Book III - Chapter I. In Secret

by Charles Dickens

　　The traveller fared slowly on his way, who fared towards Paris fromEngland in the autumn of the year one thousand seven hundred andninety-two. More than enough of bad roads, bad equipages, and badhorses, he would have encountered to delay him, though the fallen andunfortunate King of France had been upon his throne in all his glory;but, the changed times were fraught with other obstacles than these.Every town-gate and village taxing-house had its band of citizen-patriots, with their national muskets in a most explosive state ofreadiness, who stopped all comers and goers, cross-questioned them,inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own,turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them inhold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for thedawning Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality,Fraternity, or Death.

　　A very few French leagues of his journey were accomplished, whenCharles Darnay began to perceive that for him along these countryroads there was no hope of return until he should have been declareda good citizen at Paris. Whatever might befall now, he must on tohis journey's end. Not a mean village closed upon him, not a commonbarrier dropped across the road behind him, but he knew it to beanother iron door in the series that was barred between him andEngland. The universal watchfulness so encompassed him, that if hehad been taken in a net, or were being forwarded to his destinationin a cage, he could not have felt his freedom more completely gone.

　　This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the highwaytwenty times in a stage, but retarded his progress twenty times in aday, by riding after him and taking him back, riding before him andstopping him by anticipation, riding with him and keeping him incharge. He had been days upon his journey in France alone, when hewent to bed tired out, in a little town on the high road, still along way from Paris.

　　Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle's letter from hisprison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far. His difficulty atthe guard-house in this small place had been such, that he felt hisjourney to have come to a crisis. And he was, therefore, as littlesurprised as a man could be, to find himself awakened at the smallinn to which he had been remitted until morning, in the middle of thenight.

　　Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed patriots inrough red caps and with pipes in their mouths, who sat down on the bed.

　　"Emigrant," said the functionary, "I am going to send you on to Paris,under an escort."

　　"Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though I coulddispense with the escort."

　　"Silence!" growled a red-cap, striking at the coverlet with thebutt-end of his musket. "Peace, aristocrat!"

　　"It is as the good patriot says," observed the timid functionary."You are an aristocrat, and must have an escort--and must pay for it."

　　"I have no choice," said Charles Darnay.

　　"Choice! Listen to him!" cried the same scowling red-cap. "As if itwas not a favour to be protected from the lamp-iron!"

　　"It is always as the good patriot says," observed the functionary."Rise and dress yourself, emigrant."

　　Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guard-house, where otherpatriots in rough red caps were smoking, drinking, and sleeping, by awatch-fire. Here he paid a heavy price for his escort, and hence hestarted with it on the wet, wet roads at three o'clock in the morning.

　　The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tri-colouredcockades, armed with national muskets and sabres, who rode one oneither side of him.

　　The escorted governed his own horse, but a loose line was attached tohis bridle, the end of which one of the patriots kept girded roundhis wrist. In this state they set forth with the sharp rain drivingin their faces: clattering at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneventown pavement, and out upon the mire-deep roads. In this state theytraversed without change, except of horses and pace, all the mire-deep leagues that lay between them and the capital.

　　They travelled in the night, halting an hour or two after daybreak,and lying by until the twilight fell. The escort were so wretchedlyclothed, that they twisted straw round their bare legs, and thatchedtheir ragged shoulders to keep the wet off. Apart from the personaldiscomfort of being so attended, and apart from such considerationsof present danger as arose from one of the patriots being chronicallydrunk, and carrying his musket very recklessly, Charles Darnay didnot allow the restraint that was laid upon him to awaken any seriousfears in his breast; for, he reasoned with himself that it could haveno reference to the merits of an individual case that was not yetstated, and of representations, confirmable by the prisoner in theAbbaye, that were not yet made.

　　But when they came to the town of Beauvais--which they did ateventide, when the streets were filled with people--he could notconceal from himself that the aspect of affairs was very alarming.An ominous crowd gathered to see him dismount of the posting-yard,and many voices called out loudly, "Down with the emigrant!"

