is not our focus character but rather Monsieur the Marquis is--but then Monsieur the Marquis becomes Monseigneur--so that's both of them? Which one were we talking about in the city?.."

I looked it up. It hasn't helped me at all, but here it is:

"Monseigneur is an honorific in the French language. It has occasional English use as well, as it may be a title before the name of a French prelate, a member of a royal family or other dignitary.

Monsignor is both a title and an honorific in the Roman Catholic Church. In francophone countries, it is rendered Monseigneur, and this spelling is also commonly encountered in Canadian English practice. Nowadays, the title is used for bishops. In France the use monsignori are not called monseigneur but the more common monsieur l'abbé, as are priests. The plural form is Messeigneurs."

And now on to Marquis:

"A marquess; French: marquis; Spanish: marqués is a nobleman of hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The term is also used to translate equivalent Asian styles, as in imperial China and Japan.

In Great Britain and Ireland, the correct spelling of the aristocratic title of this rank is marquess (although for aristocratic titles on the European mainland, the French spelling of marquis is often used in English). In Great Britain and Ireland, the title ranks below a duke and above an earl. A woman with the rank of a marquess, or the wife of a marquess, is called a marchioness in Great Britain and Ireland or a marquise elsewhere in Europe. The dignity, rank or position of the title is referred to as a marquisate or marquessate.

The theoretical distinction between a marquess and other titles has, since the Middle Ages, faded into obscurity. In times past, the distinction between a count and a marquess was that the land of a marquess, called a march, was on the border of the country, while a count's land, called a county, often was not. As a result of this, a marquess was trusted to defend and fortify against potentially hostile neighbours and was thus more important and ranked higher than a count. The title is ranked below that of a duke, which was often restricted to the royal family and those that were held in high enough esteem to be granted such a title.

In the German lands, a Margrave was a ruler of an immediate Imperial territory (examples include the Margrave of Brandenburg, the Margrave of Baden and the Margrave of Bayreuth), not simply a nobleman like a marquess or marquis in Western and Southern Europe. German rulers did not confer the title of marquis; holders of marquisates in Central Europe were largely associated with the Italian and Spanish crowns."

Kim's research makes brakartoffelverhältnus sound so reasonable and practical, while Tristram's definition sounds so seedy.

Mary Lou wrote: "I'd forgotten all about the Marquis until his carriage started careening around bends, and then the coming scene came crashing back into my mind. The Marquis is worse than Skimpole."

Whoa! Fighting words! :)

Julie, I acknowledge the differences you pointed out between Lucie and "the other Marys". :-) Her attempts at convincing Carton that he could still turn his life around were admirable (and not overly soppy). I'll try to be open-minded and see how she continues to compare as the novel goes on.

I will try as well. The reason I list the first book of Tale of Two Cities as my favorite Dickens is that I vaguely remember feeling it went downhill after Book 1, largely for Lucie-related reasons. But I haven't read it for a long time, and I have a lot more Dickens under my belt since then, so we'll see. I'm still thoroughly enjoying it.

Tristram wrote: "Hello Curiosities,

At the beginning of this week’s read, the narrator takes us back to France, where we will stay for about three chapters before going back to London. After all, it is a tale of t..."

Tristram

There is much happening in these chapters. Where to start? I’m glad you pointed out the fountains and how they seem to be the central meeting place of a town, village or community. In an upcoming chapter I will be making more references to fountains. For now, let's just look at how they function in the chapter and realize that fountains and water may well form an ongoing and increasingly important role in the novel.

I too found it curious that Charles’s uncle seemed to know some of his nephew’s backstory, even though the two have not met in some time and apparently not been in written contact either. Now, why is it that the uncle knows about Doctor Manette? What concerns would the uncle have concerning who will have a claim to his title/power when he passes?

We know that Charles Darnay has been spied upon both in England and France. Who would have initiated such suspicions on Charles? Who would benefit, or at least be comforted, knowing that Charles would be put to death if convicted? Could it be the uncle has attempted to put Charles to death?

I see the shoemaker’s bench as a comfort zone for the Doctor. When agitated, worried, or in need of comfort many people revert back to some item, object, picture, or mémento that offers comfort and security.

I see the repetitive name of Jacques as a method to foil the enemies of the poor. If caught, tortured or threatened each Jacques could never give the real name of any other member of their group. If one is Jacques, all are Jacques.

A fried potato relationship. Well, that’s a new one on me. Tristram, how do you remember how to spell all these convoluted words? In English, I think the word gigolo may come close, but a gigolo also suggests someone who seeks comfort and companionship with more than one woman at a time.

re Bratkartoffelverhältnis

Mary Lou, I meant the word to take on a seedy connotation because as far as I know most people here use it in connection with a sexual relationship, which is entered into for the sake of convenience and without any romanticism involved. As I am a very romantic person, I never had a Bratkartoffelverhältnis, although I'd normally go out of my way for a dish of Bratkartoffeln, especially if they are served with Bratwürstchen (fried sausages) or Rollmops, which is a rolled fillet of raw marinated herring - very, very tasty!!! - and a big mug of beer.

Anyway, Bratkartoffeln and Spiegelei (fried egg) was the dish we always prepared at about three in the morning when, as young blades, we came home from a pub crawl in our uni days. It's a typical German thing to end a pub crawl at home like that so you won't have too much of a hangover in the morning.

Peter wrote: "In an upcoming chapter I will be making more references to fountains. For now, let's just look at how they function in the chapter and realize that fountains and water may well form an ongoing and increasingly important role in the novel."

I regard the fountain as a subtle reference to the beginning of something, the spring, the source, and in this context it will be the spring and source of violence and bloodshed. So, it's no wonder that the first fountain is the place where the corpse of the little child run over by the vile nobleman - who is indeed the caricature of a villain, as Mary Lou points it out, but who also reminded me of Mr Chester - is laid.

I see the shoemaker’s bench as a comfort zone for the Doctor. When agitated, worried, or in need of comfort many people revert back to some item, object, picture, or mémento that offers comfort and security.

There are doubtless psychological reasons for Dr Manette's keeping that modest workbench, as a keepsake from times he may not want to remember but still cannot forget. After all, the bench and the work done at it were a vent of escape in their own modest way. On another level, a symbolical one, the bench may be a way to foreshadow that the doctor's days of trial and tribulation may not be over yet.

Could it be the uncle has attempted to put Charles to death?

I don't know about that, but we can be pretty sure that the uncle wanted to get a lettre de cachet against his own nephew in order to get him out of the way. I also have strong suspicions that either Charles's uncle or his late father had a hand in the doctor's term of prison: Why else should the doctor have that strange feeling when he sometimes looks at Charles's face? Is there a family resemblence reminding Manette of some of his former enemies? I don't think it will be too wise to tell Manette Darnay's real name.

Tristram wrote: "Peter wrote: "In an upcoming chapter I will be making more references to fountains. For now, let's just look at how they function in the chapter and realize that fountains and water may well form a..."

Yes. The doctor looking at Darnay’s face and then having such a response suggests some form of connection, ressemblance, or association. Whatever the answer is, we see the concept of the mirror and a person’s reflection being introduced in another way.

Chapter Nine, titled ´The Gorgon’s Head’ opens with a focus on stone and stone heads. Charles Darnay and his uncle confront each other. Perhaps I should say they face each other. Something to consider as we move forward. They are joined by blood and we know that Doctor Manette feels uneasy when he looks at Darnay.

Again, although is a subtle way, we see reflections of people who look like each other.

The Stoppage at the Fountain

Book II Chapter 7

Phiz

Text Illustrated:

"With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage dashed through streets and swept round corners, with women screaming before it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out of its way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged.

But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at the horses' bridles.

"What has gone wrong?" said Monsieur, calmly looking out.

A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal.

"Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!" said a ragged and submissive man, "it is a child."

"Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?"

"Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis—it is a pity—yes."

The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his sword-hilt.

"Killed!" shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. "Dead!"

The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes.

He took out his purse.

"It is extraordinary to me," said he, "that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give him that."

He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, "Dead!"

He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying, and pointing to the fountain, where some women were stooping over the motionless bundle, and moving gently about it. They were as silent, however, as the men.

