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6 (p. 313) the suicidal vengeance of the Revolution was to scatter them all to the winds: This is another biblical allusion, to Ezekiel 17:21: “And all his fugitives with all his bands shall fall by the sword, and they that remain shall be scattered toward all winds” (KJV).

Chapter 10: The Substance of the Shadow

1 (p. 316) “These words are formed by . . . scrapings of soot and charcoal from the chimney, mixed with blood”: In Le Comte de Monte Cristo (1844-1845), by Alexandre Dumas the elder, the prisoner Abbé Faria uses soot and blood, in addition to wine, to write surprisingly lengthy communications.

2 (p. 316) Street of the School of Medicine: This street was home also to Jean-Paul Marat, stabbed to death in his bath at number 44 (see note 2 for chapter 8, above).

3 (p. 322) They have had their shameful rights, these Nobles, in the modesty and virtue of our sisters: Dickens is referring to the notorious droit de seigneur (see note 3 for chapter 9, the second book).

4 (p. 323) pillaged and plundered to that degree that when we chanced to have a bit of meat, we ate it in fear: The scene is borrowed from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions (1781, 1788). That French peasants were forced to conceal what food they did have, and thus “ate it in fear” of excise or even worse punishment, is a powerful indictment of the old French system, and suggests the total penetration of the domestic realm by the monitoring eye of the state (see the Introduction).

5 (p. 330) sacrifices and self-immolations on the people’s altar: The Revolution very quickly took on the character of a cult, and adopted the trappings of religion. The first revolutionary altar was erected in the ruins of the Bastille, and was festooned with chains and manacles borrowed from its cells.

6 (p. 331) Death within four-and-twenty hours!: This was the standard capital sentence handed down by the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Chapter 11: Dusk

1 (p. 331) “We shall meet again, where the weary are at rest!”: The reference is to the Bible, Job 3:17: “There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest” (KJV).

Chapter 12: Darkness

1 (p. 337) as he took up a Jacobin journal: With their defeat of the Girondins, who had favored sparing the King, the Jacobins were now the ruling political entity in France, dominating every branch of government and the press.

Chapter 13: Fifty-two

1 (p. 344) farmer-general: The farmers-general (see note 4 for chapter 7, the second book) included many liberal men sympathetic to the Revolution and some outstanding individuals, most notably the chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794). All were sent, indiscriminately, to the guillotine.

2 (p. 345) He wrote a long letter to Lucie: A letter of farewell was one of the few privileges granted to prisoners at the Conciergerie. Many of these letters survived and have been published.

Chapter 14: The Knitting Done

1 (p. 356) But my husband has his weaknesses: An echo of Lady Macbeth, who worried that her husband’s nature was “too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness” (act 1, scene 5).

Chapter 15: The Footsteps Die Out for Ever

1 (p. 367) Six tumbrils carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine: The tumbrils began their journey at the Conciergerie, situated on the Ile de la Cité. They crossed north over either the Pont Neuf or Pont au Change, then headed west along the Rue Saint Honoré to the Place de la Révolution, where the guillotine awaited them. After the Terror subsided, the site was renamed Place de la Concorde. In the nineteenth century, the now familiar obelisk and fountains were brought to the site, further obscuring its bloody associations.

2 (p. 367) the toilettes of flaring Jezebels: In the Bible (2 Kings 9), Jezebel is the wife of King Ahab; her name has become synonymous for loose and malevolent women from all periods of history. Dickens invokes her name here as a strategy of giving the Revolution a biblical, universal resonance, as he does in his