solitary patches of road on the way between Soho and

Clerkenwell, and Mr. Lorry, mindful of footpads, always retained

Jerry for this service: though it was usually performed a good two

hours earlier.

“What a night it has been! Almost a night, Jerry,” said Mr.

Lorry, “to bring the dead out of their graves.”

“I never see the night myself, masternor yet I don’t expect

towhat would do that,” answered Jerry.

“Good night, Mr. Carton,” said the man of business. “Good

night, Mr. Darnay. Shall we ever see such a night again, together!”

Perhaps. Perhaps, see the great crowd of people with its rush

and roar, bearing down upon them, too.

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

Chapter XIII

MONSEIGNEUR IN TOWN

M

onseigneur, one of the great lords in power at the Court,

held his fortnightly reception in his grand hotel in

Paris. Monseigneur was in his inner room, his

sanctuary of sanctuaries, the Holiest of Holiests to the crowd of

worshippers in the suite of rooms without. Monseigneur was about

to take his chocolate. Monseigneur could swallow a great many

things with ease, and was by some few sullen minds supposed to

be rather rapidly swallowing France; but, his morning’s chocolate

could not so much as get into the throat of Monseigneur, without

the aid of four strong men besides the Cook.

Yes, it took four men, all four a-blaze with gorgeous decoration,

and the Chief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold

watches in his pocket, emulative of the noble and chaste fashion

set by Monseigneur, to conduct the happy chocolate to

Monseigneur’s lips. One lacquey carried the chocolate-pot into the

sacred presence; a second, milled and frothed the chocolate with

the little instrument he bore for that function; a third, presented

the favoured napkin; a fourth (he of the two gold watches), poured

the chocolate out. It was impossible for Monseigneur to dispense

with one of these attendants on the chocolate and hold his high

place under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have been the blot

upon his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobly waited on

by only three men; he must have died of two.

Monseigneur had been out at a little supper last night, where

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

the Comedy and the Grand Opera were charmingly represented.

Monseigneur was out at a little supper most nights, with

fascinating company. So polite and so impressible was

Monseigneur, that the Comedy and the Grand Opera had far more

influence with him in the tiresome articles of state affairs and state

secrets, than the needs of all France. A happy circumstance for

France, as the like always is for all countries similarly favoured!

always was for England (by way of example), in the regretted days

of the merry Stuart who sold it.