"I know all, I know all," said the last comer. "Be a brave man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than to live. It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have lived an hour as happily?"

"You are a philosopher, you there," said the Marquis, smiling. "How do they call you?"

"They call me Defarge."

"Of what trade?"

"Monsieur the Marquis, vendor of wine."

"Pick up that, philosopher and vendor of wine," said the Marquis, throwing him another gold coin, "and spend it as you will. The horses there; are they right?"

Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time, Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being driven away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally broke some common thing, and had paid for it, and could afford to pay for it; when his ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin flying into his carriage, and ringing on its floor.

"Hold!" said Monsieur the Marquis. "Hold the horses! Who threw that?"

He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had stood, a moment before; but the wretched father was grovelling on his face on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that stood beside him was the figure of a dark stout woman, knitting.

"You dogs!" said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose: "I would ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from the earth. If I knew which rascal threw at the carriage, and if that brigand were sufficiently near it, he should be crushed under the wheels."

Mr Striver at Tellson's Bank

Book II Chapter 13

Phiz

Text Illustrated:

"I am going," said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confidentially on the desk: whereupon, although it was a large double one, there appeared to be not half desk enough for him: "I am going to make an offer of myself in marriage to your agreeable little friend, Miss Manette, Mr. Lorry."

"Oh dear me!" cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin, and looking at his visitor dubiously.

"Oh dear me, sir?" repeated Stryver, drawing back. "Oh dear you, sir? What may your meaning be, Mr. Lorry?"

"My meaning," answered the man of business, "is, of course, friendly and appreciative, and that it does you the greatest credit, and—in short, my meaning is everything you could desire. But—really, you know, Mr. Stryver—" Mr. Lorry paused, and shook his head at him in the oddest manner, as if he were compelled against his will to add, internally, "you know there really is so much too much of you!"

"Well!" said Stryver, slapping the desk with his contentious hand, opening his eyes wider, and taking a long breath, "if I understand you, Mr. Lorry, I'll be hanged!"

Mr. Lorry adjusted his little wig at both ears as a means towards that end, and bit the feather of a pen.

"D—n it all, sir!" said Stryver, staring at him, "am I not eligible?"

"Oh dear yes! Yes. Oh yes, you're eligible!" said Mr. Lorry. "If you say eligible, you are eligible."

"Am I not prosperous?" asked Stryver.

"Oh! if you come to prosperous, you are prosperous," said Mr. Lorry.

"And advancing?"

"If you come to advancing you know," said Mr. Lorry, delighted to be able to make another admission, "nobody can doubt that."

"Then what on earth is your meaning, Mr. Lorry?" demanded Stryver, perceptibly crestfallen.

"Well! I—Were you going there now?" asked Mr. Lorry.

"Straight!" said Stryver, with a plump of his fist on the desk.

"Then I think I wouldn't, if I was you."

"Why?" said Stryver. "Now, I'll put you in a corner," forensically shaking a forefinger at him. "You are a man of business and bound to have a reason. State your reason. Why wouldn't you go?"

"Because," said Mr. Lorry, "I wouldn't go on such an object without having some cause to believe that I should succeed."

"D—n me!" cried Stryver, "but this beats everything."

Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and glanced at the angry Stryver.

"Here's a man of business—a man of years—a man of experience—in a Bank," said Stryver; "and having summed up three leading reasons for complete success, he says there's no reason at all! Says it with his head on!" Mr. Stryver remarked upon the peculiarity as if it would have been infinitely less remarkable if he had said it with his head off.

"When I speak of success, I speak of success with the young lady; and when I speak of causes and reasons to make success probable, I speak of causes and reasons that will tell as such with the young lady. The young lady, my good sir," said Mr. Lorry, mildly tapping the Stryver arm, "the young lady. The young lady goes before all."

Commentary:

Once again, Browne illustrates incidents from early and late in the instalment, the former an outdoor Paris scene charged with a Baroque sense of movement and drama, the latter a mundane genre scene set indoors in London. In "The Stoppage at The Fountain," the action swirls around twin vortices: to the left, women lament over the dead child in a pose reminiscent of Breughel's Massacre of the Innocents and Giotto's Lamentation over the Dead Christ. The child has been laid at the base of a fountain literally bubbling over with life-giving waters, which pour from the water-pot of the presiding cherub above towards the other putti who support him, the streaming waters complementing the lachrymose state of the chorus of mourners. To the right, the burly Defarge (garbed as in "The Shoemaker," left, but this time facing us) comforts the anguished father, Gaspard, the road-mender whose labours are so necessary to the Marquis's sating his desire for speed. The dead child's lack of animation contrasts the lively poses of the stone cherubs of the gushing fountain, suggestive of an outpouring of tears.

Above the heads of the mixed proletarian and bourgeois crowd the twin towers of Nôtre Dame loom over the shrewd, calculating visage of the Marquis and the disconcerted face of his driver as the horses rear, out of control. Women cry, men gesticulate, while calmly (stage left) the reporter of the ancient regime's wrongs, Madame Defarge, knits the particulars of the incident (especially the name "Evrémonde") into her coded transcript. Above this highly partial recorder of events a lackey regards with apprehension the elements of the crowd outside our field of vision, as if he, the carriage, Monseigneur, and even the horses are about to swept away by the human tidal wave. In a sense, then, the highly dramatic tableau is Phiz's thesis-piece about the causes of the French Revolution: a callous nobility, supported by the established church, oppresses an increasingly restive third estate composed of critical professionals (note the well-dressed bourgeoisie, centre) and emotional proletarians. Phiz has provided his usual symbolic commentary in details of setting: the typical French houses and louvered window-shutters (stage right), the overturned water-pot (indicative of the young life senselessly spilled upon the Paris pavement), and the stone post and chain (stage left). Had the chain been secured, the carriage would not have been free to rattle through the densely populated areas of the capital at top speed, its driver and occupant heedless of pedestrians. Similarly, were France's laws in proper observed and enforced, insensitive noblemen such as the Marquis would not have been able to ride roughshod over the rights of the peasantry.

In the Parisian square, the marble children form a second chorus of grief, their physical contortions reflecting the inward agitation of the tragic chorus of women. In Paris, all faces are animated to suggest discord: accusation, shock, disbelief, and grief are written on all faces but those of the detached observers, the watchful, cold-hearted Marquis and his lower-middle-class counterpart, Madame Defarge. In the Parisian scene, the fountain, the houses, and in particular the clogs clearly establish the scene's context. The clogs, suggestive of social class as well as nationality, are foiled by the adults' shoes and the children's bare feet in the succeeding month's plate. Finally, the overall movement, right to left, is unimpeded in both scenes: the direction as suggested by the faces of all present is reinforced by the horses' heads, left of center.

One wonders to what extent these details and the overall conception of both scenes originated in Browne's imagination rather than Dickens's text. The passage of the Marquis' carriage, for example, is marked by "women screaming before it, and men clutching each other" (Book II, Chapter 7, p. 40), both of which Phiz's Paris scene includes; "there was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses reared" seems to be the precise moment that Phiz has chosen to illustrate. However, while Dickens has "twenty hands at the horses' bridles" , Phiz has rendered a single hand, and, more significantly, the "tall man in nightcap" (Gaspard) is not captured in the act of catching up his dead son, depositing the corpse at the fountain's base, and "howling over it like a wild animal." Rather, "some women [are already] stooping over the motionless bundle", "silent, however, as the men." Nowhere in the text does Defarge comfort Gaspard as he does in Phiz's plate. Thus, we can see which textual hints the artist took up, which he disregarded, and how he synthesized several pages of text into a single illustration that impresses its powerful poses and juxtapositions upon the mind of the reader, ready to be called forth in the next month's illustration of a London street scene ("The Spy's Funeral").

