Summary: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of
times," Charles
Dicken writes in the opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities as he paints
a picture of life in England and France. The year is late 1775, and Jarvis
Lorry travels from London to Paris on a secret mission for his employer,
Tellson's Bank. Joining him on his journey is Lucie
Manette, a 17-year-old woman who is stunned to learn that her father, Doctor
Alexandre Manette, is alive and has recently been released after
having been secretly imprisoned in Paris for 18 years.
When Mr. Lorry and Lucie arrive
in Paris, they find the Doctor's former servant, Ernest Defarge, caring for the
him. Defarge now runs a wine-shop with his wife in the poverty-stricken quarter
of Saint Antoine. Defarge takes Mr. Lorry and Lucie to the garret room where he
is keeping Doctor Manette, warning them that the Doctor's years in prison have
greatly changed him. Thin and pale, Doctor Manette sits at a shoemaker's bench
intently making shoes. He barely responds to questions from Defarge and Mr.
Lorry, but when Lucie approaches him, he remembers his wife and begins to weep.
Lucie comforts him, and that night Mr. Lorry and Lucie take him to England.
Five years later, the porter
for Tellson's Bank, Jerry Cruncher, takes a message to Mr. Lorry who is at a
courthouse. Mr. Lorry has been called as a witness for the trial of Charles
Darnay, a Frenchman accused of being a spy for France and the United
States. Also at the trial are Doctor Manette and Lucie, who are witnesses for
the prosecution. Doctor Manette has fully recovered and has formed a close bond
with his daughter.
If found guilty of treason,
Darnay will suffer a gruesome death, and the testimony of an acquaintance, John
Barsad, and a former servant, Roger Cly, seems sure to result in a guilty
verdict. Questions from Darnay's attorney, Mr. Stryver, indicate that Cly and
Barsad are the real spies, but the turning point in the trial occurs when Sydney
Carton, Stryver's assistant, points out that Carton and Darnay look alike
enough to be doubles. This revelation throws into doubt a positive identification
of Darnay as the person seen passing secrets, and the court acquits Darnay.
After the trial, Darnay,
Carton, and Stryver begin spending time at the Manette home, obviously
attracted to Lucie's beauty and kind nature. Stryver decides to propose to her,
but is dissuaded by Mr. Lorry. Carton confesses his love to Lucie, but does not
propose, knowing that his drunken and apathetic way of life is not worthy of
her. However, he vows that he would gladly give his life to save a life she
loved, and Lucie is moved by his sincerity and devotion. Eventually, it is
Darnay whose love Lucie returns, and the two marry with Doctor Manette's uneasy
blessing. While the couple is on their honeymoon, the Doctor suffers a nine-day
relapse of his mental incapacity and believes he is making shoes in prison
again.
Meanwhile, the situation in
France grows worse. Signs of unrest become evident when Darnay's cruel and
unfeeling uncle, the Marquis St. Evrémonde, is murdered in his bed after
running down a child with his carriage in the Paris streets. Although Darnay
inherits the title and the estate, he has renounced all ties to his brutal
family and works instead in England as a tutor of French language and
literature.
The revolution erupts with full
force in July 1789 with the storming of the Bastille. The Defarges are at the
center of the revolutionary movement and lead the people in a wave of violence
and destruction.By 1792, the revolutionaries have taken control of France and
are imprisoning and killing anyone they view as an enemy of the state. Darnay
receives a letter from the Evrémonde steward, who has been captured and who
begs Darnay to come to France to save him. Feeling a sense of duty to his
servant and not fully realizing the danger awaiting him, Darnay departs for
France. Once he reaches Paris, though, revolutionaries take him to La Force
prison "in secret,"with no way of contacting anyone and with little
hope of a trial.
Doctor Manette, Lucie, and
Lucie's daughter soon arrive in Paris and join Mr. Lorry who is at Tellson's
Paris office. Doctor Manette's status as a former prisoner of the Bastille
gives him a heroic status with the revolutionaries and enables him to find out
what has happened to his son-in-law. He uses his influence to get a trial for
Darnay, and Doctor Manette's powerful testimony at the trial frees his
son-in-law. Hours after being reunited with his wife and daughter, however, the
revolutionaries again arrest Darnay, based on the accusations of the Defarges.
The next day, Darnay is tried
again. This time, the Defarges produce a letter written years earlier by Doctor
Manette in prison condemning all Evrémondes for the murder of Madame Defarge's
family and for imprisoning the Doctor. Based on this evidence, the court
sentences Darnay to death and Doctor Manette, devastated by what has happened,
reverts to his prior state of dementia.
Unknown to the Manette and
Darnay family, Sydney Carton has arrived in Paris and learns of Darnay's fate.
He also hears of a plot contrived to send Lucie and her daughter to the
guillotine. Determined to save their lives, he enlists the help of a prison spy
to enter the prison where the revolutionaries are holding Darnay. He enters
Darnay's cell, changes clothes with him, drugs him, and has Darnay taken out of
the prison in his place. No one questions either man's identity because of the
similarities in their features. As Mr. Lorry shepherds Doctor Manette, Darnay,
Lucie, and young Lucie out of France, Carton goes to the guillotine,
strengthened and comforted by the knowledge that his sacrifice has saved the
woman he loves and her family.
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