A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” so begins Charles Dickens’ story of the French Revolution. For the ruling classes in 18th century France, it was indeed the best of times. The monarchs and many members of the First and Second Estates – nobility and clergy, respectively – enjoyed lives of great comfort, luxury, and often decadence. For members of the Third Estate – peasants, commoners – life was a constant struggle. Many people died of starvation and even more suffered from malnutrition while aristocrats grew fat and surrounded themselves with gilded opulence. It is during this time that Queen Marie-Antoinette famously responded to reports that the people had no bread, “Well, let them eat cake!”

Across the Atlantic Ocean, meanwhile, the American Colonies declared independence from Great Britain and pledged their lives and treasure to the cause. Hostility between Britain and France was long-standing and King Louis and other nobles, having been tutored on the strategic importance of an alliance with America by Benjamin Franklin, provided the vital naval force that the colonies lacked. Supporting the Americans’ bid for independence came at a price, however, and France’s national debt skyrocketed. Inspired by the success of the American Revolution, French commoners began to give voice to their discontent and sought greater representation in the nation’s General Assembly. Food shortages and low wages, a direct result of the national debt, brought long-simmering resentments to a head and the French Revolution began in April of 1789.

With this political backdrop, Charles Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities partly to entertain his readers (and to pay his bills) but also to illuminate the cruelty and savagery of war and oppression. The story begins in a stage coach, carrying Jarvis Lorry, a manager of Tellson’s Bank, with offices in London and Paris, to Dover where he will take a boat to France. En route, a rider stops the coach and gives Mr. Lorry a message that he is to wait at Dover for a young lady who needs an escort to Paris in order to retrieve her father who has been released after eighteen years in The Bastille. The prisoner, Dr. Alexandre Manette, has been imprisoned for political reasons which are integral to the story, although never fully explained to the reader. Lucie Manette, his daughter, had believed herself to be an orphan until receiving word that her father had survived his ordeal but was gravely ill and near death.

The year is 1775 and travelers between England and France are viewed with great suspicion on either end, given France’s alliance with the rebellious American colonies. The French aristocrats and peasants are increasingly suspicious of each other and treachery is rampant. When Miss Manette and Mr. Lorry arrive in Paris, they make contact with Dr. Manette’s former servant, Monsieur Ernest Defarge, who has become a wine merchant in a poor section of the city. After passing the scrutiny of Madame Thérèse Defarge who keeps track of traitors – those who would crush the fermenting revolution – by knitting their names and descriptions into a shroud, Miss Manette and Mr. Lorry are led to the ailing Dr. Manette whose imprisonment has left him in a psychotic state. Two things had sustained the doctor during his ordeal: making shoes and caressing a lock of his baby daughter’s hair, the “golden thread”.

Between the time of Dr. Manette’s release from the Bastille and the storming of that infamous prison on July 14, 1789, the story of the French Revolution takes place. Dickens uses his characters both to represent certain factions as well as to provide a human dimension to the realities of this war. Monsieur Defarge represents the rational revolutionaries who were influenced by some of the great thinkers of the time, notably Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His wife, Madame Defarge, on the other hand symbolizes the pent-up blood lust that, after the fall of the Bastille, corrupted the revolution. Lucie Manette, a rather one-dimensional character, represents pure goodness and light in contrast to Madame Defarge’s vicious darkness. Charles Darnay, whom Lucie eventually marries, is also a mostly uninteresting character. His story, however, of expatriation and repatriation, of mistaken identity, and loyalty gives life to the difficulty of being a French nobleman with a conscience during a time when nobles were indiscriminately slaughtered.

Curiously, the most interesting characters in the book play supporting roles, and Dickens takes his time in developing them. Sydney Carton, a look-alike for Charles Darnay, spends most of the book being an underachieving, alcoholic with a brilliant legal mind. Dr. Manette starts out in a state of pathetic psychosis, regains his mind, loses it again, and by necessity becomes heroic. The Marquis d’Evrémonde is the villain we love to hate who gets his just desserts. Finally, Jerry Cruncher provides some comic relief in his role as a “resurrection man”, who literally raises the dead, although not in the biblical sense.