In contrast to the violence and emotionalism of "The Stoppage at the Fountain," in "Mr. Stryver at Tellson's Bank" Phiz presents a quiet scene of "business as usual" occupied by just a handful of tranquil individuals: pompous and self-important, meticulously dressed (although slightly overweight and top-heavy), attorney Stryver, a professional like some of the figures in the former plate, chats with Mr. Lorry, perched on his stool in the counting house. Beside the clerk a great ledger, closed, reposes on the long counter; undoubtedly it contains records of recent financial transactions, some of which perhaps involve French clients of the Paris house. Certainly, the recording of discrete moments is common to both the August plates. Behind the seated Lorry's head, eight ledgers of varying height and width attest to the house's prosperity, the result of such transactions as that depicted stage right, where a well- dressed gentleman (again carrying that symbol of patriarchal authority and noble status, a cane) is apparently depositing three bags of coins, which one clerk tells while another — like Lorry, perched on a stool — records. This, then, is the dispassionate counterpart of "The Stoppage at the Fountain," for here the wealth the aristocracy, the results of their abuse of the Social Contract, is tallied by clerks in respectable frock-coats and kept secure by iron bars at the windows.

Headnote Vignette

John McLenan

Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities

Harper's Weekly (July 1859)

Text Illustrated:

"At the steepest point of the hill there was a little burial-ground, with a Cross and a new large figure of Our Saviour on it; it was a poor figure in wood, done by some inexperienced rustic carver, but he had studied the figure from the life — his own life, maybe — for it was dreadfully spare and thin."

To this distressful emblem of a great distress that had long been growing worse, and was not at its worst, a woman was kneeling. She turned her head as the carriage came up to her, rose quickly, and presented herself at the carriage-door.

"It is you, Monseigneur! Monseigneur, a petition."

I'm confused with this illustration because it clearly says chapter 7 above the illustration but the text illustrated is from chapter 8. I haven't figured it out yet.

"Killed!" shrieked the man

John McLenan

Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Book II, Chapter VII, "Monseigneur in Town"

Harper's Weekly (July 1859)

Text Illustrated:

"What has gone wrong?" said Monsieur, calmly looking out.

A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal.

"Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!" said a ragged and submissive man, "it is a child."

"Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?"

"Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis — it is a pity — yes."

The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his sword-hilt.

"Killed!" shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. "Dead!"

The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes.

He took out his purse.

"It is extraordinary to me," said he, "that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give him that."

He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, "Dead!"

Headnote Vignette

Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Book II, Chapter 9, "The Gorgon's Head"

Harper's Weekly (July 1859)

Text Illustrated:

"Lighter and lighter, until at last the sun touched the tops of the still trees, and poured its radiance over the hill. In the glow, the water of the chateau fountain seemed to turn to blood, and the stone faces crimsoned. The carol of the birds was loud and high, and, on the weather-beaten sill of the great window of the bed- chamber of Monsieur the Marquis, one little bird sang its sweetest song with all its might. At this, the nearest stone face seemed to stare amazed, and, with open mouth and dropped under-jaw, looked awe-stricken."

This text doesn't match the illustration either, I give up.

"This, from Jacques"

John McLenan

Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Book II, Chapter 9 "The Gorgon's Head"

Harper's Weekly ( July 1859)

Text Illustrated:

"All the people of the village were at the fountain, standing about in their depressed manner, and whispering low, but showing no other emotions than grim curiosity and surprise. The led cows, hastily brought in and tethered to anything that would hold them, were looking stupidly on, or lying down chewing the cud of nothing particularly repaying their trouble, which they had picked up in their interrupted saunter. Some of the people of the chateau, and some of those of the posting-house, and all the taxing authorities, were armed more or less, and were crowded on the other side of the little street in a purposeless way, that was highly fraught with nothing. Already, the mender of roads had penetrated into the midst of a group of fifty particular friends, and was smiting himself in the breast with his blue cap. What did all this portend, and what portended the swift hoisting-up of Monsieur Gabelle behind a servant on horseback, and the conveying away of the said Gabelle (double-laden though the horse was), at a gallop, like a new version of the German ballad of Leonora?

It portended that there was one stone face too many, up at the chateau.

The Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, and had added the one stone face wanting; the stone face for which it had waited through about two hundred years.

It lay back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was like a fine mask, suddenly startled, made angry, and petrified. Driven home into the heart of the stone figure attached to it, was a knife. Round its hilt was a frill of paper, on which was scrawled:

"Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques."

Headnote Vignette

John McLenan

Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Book II, Chapter 10, "Two Promises"

Harper's Weekly (July 1869)

Text Illustrated:

"It was dark when Charles Darnay left him, and it was an hour later and darker when Lucie came home; she hurried into the room alone—for Miss Pross had gone straight up-stairs—and was surprised to find his reading-chair empty.

"My father!" she called to him. "Father dear!"

Nothing was said in answer, but she heard a low hammering sound in his bedroom. Passing lightly across the intermediate room, she looked in at his door and came running back frightened, crying to herself, with her blood all chilled, "What shall I do! What shall I do!"

Her uncertainty lasted but a moment; she hurried back, and tapped at his door, and softly called to him. The noise ceased at the sound of her voice, and he presently came out to her, and they walked up and down together for a long time.

She came down from her bed, to look at him in his sleep that night. He slept heavily, and his tray of shoemaking tools, and his old unfinished work, were all as usual.

"He stooped a little"

Book II Chapter 8

Fred Barnard

Household Edition 1870s

Text Illustrated:

"Monsieur the Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive faces that drooped before him, as the like of himself had drooped before Monseigneur of the Court—only the difference was, that these faces drooped merely to suffer and not to propitiate—when a grizzled mender of the roads joined the group.

"Bring me hither that fellow!" said the Marquis to the courier.

The fellow was brought, cap in hand, and the other fellows closed round to look and listen, in the manner of the people at the Paris fountain.

"I passed you on the road?"

"Monseigneur, it is true. I had the honour of being passed on the road."

"Coming up the hill, and at the top of the hill, both?"

"Monseigneur, it is true."

"What did you look at, so fixedly?"

"Monseigneur, I looked at the man."

He stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed under the carriage. All his fellows stooped to look under the carriage.

"What man, pig? And why look there?"

"Pardon, Monseigneur; he swung by the chain of the shoe—the drag."

"Who?" demanded the traveller.

"Monseigneur, the man."

"May the Devil carry away these idiots! How do you call the man? You know all the men of this part of the country. Who was he?"

"Your clemency, Monseigneur! He was not of this part of the country. Of all the days of my life, I never saw him."

"Swinging by the chain? To be suffocated?"

"With your gracious permission, that was the wonder of it, Monseigneur. His head hanging over—like this!"

He turned himself sideways to the carriage, and leaned back, with his face thrown up to the sky, and his head hanging down; then recovered himself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow.

"What was he like?"

"Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miller. All covered with dust, white as a spectre, tall as a spectre!"


Commentary:

The contemptuous visage of the Marquis St. Evrémonde. — scowling at the interruption of his journey from the metropolis to his country chateau — competes for the viewer's attention at the centre of Barnard's composition with the questioning expressions of the peasantry surrounding the carriage in the square of the little village, in front of the posting-house gate beside the fountain, neither of which is in evidence in Barnard's ninth illustration. Barnard's lengthy title points to this specific moment in the text. Accosting the grizzled road-mender who has just joined the phlegmatic group looking under the carriage, the Marquis interrogates him:

"What did you look at so fixedly?"

"Monseigneur, I looked at the man."

He stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed under the carriage. All his fellows stooped to look under the carriage.

"What man, pig? And why look there?"

"Pardon, Monseigneur; he swung by the chain of the shoe — the drag."

Barnard probably concluded, after reviewing the original 1859 steel engravings, that it would be difficult to compete with Phiz's "The Stoppage at the Fountain" with its seething mob, rearing horses, and moment of high melodrama as the insensitive aristocrat's encouraging his driver to race through the crowded streets of St. Antoine has resulted in a child's death. Instead, realizing a moment in Chapter 8, "Monseigneur in the Country," of Book the Second, "The Golden Thread," Barnard elected to reinforce the moment of the Marquis' discovering that he has been carrying a hitchhiker under his carriage. The reader studies the reaction of the villagers near the Marquis' chateau and ponders why a denizen of St. Antoine has chosen to follow Monseigneur from town by so dangerous an expedient. Whereas Phiz's dual focus in is the group of grieving women at the fountain (left) and the Marquis' surveying the distraught father, Gaspard, and his comforter, Defarge (right), in a swirling vortex of action and raw emotion, Barnard's scene, showing the horses as entirely tranquil, is far more mundane: there is no social tragedy, no sudden loss of life, just a small mystery.

