The President required the name of that citizen? The accused
explained that the citizen was his first witness. He also referred
with confidence to the citizen’s letter, which had been taken from
him at the Barrier, but which he did not doubt would be found
among the papers then before the President.
The doctor had taken care that it should be therehad assured
him that it would be thereand at this stage of the proceedings it
was produced and read Citizen Gabelle was called to confirm it,
and did so. Citizen Gabelle hinted, with infinite delicacy and
politeness, that in the pressure of business imposed on the
Tribunal by the multitude of enemies of the Republic with which it
had to deal, he had been slightly overlooked in his prison of the
Abbayein fact, had rather passed out of the Tribunal’s patriotic
remembranceuntil three days ago; when he had been
summoned before it, and had been set at liberty on the Jury’s
declaring themselves satisfied that the accusation against him was
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answered, as to himself, by the surrender of the citizen
Evremonde, called Darnay.
Doctor Manette was next questioned. His high personal
popularity, and the clearness of his answers, made a great
impression: but, as he proceeded, as he showed that the accused
was his first friend on his release from his long imprisonment;
that, the accused had remained in England, always faithful and
devoted to his daughter and himself in their exile; that, so far from
being in favour with the Aristocrat government there, he had
actually been tried for his life by it, as the foe of England and
friend of the United Statesas he brought these circumstances
into view, with the greatest discretion and with the
straightforward force of truth and earnestness, the Jury and the
populace became one At last, when he appealed by name to
Monsieur Lorry, an English gentleman then and there present,
who, like himself, had been a witness on that English trial and
could corroborate his account of it, the Jury declared that they had
heard enough, and that they were ready with their votes if the
President were content to receive them.
At every vote (the Jurymen voted aloud and individually), the
populace set up a shout of applause. All the voices were in the
prisoner’s favour, and the President declared him free.
Then, began one of those extraordinary scenes with which the
populace sometimes gratified their fickleness, or their better
impulses towards generosity and mercy, or which they regarded
as some set-off against their swollen account of cruel rage. No man
can decide now to which of these motives such extraordinary
scenes were referable; it is probable, to a blending of all three,
with the second predominating. No sooner was the acquittal
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pronounced, than tears were shed as freely as blood at another
time, and such fraternal embraces were bestowed upon the
prisoner by as many of both sexes as could rush at him, that after