Charles Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities as a serial which he published himself. In spite of the commercial nature of this work, akin to a TV mini-series, it is a compelling story well-deserving of the label “classic”, not only for its literary merits but also for the universal truths it reveals. The French celebrate Bastille Day the way we Americans commemorate Independence Day. King Louis the 16th and his predecessors used the Bastille, and other prisons, to house enemies of the state. These prisons were places of torture, where suffering was prolonged because death was considered too humane. The storming of the Bastille marked the end of the monarchy; the Revolution, however, had not run out of steam and in the years following Bastille Day, political instability and the invention of the guillotine led to a period known as the “Reign of Terror”. During this time, King Louis the 16th and his queen, Marie Antoinette, lost their heads along with as many as 40,000 others. The oppressors became the oppressed, the prey became the predators.

What A Tale of Two Cities illustrates better than anything else I have read is how the lust for vengeance can easily drown out the voice of reason, turning a fight against a repressive government into a vehicle for another, more brutal, form of repression. Madame Defarge slowly gains the upper hand in her marriage and in leading the revolution after the fall of the Bastille, causing hundreds, perhaps thousands, to line up for the guillotine. No one is safe from her vengeance; even her husband feels her scorn for his loyalty to Dr. Manette during “The Terror”.

From a literary standpoint, A Tale of Two Cities is about duality – as indicated by the title and the opening line – in life and human nature. Certain characters are purely good or evil to emphasize this theme. London is a place of civilized tranquility while in Paris, blood runs down the streets like one of Monsieur Defarges’ broken wine barrels. Charles Darnay, a Frenchman of noble blood, tutors the children of aristocrats in London to support himself and his family. He is hard-working and honest while his double, Sydney Carton, is a ne’er do well who earns enough to support his drinking habit by ghost-writing legal briefs for a prominent barrister. As time passes, however, certain characters develop an internal duality making them far more interesting than Lucie Manette and Charles Darnay, the superficial protagonists of the book.

A Tale of Two Cities ends as it begins, with a famous quote: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.” The writing in between the first and last lines is worthy of such timeless brackets.

Copyright 2011, Teresa Friedlander, all rights reserved

John Adams

John Adams by David McCullough

Revolution. War. Independence. Republicanism. Democracy. Constitution. Federalism. Government. Freedom. Justice. Rights. Each of these words has been integral to our national dialogue ever since King George III decided that England was more entitled to wealth created in the American colonies than those who created the wealth. Anger and resentment in the colonies spawned this dialogue which eventually led to a war for independence in 1776. The decision to fight the King – an act of treason – was made by a group of men led by some of America’s, indeed, history’s, greatest thinkers. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin immediately come to mind but there was one more: John Adams, without whom the war for independence from England might have been lost before it began.

Of all the delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, John Adams of Massachusetts was the most passionate about independence from Great Britain. Almost until the eve of war, the delegates were about equally divided on the question of declaring independence, with a few on the fence. Mr. Adams’ greatest accomplishment was obtaining a unanimous vote for going to war against England, hence the phrase “united we stand, divided we fall”. Of the 13 colonies, only Georgia did not send a delegation to the first congress because that colony depended on British soldiers to fight the Creek Indians who were preparing for a series of attacks. Fifty-five delegates of high social standing in the other twelve colonies journeyed to Philadelphia to convene the first Congress on September 5, 1774. A year earlier, Benjamin Franklin had tried unsuccessfully to call such a meeting; but it took the closing of Boston Harbor by the English in response to the Boston Tea Party to provoke a sense of urgency amongst the colonists.