A detail wholly consistent with the text is that the man who is holding his cap in his right hand as he points downward with his left (left of center) has been brought forward by a fashionably attired courier, who has removed his own tricorn hat as the Marquis addresses the peasant in his charge. A detail not mentioned by Dickens but consistent with the fashions of the countryside in eighteenth-century France is the wooden shoes worn by the nine villagers. Although their presence on the horses is entirely logical in Barnard's woodcut, Dickens does not mention the Marquis' having mounted postilions accompanying him. In this respect, Phiz's illustration more closely follows the text in depicting a driver, a pair of horses harnessed side-by-side, and a courier at the very back of the carriage. However, whereas Phiz in "The Stoppage at the Fountain" as a visual complement to the seventh chapter, "Monseigneur in Town," had emphasized the rearing horses to further energize the scene, Barnard has effectively realized the ornately trimmed carriage of the Marquis, a shield with a cross on it ironically commenting on the owner's lack of Christian charity and also suggesting a connection with England as the decoration approximately the shield of St. George.

Curiously, in the Harper's serialization, John McLenan expressed little interest in the Marquis and his carriage, which is depicted in very small scale in the background of the headnote vignette for 2 July 1859, Chapter 7, "Monseigneur in Town.

"Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques"

Book II Chapter 9

Fred Barnard

Household Edition 1870s

Text Illustrated:

"The chateau awoke later, as became its quality, but awoke gradually and surely. First, the lonely boar-spears and knives of the chase had been reddened as of old; then, had gleamed trenchant in the morning sunshine; now, doors and windows were thrown open, horses in their stables looked round over their shoulders at the light and freshness pouring in at doorways, leaves sparkled and rustled at iron-grated windows, dogs pulled hard at their chains, and reared impatient to be loosed.

All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life, and the return of morning. Surely, not so the ringing of the great bell of the chateau, nor the running up and down the stairs; nor the hurried figures on the terrace; nor the booting and tramping here and there and everywhere, nor the quick saddling of horses and riding away?

What winds conveyed this hurry to the grizzled mender of roads, already at work on the hill-top beyond the village, with his day's dinner (not much to carry) lying in a bundle that it was worth no crow's while to peck at, on a heap of stones? Had the birds, carrying some grains of it to a distance, dropped one over him as they sow chance seeds? Whether or no, the mender of roads ran, on the sultry morning, as if for his life, down the hill, knee-high in dust, and never stopped till he got to the fountain.

All the people of the village were at the fountain, standing about in their depressed manner, and whispering low, but showing no other emotions than grim curiosity and surprise. The led cows, hastily brought in and tethered to anything that would hold them, were looking stupidly on, or lying down chewing the cud of nothing particularly repaying their trouble, which they had picked up in their interrupted saunter. Some of the people of the chateau, and some of those of the posting-house, and all the taxing authorities, were armed more or less, and were crowded on the other side of the little street in a purposeless way, that was highly fraught with nothing. Already, the mender of roads had penetrated into the midst of a group of fifty particular friends, and was smiting himself in the breast with his blue cap. What did all this portend, and what portended the swift hoisting-up of Monsieur Gabelle behind a servant on horseback, and the conveying away of the said Gabelle (double-laden though the horse was), at a gallop, like a new version of the German ballad of Leonora?

It portended that there was one stone face too many, up at the chateau.

The Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, and had added the one stone face wanting; the stone face for which it had waited through about two hundred years.

It lay back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was like a fine mask, suddenly startled, made angry, and petrified. Driven home into the heart of the stone figure attached to it, was a knife. Round its hilt was a frill of paper, on which was scrawled:

"Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques."

Commentary:

Whereas Phiz had elected, perhaps at Dickens's instruction, not to attempt this moment for illustration in his series for the monthly part-publication (June through December 1859), John McLenan in his extensive series for the Harper's Weekly serialization had realized the moment at which some servant discovers the body of the Marquis in bed, an ornate screen partially obscuring our view of the body. In contrast, Barnard focuses on that beautiful face, devoid of the bitterness and malignancy that distorted that visage in life. Instead of deploying a symbolic object such as McLenan's eighteenth-century, Louis XV Chinoiserie screen in "This, from Jacques", Barnard conveys the context — the Marquis' affluent lifestyle supported by the labors of a downtrodden peasantry — by the elaborately decorated headboard, bedspread, and ruffled nightgown. An interesting touch is Barnard's transforming the note left by "Jacques" from Dickensian Franglais into actual French, albeit a fragmentary sentence ("Cecide"). Whereas McLenan contrasts the beauty of the natural world of bird song and vines in the headnote vignette for "The Gorgon's Head" with the artifice and luxury of the interior of the Marquis bed chamber in "This, from Jacques," showing the dead man from a distance (suggesting the perspective the nameless servant who discovers the corpse the next morning), Barnard zooms in for a close-up, and thereby humanizes and particularizes the victim of Nemesis. Barnard subtly contrasts the acidic personality of the Marquis, which Dickens has revealed so ably through description, narration, and dialogue, with his outward, physical beauty, as if he himself is a work of art. For the sake of visual continuity, Barnard reintroduces the ornamentation evident in the headboard and the swirling patterns and movements in the coverlet in the next illustration, specifically in the screen behind Lucie Manette and in her skirt, respectively.

"...there is a man who would give his life"


Book II Chapter 13

Fred Barnard

The Household Edition 1870s


Text Illustrated:

"Entreat me to believe it no more, Miss Manette. I have proved myself, and I know better. I distress you; I draw fast to an end. Will you let me believe, when I recall this day, that the last confidence of my life was reposed in your pure and innocent breast, and that it lies there alone, and will be shared by no one?"

"If that will be a consolation to you, yes."

"Not even by the dearest one ever to be known to you?"

"Mr. Carton," she answered, after an agitated pause, "the secret is yours, not mine; and I promise to respect it."

"Thank you. And again, God bless you."

He put her hand to his lips, and moved towards the door.

"Be under no apprehension, Miss Manette, of my ever resuming this conversation by so much as a passing word. I will never refer to it again. If I were dead, that could not be surer than it is henceforth. In the hour of my death, I shall hold sacred the one good remembrance—and shall thank and bless you for it—that my last avowal of myself was made to you, and that my name, and faults, and miseries were gently carried in your heart. May it otherwise be light and happy!"

He was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and it was so sad to think how much he had thrown away, and how much he every day kept down and perverted, that Lucie Manette wept mournfully for him as he stood looking back at her.

"Be comforted!" he said, "I am not worth such feeling, Miss Manette. An hour or two hence, and the low companions and low habits that I scorn but yield to, will render me less worth such tears as those, than any wretch who creeps along the streets. Be comforted! But, within myself, I shall always be, towards you, what I am now, though outwardly I shall be what you have heretofore seen me. The last supplication but one I make to you, is, that you will believe this of me."

"I will, Mr. Carton."

"My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will relieve you of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison, and between whom and you there is an impassable space. It is useless to say it, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you—ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn—the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!"

He said, "Farewell!" said a last "God bless you!" and left her."

Commentary:

Dickens has the hapless alcoholic whose addiction has blighted his personal and private lives, Sydney Carton, reveal his complete devotion to the beautiful young woman who is another's, Lucie Manette, Book the Second, "The Golden Thread," ch. 13, "The Fellow of No Delicacy." The dissolute attorney Sydney Carton (right) has just confessed his undying devotion for the beautiful Anglo-French physician's daughter Lucie Manette, her blond innocence and age reflecting perhaps those of Dickens's mistress, Ellen Ternan.

