ALL THESE THINGS ARE TO BE ANSERED FOR
The following account was written by Alexandre Manette, a French doctor, in 1767 when he was a prisoner in the Bastille in France.
In this account Dr Manette told me the story of the great wrong done to him. When he was walking by the river Seine one night in December 1757, two noblemen forced him into their carriage and took him to a lonely house. There, in a room upstair, he found a young and beautiful girl, who kept shouting and crying, obviously mad. He did what he could to calm her, and then he was taken down to another room, where he found a wounded peasant boy, who was dying. The boy told him his story and also that of the girl upstairs, who was his sister, and of the terrible wrong-s that had been done them by the two noblemen. The boy died, and a week later, so did his sister.
The doctor wrote a leeter to the Minister disclosing the whole affair. The next day he was kidnapped and thrown into the Bastille.
The following is taken from Dr Manette's account of his meeting with the boy and of what the boy told him.
The old of the two noblemen took a light and led me into a back room. There on some hay on the ground lay a peasant boy of not more thatn seventeen.He lay on his back, his teeth set, his right hand clenched on his reast, and his glaring eyes looking straight upward. I could not wee where his wound was as I knelt on one knee over him, but I could see that he was dying.
" I am a doctor, my poor fellow," said I. "Let me examine you."
" I don't want to be examined,"he answered. "Let me be."
The wound was under his hand, and I persuaded him to let me move his hand away. It was a sword-thrust, received from twenty to twenty-four hours before, but nothing could save him even if he had been tended without delay. He was then dying fast.
"How did this happen, monsieur?" said I.
"A serf! He forced my brother to draw upon him, and fell by my brother's sword," said the nobleman.
The boy's eyes had slowly moved to the nobleman as he spoke,and they now moved to me. Slowly, he spoke out:
"He is lying, Doctor. I have a sister. She was engaged to a young man, a tenant of his. We were all tenants of his—— of that man who is standing there."
It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy gathered the strength to speak ,but he spoke with a frightful emphasis.
"We were robbed by that man who is standing there,taxed by him without mercy, obliged to work for him without pay,obliged to feed scores of his tame birds on our wretched crops, and forbidden to keep a single bird of our own---I say we were so robbed, and were made a poor, that our father told us it was a dreamful thing to bring a child into the world."
I had never before seen the feeling of being oppressed,bursting forth like a fire.I had supposed that it must be latent somewhere in the people, but I had never seen it break out, until I saw it in the dying boy.
"Doctor, my sister married the man she was engaged to. He was ill at the time, and she married him so that she might tend and comfort him in our cottage. She had not been married many weeks when that man's younger brother saw her and was stuck by her beauty. Then with that ma-n's permission and even with his help, he seized her and took her away. I saw them pass me on the road.When I told our father about this, his heart burst. Then ,last night I followed him here, and climbed in, sword in hand.
"My sister heard me, and ran in. Then that man's brother came in. He first threw me some pieces of money, then stuck me with a whip. As I foug-ht back, he drew his sword and thrust it at me.
"Now,lift me up, Doctor , lift me up. Where is he?"
"He is not here," I said, supporting the boy. I thought that he was referring to the younger of the two noblemen.
"Ha! Proud as these nobles are, he is afraid to see me. Where is the man who was here? Turn my face to him."
I did so, raising the boy's head against my knee. But, filled for the moment with extraordinary strength, he raised himself completely, obliging me to rise too, or I could not have supported him.
"Marquis,"said the boy, turning to the man, his eyes opened wide, and his right hand raised," in the days when all these things are be to answered fo , I summon you and yours, to the last of your bad race, to answer for them. In the days when all these things are to be answered for, I su-mmon your brother, the worst of your bad race, to answer for them separately."
He stook for an instant with his hand still raised. Then , as it dropped, he dropped with it, and I laid him down dead.