　　He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddle, and,resuming it as his safest place, said:

　　"Emigrant, my friends! Do you not see me here, in France, of my own will?"

　　"You are a cursed emigrant," cried a farrier, making at him in afurious manner through the press, hammer in hand; "and you are acursed aristocrat!"

　　The postmaster interposed himself between this man and the rider'sbridle (at which he was evidently making), and soothingly said,"Let him be; let him be! He will be judged at Paris."

　　"Judged!" repeated the farrier, swinging his hammer."Ay! and condemned as a traitor." At this the crowd roared approval.

　　Checking the postmaster, who was for turning his horse's head to theyard (the drunken patriot sat composedly in his saddle looking on,with the line round his wrist), Darnay said, as soon as he could makehis voice heard:

　　"Friends, you deceive yourselves, or you are deceived. I am not a traitor."

　　"He lies!" cried the smith. "He is a traitor since the decree.His life is forfeit to the people. His cursed life is not his own!"

　　At the instant when Darnay saw a rush in the eyes of the crowd,which another instant would have brought upon him, the postmasterturned his horse into the yard, the escort rode in close upon hishorse's flanks, and the postmaster shut and barred the crazy doublegates. The farrier struck a blow upon them with his hammer, and thecrowd groaned; but, no more was done.

　　"What is this decree that the smith spoke of?" Darnay asked thepostmaster, when he had thanked him, and stood beside him in the yard.

　　"Truly, a decree for selling the property of emigrants."

　　"When passed?"

　　"On the fourteenth."

　　"The day I left England!"

　　"Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there will beothers--if there are not already-banishing all emigrants, andcondemning all to death who return. That is what he meant when hesaid your life was not your own."

　　"But there are no such decrees yet?"

　　"What do I know!" said the postmaster, shrugging his shoulders;"there may be, or there will be. It is all the same. What wouldyou have?"

　　They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the night,and then rode forward again when all the town was asleep. Among themany wild changes observable on familiar things which made this wildride unreal, not the least was the seeming rarity of sleep.After long and lonely spurring over dreary roads, they would come toa cluster of poor cottages, not steeped in darkness, but allglittering with lights, and would find the people, in a ghostlymanner in the dead of the night, circling hand in hand round ashrivelled tree of Liberty, or all drawn up together singing aLiberty song. Happily, however, there was sleep in Beauvais thatnight to help them out of it and they passed on once more intosolitude and loneliness: jingling through the untimely cold and wet,among impoverished fields that had yielded no fruits of the earththat year, diversified by the blackened remains of burnt houses, andby the sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp reining up acrosstheir way, of patriot patrols on the watch on all the roads.

　　Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The barrierwas closed and strongly guarded when they rode up to it.

　　"Where are the papers of this prisoner?" demanded a resolute-lookingman in authority, who was summoned out by the guard.

　　Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay requestedthe speaker to take notice that he was a free traveller and Frenchcitizen, in charge of an escort which the disturbed state of thecountry had imposed upon him, and which he had paid for.

　　"Where," repeated the same personage, without taking any heed of himwhatever, "are the papers of this prisoner?"

　　The drunken patriot had them in his cap, and produced them. Casting hiseyes over Gabelle's letter, the same personage in authority showedsome disorder and surprise, and looked at Darnay with a close attention.

　　He left escort and escorted without saying a word, however, and wentinto the guard-room; meanwhile, they sat upon their horses outsidethe gate. Looking about him while in this state of suspense, CharlesDarnay observed that the gate was held by a mixed guard of soldiersand patriots, the latter far outnumbering the former; and that whileingress into the city for peasants' carts bringing in supplies, andfor similar traffic and traffickers, was easy enough, egress, evenfor the homeliest people, was very difficult. A numerous medley ofmen and women, not to mention beasts and vehicles of various sorts,was waiting to issue forth; but, the previous identification was sostrict, that they filtered through the barrier very slowly. Some ofthese people knew their turn for examination to be so far off, thatthey lay down on the ground to sleep or smoke, while others talkedtogether, or loitered about. The red cap and tri-colour cockade wereuniversal, both among men and women.