The "confession" that the dissipated attorney makes reveals the source of Dickens's inspiration for the novel, namely the role of Richard Wardour, the thwarted lover of Wilkie Collins's The Frozen Deep, first performed on 6 January 1857 for a select audience in the converted schoolroom of Dickens's London residence, Tavistock House. Dickens so strongly identified himself with the self-sacrificing, volatile hero of the play, that the role of Wardour contributed directly to his characterization of Sydney Carton, whose original Christian name ("Dick") points to the emotional connection, the initials "DC" being an inversion of Dickens's own. Indeed, he even confessed the connection between the novel and Collins's play in the "Preface":

"When I was acting with my children and friends, in Mr. Wilkie Collins's drama of The Frozen Deep, I first conceived the main idea of this story. A strong desire was upon me then to embody it in my own person; and I traced out in my fancy the state of mind of which it would necessitate the presentation to an observant spectator, with particular care and interest."

Rather than offering us a close up of Carton as he has just done of the Marquis in the previous illustration, Barnard stages the dialogue in a comfortably furnished eighteenth-century drawing-room. Lucie's embroidery on its frame is before her, and she and Carton are dressed in the upper-middle-class fashions of the mid-eighteenth century. She listens to him with rapt seriousness as he stands at the door, ready to depart to a life devoid of love and the domestic felicities he so earnestly and pointlessly desires to share with Lucie. Her ornately patterned dress and the screen behind her establish a visual continuity with the previous plate's pillows, headboard, and coverlet. The svelte figure, emaciated visage, and elegant figure of Carton imply his status as a Byronic hero, a handsome but embittered young man whose past harbors some terrible, dark secret, as is the case with "The Master of Thornfield," Edward Rochester, in Jane Eyre, a best-seller of the previous decade. Neither Carton nor Lucie is particularized in the original serial illustrations, Lucie Manette being a stock Phiz figure of slender-wasted, delicate feminine beauty in "The Knock at the Door," in Book Three, Chapter 7 (for November, 1859).

"Charles Darnay and The Marquis"

Sol Eytinge Jr.

Book II Chapter 9

Diamond Edition of Dicken's works 1867


Commentary:

It would be a mistake to envisage the Marquis as a mere popinjay, for underneath the sophisticated veneer lurks a voracious savage who consumes not merely chocolate in small quantities but the entire income of his benighted peasantry. He is both an individual — Charles Darnay's uncle — and a type, "Monseigneur," the quintessential French aristocrat. Eytinge's study of the two St. Evrémondes is so effective because, taking his cue from the text, the illustrator contrasts the underlying, feral wiliness of the aging, decadent aristocrat with the frank openness of his more liberal and enlightened nephew, now using his mother's surname, Darnay. The meeting between these polar opposites from France's first estate occurs in the rural chateau of the Marquis shortly after his callous disregard for the third estate has resulted in a child's being run over by his carriage — and shortly before the Marquis himself will be found murdered in his bed. Suggesting his evil and egocentric nature by the dark shading around the eyes, Eytinge has based his portrait of the insensitive nobleman upon Dickens's description of "Monseigneur" in an earlier passage:

.....He was a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty in manner, and with a face like a fine mask. A face of a transparent paleness; every feature in it clearly defined; one set expression on it. The nose, beautifully formed otherwise, was very slightly pinched at the top of each nostril. In those two compressions, or dints, the only little change that the face ever showed, resided. They persisted in changing color sometimes, and they would be occasionally dilated and contracted by something like a faint pulsation; then, they gave a look of treachery, and cruelty, to the whole countenance. Examined with attention, its capacity of helping such a look was to be found in the line of the mouth, and the lines of the orbits of the eyes, being much too horizontal and thin; still, in the effect of the face made, it was a handsome face, and a remarkable one. [Book 2, Chapter 7; i. e., Ch. 13, "Monseigneur in Town"]

However, the scene that Eytinge realizes in "Charles Darnay and the Marquis" occurs several chapters later, when the nephew appears before his uncle to severe all connection with the detested aristocratic family:

.... "A good opportunity for consideration, surrounded by the advantages of solitude, might influence your destiny to far greater advantage than you influence it for yourself. But it is useless to discuss the question. I am, as you say, at a disadvantage. These little instruments of correction, these gentle aids to the power and honour of families, these slight favours that might so incommode you, are only to be obtained now by interest and importunity. They are sought by so many, and they are granted (comparatively) to so few! It used not to be so, but France in all such things is changed for the worse. Our not remote ancestors held the right of life and death over the surrounding vulgar. From this room, many such dogs have been taken out to be hanged; in the next room (my bedroom), one fellow, to our knowledge, was poniarded on the spot for professing some insolent delicacy respecting his daughter — his daughter. We have lost many privileges; a new philosophy has become the mode; and the assertion of our station, in these days, might (I do not go so far as to say would, but might) cause us real inconvenience. All very bad, very bad!"

The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff, and shook his head; as elegantly despondent as he could becomingly be of a country still containing himself, that great means of regeneration.

"We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and in the modern time also," said the nephew, gloomily, "that I believe our name to be more detested than any name in France."

"Let us hope so," said the uncle. "Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low."

"There is not," pursued the nephew, in his former tone, "a face I can look at, in all this country round about us, which looks at me with any deference on it but the dark deference of fear and slavery."

"A compliment," said the Marquis, "to the grandeur of the family, merited by the manner in which the family has sustained its grandeur. Hah!" And he took another gentle little pinch of snuff, and lightly crossed his legs.......

To make the connection between the earlier verbal portrait and the figure of the Marquis in this scene, Eytinge has added the demitasse of chocolate; however, the small table is hardly suitable for the dinner of one person, let alone two, so that the illustrator has had to foreshorten the table in order to accommodate both figures.

Killed! shrieked the man"

Book II Chapter 7

A. A. Dixon

Illustration for the Collins Edition 1905

Text Illustrated:

"What has gone wrong?" said Monsieur, calmly looking out.

A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal.

"Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!" said a ragged and submissive man, "it is a child."

"Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?"

"Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis—it is a pity—yes."

The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his sword-hilt.

"Killed!" shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. "Dead!"

Book II Chapter 7 - Harry Furniss



"The Fountain — An Allegory"

Book II Chapter 7

Harry Furniss

Text Illustrated:

"He [The Marquis St. Evrémonde] was driven on, and other carriages came whirling by in quick succession; the Minister, the State-Projector, the Farmer-General, the Doctor, the Lawyer, the Ecclesiastic, the Grand Opera, the Comedy, the whole Fancy Ball in a bright continuous flow, came whirling by. The rats had crept out of their holes to look on, and they remained looking on for hours; soldiers and police often passing between them and the spectacle, and making a barrier behind which they slunk, and through which they peeped. The father had long ago taken up his bundle and hidden himself away with it, when the women who had tended the bundle while it lay on the base of the fountain, sat there watching the running of the water and the rolling of the Fancy Ball — when the one woman who had stood conspicuous, knitting, still knitted on with the steadfastness of Fate. The water of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into evening, so much life in the city ran into death according to rule, time and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at supper, all things ran their course."

Commentary:

For the moment, Madame Defarge is content to be the spinner of lives marked for termination. Her presence beside the fountain, death in the offing juxtaposed against the life-affirming waters of the community's fountain, complicates Dickens's much simpler use of the image of the fountain in Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44), in which the centre of the putative community of Eden in the architect's drawing, seen in Phiz's October 1843 steel-engraving The Thriving City of Eden as it Appeared on Paper, is the town-pump, and the centre of Tom Pinch's emotional and creative life as organizing librarian of Old Martin's collection is Fountain Court, where the novel concludes with the romantic meeting of Ruth Pinch and John Westlock, a symbol of romance in the midst of everyday realities in Sol Eytinge, Junior's John Westlock and Ruth Pinch.

The fountain is seen both traditionally, as "A symbol of life and fecundity", and innovatively, as "closely associated with the passing of time, with fate and death"; clearly, in this illustration Furniss juxtaposes Madame Defarge, the patient avenger, and St. Antoine's source of drinking water, strategically located opposite St. Antoine's informal community centre, the wine-shop of the Defarges. In the passage which Furniss's "allegorical" illustration realizes,

The running water of the fountain is thus symbolically equated with the flow of time, and with death, the knitting of Mme Defarge recalling the activities of the Parcae of Greek mythology, who spin the thread of existence and have the power to cut it short at their will. Significantly, Dickens only concentrates on the death-bringing aspects of the 'goddess of fate', Mme Defarge knitting a register of sins of the aristocracy to be presented on 'doomsday', the day of revolution.

