Page:Dickens - A tale of two cities, 1898.djvu/500

440 "He was open in his confidences."

There is an element of improbability in the situation. The most guileless conspirator will scarcely tell all about his affairs to the first young lady he meets.

"Indifference to every natural subject of human interest."

The French memoirs of 1770-1780 scarcely bear out the sweeping accusation involved; they rather testify to the reverse.

"Convulsionists."

These had been in their prime some fifty years earlier, in the astounding Fakir-like performances at the tomb of the Abbé Paris. Dickens may refer to the people who went to Mesmer to be "magnetised," that is, to become rigid or convulsive in good society (1778-1784). Franklin and Guillotin were on a Commission of Inquiry. "The treatment in public by 'Animal Magnetism' exposes a large number of well-constituted persons to contract a spasmodic or convulsive habit . . ." (Report, August 16, 1784).

"The fierce patrician custom of hard driving."

Not merely patrician: see remarks on "the mails" in Little Dorrit. Cabmen, too, are rather plebeian than aristocratic.

"The meagreness of Frenchmen."

See Hogarth's "Calais Gate," and compare his "Gin Lane."

"Impeaching casual passers-by as Old Bailey spies."

The French mob reproduces the English mob's humour later in the tale.

The date of the hideous punishment of Damiens was 1756. He had stabbed Louis XV., and attempts were made to involve the Jesuits, then under a cloud. According to the spurious memoirs of Madame de Créqui, Louis XV. was unable to contemplate the abominable spectacle. Similar cruelties, of course, were committed by the Revolutionists.