A Tale of Two Cities (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Charles Dickens [210]
3 (p. 231) Monseigneur, as a class, . . . being so little wanted in France, as to incur considerable danger of receiving his dismissal from it, and this life together: Prompted by fears of counterrevolution, the revolutionary government passed laws in August 1792 ordering the confiscation of all property belonging to emigrés. Later it declared that returning emigrés would be killed.
4 (p. 231) reading the Lord’s Prayer backwards: In folklore, this is an invocation of the Devil.
5 (p. 231) Sardanapalus’s luxury: Sardanapalus (seventh century B.C.) was a king of Assyria notorious for his luxurious appetites. His death—by the deliberate burning of his palace, in which he, his famous harem, and his treasure, were all destroyed—was a favorite theme of the Romantics, immortalized in a historical drama by Lord Byron, Sardanapalus (1821), and a painting by Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus (1827).
6 (p. 231) Royalty was gone; had been besieged in its Palace and “suspended”: After a period of uncertainty, and inconclusive negotiations between parties to the Revolution and the king, political events in the French Revolution accelerated rapidly in the summer of 1792. Louis XVI and his family were first besieged in the Tuilieries Palace in August and their Swiss guards massacred. The king’s veto power was subsequently revoked, and a Republic was declared on September 21.
7 (p. 232) the winter weather: This is a mistake in the manuscript. In an early draft, Darnay traveled to France in the winter, but Dickens realized his hero would have to do so with full knowledge of the prior summer’s tumultuous events, thus rendering the journey more suicidal than courageous. He therefore moved the date of Darnay’s trip to late summer. Dickens’s subsequent altering of seasonal references overlooked this passage.
8 (p. 233) who can say that Paris is not set a-fire to-day, or sacked to-morrow: The reference is to the threat posed by the Duke of Brunswick’s army in August 1792. The Duke warned he would sack Paris if harm were done to the King.
9 (p. 234) as if observers of the wretched millions in France . . . had not in plain words recorded what they saw: This is a direct acknowledgment of a key source for the novel, Travels in France during the years 1787, 1788, 1789 (1792), by the English agriculturist Arthur Young.
10 (p. 237) Prison of the Abbaye: Located near the medieval church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the Prison de l’Abbaye contained mostly minor enemies of the Revolution, such as Gabelle; nevertheless, it was a focal target for the September massacres (September 2-7, 1792) when mobs broke into jails in Paris and killed some 2,000 imprisoned royalist sympathizers (see also note 8 for chapter 1, the third book). The Conciergerie was reserved for prisoners accused of capital crimes.
Book the Third: The Track of a Storm
Chapter 1: In Secret
1 (p. 245) In Secret: The French translation for this chapter title is En Secret, meaning “solitary confinement.” See the Introduction for a broader discussion of forms of state-sponsored secrecy in the novel.
2 (p. 245) citizen-patriots: After the abolition of titles in 1791, “citizen” (citoyen) became the normative mode of address in revolutionary France, a ritual affirmation of equality between the classes.
3 (p. 245) Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death: Dickens is quoting the motto adopted by the new French Republic.
4 (p. 246) The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tricoloured cockades: To replace the white cockades and ensigns associated with the Bourbon kings, the revolutionary government drew on the ancient colors of Paris—red and blue, overlaid on