　　When he had sat in his saddle some half-hour, taking note of thesethings, Darnay found himself confronted by the same man in authority,who directed the guard to open the barrier. Then he delivered to theescort, drunk and sober, a receipt for the escorted, and requested himto dismount. He did so, and the two patriots, leading his tired horse,turned and rode away without entering the city.

　　He accompanied his conductor into a guard-room, smelling of commonwine and tobacco, where certain soldiers and patriots, asleep andawake, drunk and sober, and in various neutral states betweensleeping and waking, drunkenness and sobriety, were standing andlying about. The light in the guard-house, half derived from thewaning oil-lamps of the night, and half from the overcast day, was ina correspondingly uncertain condition. Some registers were lyingopen on a desk, and an officer of a coarse, dark aspect, presidedover these.

　　"Citizen Defarge," said he to Darnay's conductor, as he took a slipof paper to write on. "Is this the emigrant Evremonde?"

　　"This is the man."

　　"Your age, Evremonde?"

　　"Thirty-seven."

　　"Married, Evremonde?"

　　"Yes."

　　"Where married?"

　　"In England."

　　"Without doubt. Where is your wife, Evremonde?"

　　"In England."

　　"Without doubt. You are consigned, Evremonde, to the prison of La Force."

　　"Just Heaven!" exclaimed Darnay. "Under what law, and for what offence?"

　　The officer looked up from his slip of paper for a moment.

　　"We have new laws, Evremonde, and new offences, since you were here."He said it with a hard smile, and went on writing.

　　"I entreat you to observe that I have come here voluntarily, in responseto that written appeal of a fellow-countryman which lies before you.I demand no more than the opportunity to do so without delay.Is not that my right?"

　　"Emigrants have no rights, Evremonde," was the stolid reply.The officer wrote until he had finished, read over to himself what hehad written, sanded it, and handed it to Defarge, with the words"In secret."

　　Defarge motioned with the paper to the prisoner that he mustaccompany him. The prisoner obeyed, and a guard of two armedpatriots attended them.

　　"Is it you," said Defarge, in a low voice, as they went down theguardhouse steps and turned into Paris, "who married the daughter ofDoctor Manette, once a prisoner in the Bastille that is no more?"

　　"Yes," replied Darnay, looking at him with surprise.

　　"My name is Defarge, and I keep a wine-shop in the Quarter SaintAntoine. Possibly you have heard of me."

　　"My wife came to your house to reclaim her father? Yes!"

　　The word "wife" seemed to serve as a gloomy reminder to Defarge,to say with sudden impatience, "In the name of that sharp femalenewly-born, and called La Guillotine, why did you come to France?"

　　"You heard me say why, a minute ago. Do you not believe it is thetruth?"

　　"A bad truth for you," said Defarge, speaking with knitted brows,and looking straight before him.

　　"Indeed I am lost here. All here is so unprecedented, so changed,so sudden and unfair, that I am absolutely lost. Will you render mea little help?"

　　"None." Defarge spoke, always looking straight before him.

　　"Will you answer me a single question?"

　　"Perhaps. According to its nature. You can say what it is."

　　"In this prison that I am going to so unjustly, shall I have somefree communication with the world outside?"

　　"You will see."

　　"I am not to be buried there, prejudged, and without any means ofpresenting my case?"

　　"You will see. But, what then? Other people have been similarlyburied in worse prisons, before now."

　　"But never by me, Citizen Defarge."

　　Defarge glanced darkly at him for answer, and walked on in a steadyand set silence. The deeper he sank into this silence, the fainterhope there was--or so Darnay thought--of his softening in any slightdegree. He, therefore, made haste to say:

　　"It is of the utmost importance to me (you know, Citizen, even betterthan I, of how much importance), that I should be able to communicateto Mr. Lorry of Tellson's Bank, an English gentleman who is now inParis, the simple fact, without comment, that I have been thrown intothe prison of La Force. Will you cause that to be done for me?"

