ison of La Force. Will you
cause that to be done for me?”
“I will do,” Defarge doggedly rejoined, “nothing for you. My
duty is to 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
pride was touched besides. As they walked on in silence, he could
not but see how used the people were to the spectacle of prisoners
passing along the streets. The very children scarcely noticed him.
A few passers turned their heads, and a few shook their fingers at
him as an aristocrat; otherwise that a man in good clothes should
be going to prison, was no more remarkable than that a labourer
in working clothes should be going to work. In one narrow, dark,
and dirty street 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 from this man’s lips, first made it known
to Charles Darnay that the king was in prison, and that the foreign
ambassadors had one and all left Paris. 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
Charles Dickens ElecBook C