get Charles Darnay set at liberty, or at least to get him brought to

trial, the public current of the time set too strong and fast for him.

The new era began; the king was tried, doomed and beheaded; the

Republic of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, declared for

victory or death against the world in arms; the black flag waved

night and day from the great towers of Notre Dame; three

hundred thousand men, summoned to rise against the tyrants of

the earth, rose from all the varying soils of France, as if the

dragon’s teeth had been sown broadcast, and had yielded fruit

equally on hill and plain, on rock, in gravel, and alluvial mud,

under the bright sky of the South and under the clouds of the

North, in fell and forest, in the vineyards and the olive-grounds

and among the cropped grass and the stubble of the corn, along

the fruitful banks of the broad rivers, and in the sand of the

seashore. What private solicitude could rear itself against the

deluge of the Year One of Libertythe deluge rising from below,

not falling from above, and with the windows of Heaven shut, not

opened!

There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting

rest, no measurement of time. Though days and nights circled as

regularly as when time was young, and the evening and morning

were the first day, other count of time there was none. Hold