　　"I will do," Defarge doggedly rejoined, "nothing for you. My duty isto my country and the People. I am the sworn servant of both,against you. I will do nothing for you."

　　Charles Darnay felt it hopeless to entreat him further, and his pridewas touched besides. As they walked on in silence, he could not butsee how used the people were to the spectacle of prisoners passingalong the streets. The very children scarcely noticed him. A fewpassers turned their heads, and a few shook their fingers at him asan aristocrat; otherwise, that a man in good clothes should be goingto prison, was no more remarkable than that a labourer in workingclothes should be going to work. In one narrow, dark, and dirtystreet through which they passed, an excited orator, mounted on a stool,was addressing an excited audience on the crimes against the people,of the king and the royal family. The few words that he caught fromthis man's lips, first made it known to Charles Darnay that the kingwas in prison, and that the foreign ambassadors had one and all leftParis. On the road (except at Beauvais) he had heard absolutely nothing.The escort and the universal watchfulness had completely isolated him.

　　That he had fallen among far greater dangers than those which haddeveloped themselves when he left England, he of course knew now.That perils had thickened about him fast, and might thicken fasterand faster yet, he of course knew now. He could not but admit tohimself that he might not have made this journey, if he could haveforeseen the events of a few days. And yet his misgivings were notso dark as, imagined by the light of this later time, they would appear.Troubled as the future was, it was the unknown future, and in itsobscurity there was ignorant hope. The horrible massacre, days andnights long, which, within a few rounds of the clock, was to set agreat mark of blood upon the blessed garnering time of harvest, wasas far out of his knowledge as if it had been a hundred thousandyears away. The "sharp female newly-born, and called La Guillotine,"was hardly known to him, or to the generality of people, by name.The frightful deeds that were to be soon done, were probablyunimagined at that time in the brains of the doers. How could theyhave a place in the shadowy conceptions of a gentle mind?

　　Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruelseparation from his wife and child, he foreshadowed the likelihood,or the certainty; but, beyond this, he dreaded nothing distinctly.With this on his mind, which was enough to carry into a dreary prisoncourtyard, he arrived at the prison of La Force.

　　A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to whom Defargepresented "The Emigrant Evremonde."

　　"What the Devil! How many more of them!" exclaimed the man withthe bloated face.

　　Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation,and withdrew, with his two fellow-patriots.

　　"What the Devil, I say again!" exclaimed the gaoler, left with his wife."How many more!"

　　The gaoler's wife, being provided with no answer to the question,merely replied, "One must have patience, my dear!" Three turnkeys whoentered responsive to a bell she rang, echoed the sentiment, and oneadded, "For the love of Liberty;" which sounded in that place like aninappropriate conclusion.

　　The prison of La Force was a gloomy prison, dark and filthy, and witha horrible smell of foul sleep in it. Extraordinary how soon thenoisome flavour of imprisoned sleep, becomes manifest in all suchplaces that are ill cared for!

　　"In secret, too," grumbled the gaoler, looking at the written paper."As if I was not already full to bursting!"

　　He stuck the paper on a file, in an ill-humour, and Charles Darnayawaited his further pleasure for half an hour: sometimes, pacing toand fro in the strong arched room: sometimes, resting on a stone seat:in either case detained to be imprinted on the memory of the chiefand his subordinates.

　　"Come!" said the chief, at length taking up his keys, "come with me, emigrant."

　　Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge accompanied him bycorridor and staircase, many doors clanging and locking behind them,until they came into a large, low, vaulted chamber, crowded withprisoners of both sexes. The women were seated at a long table,reading and writing, knitting, sewing, and embroidering; the men werefor the most part standing behind their chairs, or lingering up anddown the room.

　　In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful crime anddisgrace, the new-comer recoiled from this company. But the crowningunreality of his long unreal ride, was, their all at once rising toreceive him, with every refinement of manner known to the time, andwith all the engaging graces and courtesies of life.