Although the previous illustrators have all given prominence to the figure of Madame Therèse Defarge as the patient spider, laying her web methodically against the day when she will ensnare and annihilate her enemies, fewer of these nineteenth-century illustrators have attempted to render visually the notion of the fountain as emblematic of the river of life. By the time that readers encounter Furniss's allegorical study of the knitter and the baroque fountain, the relevant paragraph realized is some eight pages behind them, and the text is now describing the meeting of the representatives of two very different generations of St. Evrémondes: the young, idealistic Liberal and the inveterate old sinner, whose meeting at the Marquis' chateau is realized in Charles Darnay and The Marquis. The fountain appears prominently in just one of Phiz's monthly illustrations, The Stoppage at the Fountain, and just once in John McLenan's more extensive sequence of small- and medium-sized wood-engravings for Harper's Weekly, the fountain in this case not being the scene of the child's death in St. Antoine, but the source of drinking water for the village near the Marquis' chateau.

...The traditional symbol of life, the fountain, is here closely linked with a symbol of death, the gallows that throws its shadow upon the water. In the same manner, the village life is 'poisoned' by Monseigneur and his class.

The readers of the serial published in Great Britain, in the All the Year Round weekly numbers, had no such visual reinforcement of these themes; only the English purchasers of the monthly parts had the benefit of the Phiz steel-engraving The Stoppage at the Fountain (Part Three, August 1859), in which the fountain (left) seems to shed copious tears becoming a curtain of water over the dead child at its foot, the cupidons both forming a second chorus of mourners and mirroring the condition of contemporary French society, with a lone cherub standing at the top, supported by brethren alike in form but compelled by the sculptor to carry their privileged brother, the water-pourer, aloft for eternity.

Whereas Dixon's illustration of the Marquis, gazing placidly out his carriage window at the raving father of the dead child, in 'Killed!' shrieked the man includes neither the fountain, nor the tragic chorus of grieving women, nor yet the dread avenger, Madame Defarge, Furniss's study melds the elements of the paragraph realized — the fountain as emblematic of the waters of life and the steadfast Madame Defarge as the exemplar of Fate — with an entirely new element, the sputtering torch of liberty, from whose smoke emanate the spritely figures of gorgeously dressed and coiffed courtiers, bowing to one another, and gaily dancing. One senses that they are very much on the mind of the patient knitter, despite the fact that she remains focused on her work and does not look up. The swirling actions of the dancers in the smoke are repeated in the contortions of the cupidons in the fountain. In contrast to both groups, Madame Defarge is a plain, respectably dressed, unadorned, serviceable pillar. The meaning of the allegorical torch is not immediately clear, but one senses that this symbol portends the eradication of all but the memory of the dancing phantoms in the upper register."

Book II Chapter 11 - 12 - Harry Furniss



Book II Chapters 11 - 12

Harry Furniss

Charles Dickens Library Edition 1910

Text Illustrated:

Chapter 11

"Now you know all about it, Syd," said Mr. Stryver. "I don't care about fortune: she is a charming creature, and I have made up my mind to please myself: on the whole, I think I can afford to please myself. She will have in me a man already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising man, and a man of some distinction: it is a piece of good fortune for her, but she is worthy of good fortune. Are you astonished?"

Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, "Why should I be astonished?"

"You approve?"

Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, "Why should I not approve?"

"Well!" said his friend Stryver, "you take it more easily than I fancied you would, and are less mercenary on my behalf than I thought you would be; though, to be sure, you know well enough by this time that your ancient chum is a man of a pretty strong will. Yes, Sydney, I have had enough of this style of life, with no other as a change from it; I feel that it is a pleasant thing for a man to have a home when he feels inclined to go to it (when he doesn't, he can stay away), and I feel that Miss Manette will tell well in any station, and will always do me credit. So I have made up my mind. And now, Sydney, old boy, I want to say a word to you about your prospects. You are in a bad way, you know; you really are in a bad way. You don't know the value of money, you live hard, you'll knock up one of these days, and be ill and poor; you really ought to think about a nurse."

The prosperous patronage with which he said it, made him look twice as big as he was, and four times as offensive.

"Now, let me recommend you," pursued Stryver, "to look it in the face. I have looked it in the face, in my different way; look it in the face, you, in your different way. Marry. Provide somebody to take care of you. Never mind your having no enjoyment of women's society, nor understanding of it, nor tact for it. Find out somebody. Find out some respectable woman with a little property — somebody in the landlady way, or lodging-letting way — and marry her, against a rainy day. That's the kind of thing for you. Now think of it, Sydney."

"I'll think of it," said Sydney."

Chapter 12. The Fellow of Delicacy.

Mr. Stryver having made up his mind to that magnanimous bestowal of good fortune on the Doctor's daughter, resolved to make her happiness known to her before he left town for the Long Vacation. After some mental debating of the point, he came to the conclusion that it would be as well to get all the preliminaries done with, and they could then arrange at their leisure whether he should give her his hand a week or two before Michaelmas Term, or in the little Christmas vacation between it and Hilary.

As to the strength of his case, he had not a doubt about it, but clearly saw his way to the verdict. Argued with the jury on substantial worldly grounds — the only grounds ever worth taking into account — it was a plain case, and had not a weak spot in it. He called himself for the plaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence, the counsel for the defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn to consider. After trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfied that no plainer case could be.

Commentary:

Just as, in The Marquis, the haughty French aristocrat looks out of the book, towards the right, in this illustration the insensitive representative of England's rising middle class, barrister Stryver, looks inward, as if regarding his French counterpart through the intervening twenty-four pages. Thus, through their juxtapositions and similar poses, Furniss asks the reader to compare the medodramatic foreign villain with the home-grown buffoon who ironically sees himself as a good catch for Lucie Manette.

Mr. Stryver, a man of little more than thirty, but looking twenty years older than he was, stout, loud, red, bluff, and free from any drawback of delicacy, had a pushing way of shouldering himself (morally and physically) into companies and conversations, that argued well for his shouldering his way up in life. [Book Two, "The Golden Thread," Chapter Four, "Congratulatory,"]

Although the Marquis de St. Evrémonde and attorney Stryver are equally self-centred and singularly lacking in self-perception, the former represents the serious and historical aspects of the narrative while the latter is present largely for comic relief — of which, as many have since remarked, the historical novel is sadly lacking. Both men, despite their differences in nationality and class, are what the great student of human nature, novelist Jane Austen, regarded as "False Wits," egotists incapable of intellectual or spiritual growth. Such introspective inflexibility, implies, Furniss, can be merely laughable, or utterly detestable, depending upon the actions of the egotist. An old school fellow of Carton's, Stryver (lacking even a Christian name) is a pasteboard, jingoistic attorney whose love of self in the text corresponds to his love of expensive, fashionable clothing in Harry Furniss's illustration of Carton's "stout, red, bluff" foil, a "fellow of no delicacy," in contrast to Jarvis Lorry, a bourgeois of an entirely different stripe.

Andrew Sanders relates that Dickens based the character of Stryver, just a little over thirty and therefore Sydney Carton's near contemporary, on an actual attorney well-known even outside legal circles in the second half of the nineteenth century in London, and quite possibly recognized as the model by Phiz, if not by the New Man of the Sixties, Fred Barnard, and Harry Furniss in the fin de siecle:

In his Recollections and Experiences (1884) Edmund Yates suggests that Dickens based the character and physique of Stryver on that of the attorney Edwin John James (1812-82). James was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1836, appointed Queen's Counsel in 1853 and elected Member of Parliament for Marylebone in 1859-61. Declared bankrupt and disbarred for professional misconduct in 1861, he emigrated to America and practised at the New York Bar as well as playing on the stage. He died in London. Yates gives an account of his consultations with James in late 1858 or early 1859, describing him as 'a fat, florid man, with a large bland face . . . with chambers in the Temple . . . his practice was extensive, his fees enormous . . . he liked talking, but always directed the conversation in other channels'.

