ALL THESE THINGS ARE TO BE ANSWERED FOR G203

 ALL THESE THINGS ARE TO BE ANSWERED 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 his account Dr. Manette told 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 upstairs, 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 wrongs that had been done them by the two noblemen. The boy died, and a week later, so did his sister.

The doctor wrote a letter 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 older 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 than seventeen. He lay on his back, his teeth set, his right hand clenched on his breast, and his glaring eyes looking straight upward. I could not see 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 do not 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 have saved 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.

(To be continued)