　　So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison manners andgloom, so spectral did they become in the inappropriate squalor andmisery through which they were seen, that Charles Darnay seemed tostand in a company of the dead. Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty,the ghost of stateliness, the ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride,the ghost of frivolity, the ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, theghost of age, all waiting their dismissal from the desolate shore,all turning on him eyes that were changed by the death they had diedin coming there.

　　It struck him motionless. The gaoler standing at his side, and theother gaolers moving about, who would have been well enough as toappearance in the ordinary exercise of their functions, looked soextravagantly coarse contrasted with sorrowing mothers and bloomingdaughters who were there--with the apparitions of the coquette,the young beauty, and the mature woman delicately bred--that theinversion of all experience and likelihood which the scene of shadowspresented, was heightened to its utmost. Surely, ghosts all.Surely, the long unreal ride some progress of disease that hadbrought him to these gloomy shades!

　　"In the name of the assembled companions in misfortune," said agentleman of courtly appearance and address, coming forward,"I have the honour of giving you welcome to La Force, and ofcondoling with you on the calamity that has brought you among us.May it soon terminate happily! It would be an impertinence elsewhere,but it is not so here, to ask your name and condition?"

　　Charles Darnay roused himself, and gave the required information,in words as suitable as he could find.

　　"But I hope," said the gentleman, following the chief gaoler with hiseyes, who moved across the room, "that you are not in secret?"

　　"I do not understand the meaning of the term, but I have heard themsay so."

　　"Ah, what a pity! We so much regret it! But take courage; severalmembers of our society have been in secret, at first, and it haslasted but a short time." Then he added, raising his voice,"I grieve to inform the society--in secret."

　　There was a murmur of commiseration as Charles Darnay crossed theroom to a grated door where the gaoler awaited him, and manyvoices--among which, the soft and compassionate voices of women wereconspicuous--gave him good wishes and encouragement. He turned atthe grated door, to render the thanks of his heart; it closed underthe gaoler's hand; and the apparitions vanished from his sight forever.

　　The wicket opened on a stone staircase, leading upward. When theybad ascended forty steps (the prisoner of half an hour alreadycounted them), the gaoler opened a low black door, and they passedinto a solitary cell. It struck cold and damp, but was not dark.

　　"Yours," said the gaoler.

　　"Why am I confined alone?"

　　"How do I know!"

　　"I can buy pen, ink, and paper?"

　　"Such are not my orders. You will be visited, and can ask then.At present, you may buy your food, and nothing more."

　　There were in the cell, a chair, a table, and a straw mattress.As the gaoler made a general inspection of these objects, and of thefour walls, before going out, a wandering fancy wandered through themind of the prisoner leaning against the wall opposite to him, thatthis gaoler was so unwholesomely bloated, both in face and person,as to look like a man who had been drowned and filled with water.When the gaoler was gone, he thought in the same wandering way,"Now am I left, as if I were dead." Stopping then, to look down atthe mattress, he turned from it with a sick feeling, and thought,"And here in these crawling creatures is the first condition of thebody after death."

　　"Five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half, fivepaces by four and a half." The prisoner walked to and fro in hiscell, counting its measurement, and the roar of the city arose likemuffled drums with a wild swell of voices added to them. "He madeshoes, he made shoes, he made shoes." The prisoner counted themeasurement again, and paced faster, to draw his mind with him fromthat latter repetition. "The ghosts that vanished when the wicketclosed. There was one among them, the appearance of a lady dressedin black, who was leaning in the embrasure of a window, and she had alight shining upon her golden hair, and she looked like * * * * Letus ride on again, for God's sake, through the illuminated villageswith the people all awake! * * * * He made shoes, he made shoes,he made shoes. * * * * Five paces by four and a half." With such scrapstossing and rolling upward from the depths of his mind, the prisonerwalked faster and faster, obstinately counting and counting; and theroar of the city changed to this extent--that it still rolled in likemuffled drums, but with the wail of voices that he knew, in the swellthat rose above them.