Having accompanied Yates to just one of these legal consultations with the Lion of The Inner Temple, Dickens later admitted to his friend that James had severed as the model:

After reading the description, I [Yates] said to Dickens, 'Stryver is a good likeness.' He smiled. 'Not bad I think,' he said 'especially after only one sitting'.

That James was Phiz's model but not Barnard's is suggested merely by Stryver's bell-like girth in Congratulations and his leanness in Barnard's street scene outside Tellson's, London, as the revolutionary tide rises in Paris, Among the talkers was Stryver, of the King's Bench Bar, . . . broaching to Monseigneur his devices for blowing the people up, and exterminating them from the face of the earth (Book Two, Chapter 24). He is, of course, a pompous windbag, no matter what the edition in which one encounters him — but a relatively minor character with whom both Eytinge and Dixon, for the sake of economy, have dispensed.

Furniss's version is more arrogant and less pleasant than Phiz's, a caricature rather than a character, both large and florid, and suitably well dressed for the period with extensive, embroidered waistcoat, lace cuffs, wig, and walking stick — the English equivalent of the French fashion-plate the Marquis St. Evrémonde in the earlier Furniss illustration, but posing with a cane rather than carrying a rapier. For the perceptive, including his "jackal," Sydney Carton, and his putative bride, Lucie Manette, he poses no real threat, despite his pompous bluster and anti-democratic zenophobia. Whereas Barnard shows us Stryver "behind the scenes," fuelling his partner with alcohol, as well as publicly, remonstrating with French emigrées outside Tellson's London headquarters, Furniss contents himself with a single study of the public Stryver. The real-life Stryver, Edwin John James, was Dickens's precise contemporary. It is not unlikely that Dickens mentioned to Phiz that James had served as the model for the textual Stryver, a bit of insight into the obtuse attorney that Phiz may well have retailed to young Fred Barnard, especially since James was still alive and living in London when Barnard was executing the drawings for this volume of the Household Edition. Whether Furniss knew of the connection is unknown, but his version of attorney Stryver certain accords well with those passages in the text describing his person and personality.

"The confidential clerk of Tellson's Bank"

Book II Chapter 12

Harry Furniss

Charles Dickens Library Edition 1910

Text Illustrated:

"His [Stryver's] way taking him past Tellson's, and he both banking at Tellson's and knowing Mr. Lorry as the intimate friend of the Manettes, it entered Mr. Stryver's mind to enter the bank, and reveal to Mr. Lorry the brightness of the Soho horizon. So, he pushed open the door with the weak rattle in its throat, stumbled down the two steps, got past the two ancient cashiers, and shouldered himself into the musty back closet where Mr. Lorry sat at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicular iron bars to his window as if that were ruled for figures too, and everything under the clouds were a sum.

"Halloa!" said Mr. Stryver. "How do you do? I hope you are well!"

It was Stryver's grand peculiarity that he always seemed too big for any place, or space. He was so much too big for Tellson's, that old clerks in distant corners looked up with looks of remonstrance, as though he squeezed them against the wall. The House itself, magnificently reading the paper quite in the far-off perspective, lowered displeased, as if the Stryver head had been butted into its responsible waistcoat.

The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice he would recommend under the circumstances, "How do you do, Mr. Stryver? How do you do, sir?" and shook hands. There was a peculiarity in his manner of shaking hands, always to be seen in any clerk at Tellson's who shook hands with a customer when the House pervaded the air. He shook in a self-abnegating way, as one who shook for Tellson and Co.

"Can I do anything for you, Mr. Stryver?" asked Mr. Lorry, in his business character.

"Why, no, thank you; this is a private visit to yourself, Mr. Lorry; I have come for a private word."

"Oh indeed!" said Mr. Lorry, bending down his ear, while his eye strayed to the House afar off.

"I am going," said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confidentially on the desk: whereupon, although it was a large double one, there appeared to be not half desk enough for him: "I am going to make an offer of myself in marriage to your agreeable little friend, Miss Manette, Mr. Lorry."

"Oh dear me!" cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin, and looking at his visitor dubiously.

"Oh dear me, sir?" repeated Stryver, drawing back. "Oh dear you, sir? What may your meaning be, Mr. Lorry?"

"My meaning," answered the man of business, "is, of course, friendly and appreciative, and that it does you the greatest credit, and — in short, my meaning is everything you could desire. But — really, you know, Mr. Stryver —" Mr. Lorry paused, and shook his head at him in the oddest manner, as if he were compelled against his will to add, internally, "you know there really is so much too much of you!"


Commentary:

If Mr. Stryver, the egotistical barrister, and his "jackal, " Sydney Carton, are fellows of no delicacy, after generations of service to t his venerable commercial establishment , the confidential chief clerk of Tellson's Bank, Temple Bar, is able to keep his own counsel and others'. Furniss suggests his readiness to conduct business — and, like Madame Defarge, keep accurate records for future use — by the quill pen behind his right ear.

The illustrators have often introduced Mr. Jarvis Lorry, confirmed bachelor and confidential clerk, in conjunction with the other defender of the Manette family, the old maid, Miss Pross. Phiz juxtaposes Mr. Lorry, an elderly fellow of extreme delicacy, with a younger, far more florid and less scrupulous professional, the exploitative attorney, in Mr. Stryver at Tellson's Bank, whereas Furniss, as is his wont, introduces Mr. Lorry by himself in a characteristic pose, bent over ledgers while perched on his stool in Tellson's counting-house. The illustrators, like Dickens himself, underscore Lorry's position at the Bank since it serves as a plot vehicle for introducing the Manettes into Paris at the height of the Revolution and then for extricating them at the crucial moment in Book Three, Chapter Thirteen, as the Reign of Terror rages. Perhaps more revealing of Jarvis Lorry's conflicted emotional state in protecting the Manettes and attempting to do what is best for his old friend Dr. Manette's sanity is Phiz's dual study of the guilty partners destroying the shoe-mender's bench in The Accomplices (August 1859). In contrast, in John McLenan's dual portrait of Miss Pross and Mr. Lorry, Miss Pross and Mr. Lorry (25 June 1859), the spinster and the confidential clerk seem too frail for the roles in which Dickens has cast them.

Furniss introduces Lorry in much the same pose in the lower left-hand corner of the volume's equivalent of Phiz's monthly wrapper, Characters in the Story, where he is juxtaposed with another careful recorder of human transactions, Madame Defarge. Furniss thereby emphasizes the elderly banker's alertness and dedication to protecting his old friend, even as Madame Defarge is bent upon the destruction of anyone allied to the house of St. Evrémonde. Furniss's characterization of Jarvis Lorry emphasizes his "business mentality" by his posture as he pours over financial ledgers, but Furniss has not included the background details that make Phiz's parallel illustration, Mr. Stryver at Tellson's Bank, so interesting: only the bars of Tellson's appear sketchily in the background, and merely implied by the accompanying text (three pages earlier) are such contextual elements as the ancient cashiers paying out a client with bags of coins (left, a pure bit of invention on Phiz's part), the annual ledgers (immediately above Lorry's desk), the wastebasket (lower right), and the strident, fashionably-dressed Stryver, striking a pose.

Carton rejected

Book II Chapter 13

Harry Furniss

Text Illustrated:

"The utmost good that I am capable of now, Miss Manette, I have come here to realise. Let me carry through the rest of my misdirected life, the remembrance that I opened my heart to you, last of all the world; and that there was something left in me at this time which you could deplore and pity."

"Which I entreated you to believe, again and again, most fervently, with all my heart, was capable of better things, Mr. Carton!"

"Entreat me to believe it no more, Miss Manette. I have proved myself, and I know better. I distress you; I draw fast to an end. Will you let me believe, when I recall this day, that the last confidence of my life was reposed in your pure and innocent breast, and that it lies there alone, and will be shared by no one?"

"If that will be a consolation to you, yes."

"Not even by the dearest one ever to be known to you?"

"Mr. Carton," she answered, after an agitated pause, "the secret is yours, not mine; and I promise to respect it."

"Thank you. And again, God bless you."

He put her hand to his lips, and moved towards the door.

"Be under no apprehension, Miss Manette, of my ever resuming this conversation by so much as a passing word. I will never refer to it again. If I were dead, that could not be surer than it is henceforth. In the hour of my death, I shall hold sacred the one good remembrance — and shall thank and bless you for it — that my last avowal of myself was made to you, and that my name, and faults, and miseries were gently carried in your heart. May it otherwise be light and happy!"

He was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and it was so sad to think how much he had thrown away, and how much he every day kept down and perverted, that Lucie Manette wept mournfully for him as he stood looking back at her.

"Be comforted!" he said, "I am not worth such feeling, Miss Manette. An hour or two hence, and the low companions and low habits that I scorn but yield to, will render me less worth such tears as those, than any wretch who creeps along the streets. Be comforted! But, within myself, I shall always be, towards you, what I am now, though outwardly I shall be what you have heretofore seen me. The last supplication but one I make to you, is, that you will believe this of me."

"I will, Mr. Carton."

"My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will relieve you of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison, and between whom and you there is an impassable space. It is useless to say it, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you — ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn — the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!"

He said, "Farewell!" said a last "God bless you!" and left her."

Commentary:

Just as, in Mr. Stryver, the egotistical attorney is due for a disappointment in pursuit of Lucie Manette, so the virtuous wastrel genuinely in love with the golden-haired beauty, Sydney Carton, who might have reformed himself under her benign influence, is rejected as a suitor — in favor of his serious double, Charles Darnay. Only Fred Barnard had attempted this emotionally charged scene. Furniss's emphasis is not divided like Barnard's as he focuses on the dejected Carton in the foreground, and places a pensive Lucie Manette well into the background, so that the illustrator compels the reader-viewer to sympathize with the young lawyer. To further this identification, Furniss minimizes the setting, whereas Barnard particularizes the drawing room with its eighteenth-century appurtenances: the screen, the embroidery frame, the large Chinese vase, the barley-cane legged table, and the mirror with paired candles. In the midst of this quiet, refined, domestic setting Barnard stages this romantic scene. In contrast, Furniss sketches in Sydney Carton with vigorous strokes in pen-and-ink, charging the figure with an energy.

In many of the ornamental title-pages' Characters in the Story for the eighteen-volume Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910), Harry Furniss shows Sydney Carton in just such a pose as we see him here, dejectedly walking away — not from Lucie Manette, but from his romantic rival, Charles Darnay (lower left), in such volumes as The Dickens Companion (volume 18) and The Dickens Picture-Book (volume 17). As an Impressionist, Furniss must have felt that this sketch revealed not merely the emotional state of a single, interestingly conflicted character, but also much about the writer's ability to draw such compelling characters.

Oh Kim! So many grand illustrations from so many different artists. Thank you!
Let’s look at the advantages of woodcuts versus steel plates. Browne worked primarily with steel engravings for the texts. A steel engraving must be placed on a separate sheet of paper. A reader of the original parts would get the individual part with two separate illustrations that appear on two pieces of paper bound into the beginning of the part. Text and illustration were therefore separate. Because a steel engraving cannot be placed within or right beside the letterpress, we are able this week to get a good comparison of how a reader goes about reading the book differently with a woodcut.

The Harper’s illustrations (messages 23, 25, 27) show text and illustration integrated. That is a very different reading experience from seeing steel illustrations. With a steel engraving the reader will never be able to see an alignment between letterpress and illustration. Thus all steel engravings are seen before the reading of the chapter. A reader will know what’s going to happen because the picture comes first.

Hmm, why did they not simply put the steel engravings at the end of the chapter? This way they could have avoided spilling the beans.

Wow, lots of murder pictures this week! And some very ornamental Cartons and Darnays.

Kim wrote: "

The Stoppage at the Fountain

Book II Chapter 7

Phiz

Text Illustrated:

"With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the..."

This is an incredible illustration by Phiz. Let’s focus on the text first.

´On seeing him the miserable creature fell upon his shoulder.´

If we look at the illustration we see the Marquis looking out the carriage window. In the illustration he is placed in the centre top. The Marquis is thus situated as looking down upon the event unfolding in front of him.

Next we see a man embracing another man in the centre middle of the image. The man who is embracing the suffering man is Defarge. The suffering man is the father of the child who has just been run over by the Marquis’s carriage. Consider this part of the illustration. Defarge is taller than the suffering father, or perhaps the suffering man has been diminished by the horror of the situation. In any case there is a direct line of descent from the Marquis, to Defarge, to the peasant. This part of the picture reflects the social hierarchy of France. First, the Marquis, the representative of the aristocracy. Below that, the shop owners who live in poverty, but have at least some form of steady labour. Below that are the poor, the disenfranchised.

To me what is telling, and shows the skill of Phiz, is what is on the grieving father’s feet. He is wearing clogs, the most common shoe of the poor. Made of wood, they lasted a very long time and were well suited for the common labourer’s daily work.. The clog shoes are the key to this illustration. Indeed, they are the essential symbol of the novel. Clogs, being wood, made more noise than leather, cloth, felt, or other material used in the manufacture of shoes.

This is important for the sound. On stone streets clogs would make more noise. On streets that were enclosed and narrow the sound of the clogs would ricochet off the street and the houses that faced the street. When Lucie heard the sounds of hundreds of footsteps she was hearing the sounds of the forthcoming Revolution. She was hearing, symbolically, what was to come. In France, the sound of wooden shoes rushing to the Bastille would be heard. It would be the sound of death. And that sound would be real.

If we look at the illustration we see how Browne has positioned the grieving man’s foot, wearing his clogs, at the centre bottom of the illustration. So what we have is the Marquis at the top of the illustration, directly below him Defarge, then the grieving father and then at the very bottom of this focussed tableau, a pair of wooden shoes. Brilliant, Phiz at his best. But there is more …

To the left of the illustration is a fountain. The dead child is resting there. The water of the fountain is flowing freely. Years before in St Antoine there was a cask of red wine that broke and spilled in this same place. That wine spread to all parts of the street and the poor lapped it up. One person wrote Blood on a wall.

I suggest that the water and the fountain are key symbols as well. The water from the fountain flows above the child. Is this meant to suggest a baptism, a washing of the body before burial, both? I think that is possible. Please keep an eye out for when fountains appear later in the novel and notice how they are incorporated as symbols.

I apologize for this lengthy ramble but this is the last book that Hablot Browne will illustrate. One standard reason is that he was out of date and out of touch with the new style and school of illustrators. Well, I agree with that observation. I do, however, staunchly cling to the belief that Browne stood head and shoulders above who was to follow him.

Peter,

I don't think you need to apologize for the length of your post because it showed me lots of things I didn't notice in looking at the illustration. When somebody points out all those details, they seem so obvious but they surely aren't. I like your reference to the clogs and your linking it with the footsteps Lucie and her visitors heard in a previous chapter as well as the blood-and-water connection you made. Thanks for sharing your ideas!

Thanks Tristram.

In my post above I neglected to point out that later illustrators of the novel show the poor wearing clogs as well. See Fred Barnard’s illustration in message 28 and A.A. Dixon’s illustration in message 32.

While Doctor Manette did not repair wooden shoes while incarcerated, Dickens chose to use Manette’s method of coping as the repairing of shoes.

In A Tale of Two Cities Dickens referred to shoes or the sound of footsteps in five separate chapter headings. That is a significant number.

Book the First Chapter 6.

Book the Second Chapter 6, 18, and 21.

Book the Third Chapter 15.

I think that Manette's mania about repairing shoes blends well into the footstep motif. His incarceration and the consequences this had on his mind and soul was exploited by the Defarges to stir up the wrath of the Jacques. In a way, there is a lot of consistency in these details, isn't there?

Peter wrote: "Thanks Tristram.

In my post above I neglected to point out that later illustrators of the novel show the poor wearing clogs as well. See Fred Barnard’s illustration in message 28 and A.A. Dixon’s ..."

I really need to start paying closer attention to chapter titles.

Monseigneur's Accident

Book 2, Chapter 7

Rene Ben Sussan

Echoing Tristram here - really interesting comments about the clogs, and tying them in with the sound of footsteps, Peter. I never would have made those connections.