The first session of Congress was aimed at gaining the respect of the Monarchy and Parliament which had recently established the “Coercive Acts”. These laws were intended to punish the Massachusetts Colony for dumping tea shipments into Boston Harbor, and were referred to in the colonies as “The Intolerable Acts”. England legitimized capital crimes in the name of the King, required colonists to provide quarters to English soldiers, intruded in the governance of Massachusetts, and closed the port at Boston to coerce payment for the dumped tea. Several colonies realized that King George’s treatment of Massachusetts was the beginning of a widespread crackdown on personal liberty and pursuit of wealth. “No taxation without representation” became a rallying cry in New England and beyond.

In order to get the attention of the King and Parliament, the First Continental Congress developed a “bill of rights” for the colonies defining what each citizen was entitled to by virtue of being alive. Additionally, this Declaration of Rights and Grievances explained specific objections to English laws infringing on the American colonies. Finally, the petition to the king stated that if the colonies’ demands for redress were not met, then there would be a boycott against all trade with Britain.

England responded by billeting solders in Boston and using punitive measures to quash the growing rebellion. As tensions escalated and Britain’s military became more aggressive, a Second Continental Congress convened on May 10, 1776. England was unquestionably determined to regain control of the colonies and considered the colonial militiamen to be traitors and therefore subject to execution. It took the better part of two months for the Congress to draft and unanimously adopt a Declaration of Independence, in which each delegate pledged his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor to the cause of liberty. Signing the Declaration was a deeply courageous act of faith and proof of the collective will necessary to move from winning liberty to creating a government reflecting the best of human ideals. Of all the signers, no one worked harder to build consensus than John Adams, and like all great statesmen he knew the value of compromise.

David McCullough, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and biographer, recognized that John Adams was a new type of man: an original American. He was the son of a farmer, studied law at Harvard College, practiced law on the court circuits, and maintained a farm in Braintree, Massachusetts. Mr. Adams, in addition to possessing great intelligence and a thirst for knowledge, was a passionate man whose love for his wife, Abigail, survives in hundreds of letters that passed between them. Only in America, where hard work and leadership were worth more than good breeding, could a man like John Adams rise from his humble origins to become one of the world’s great political figures. And only in America could a woman be a true partner to such a man.

History books are often not much fun to read, but John Adams is written with the passion of the subject himself as if Mr. McCullough somehow channeled President Adams’ spirit while researching and writing this book. His appreciation for Mr. Adams and the other delegates to the Continental Congress who sweated for weeks in Philadelphia as they argued about questions of slavery versus abolition, patriotism versus treason, negotiation versus war, Federalism versus states’ rights – divisive issues, all – shows in every sentence of this book. The men who defined the new nation and unique form of government came to understand that by every state giving up some autonomy in exchange for a strong central government, the whole would be much greater than the sum of the parts.

What is most fascinating about John Adams is how our nation continues to debate some of the same issues which threatened its formation in the first place. Slavery was critical to the plantation economies of the southern states and arguments over banning the practice sparked a long-running argument over states’ rights and Federalism. Modern politicians and political party machines keep this argument alive with the simplistic term “big government”, as if government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” is a bad thing.

Unfortunately what has happened in the United States of America is that we have become mired in polarizing disputes and thus have no understanding of our core values. Is basic healthcare a human right? Should every child receive an education, and if so what do all children need to know? Are senior citizens entitled to Social Security and Medicare? Is every citizen entitled to housing? Food? Work? Should citizenship be granted to people who work hard and pay their taxes even if they were not born here? Do we deny food, medicine, education, sanitation to those who are not citizens? Do we strip Constitutionally-granted citizenship from children born here whose parents are in this country illegally? If we don’t support a war, should we be required to pay for it? Can government agencies commit murder in the name of national security? These are complicated questions requiring serious, thoughtful analysis. What we get instead are shallow soundbites , labels, and signs – “Conservative”, “Liberal”, “Country First”, “Change”, “Maverick”, “Tax and Spend”, “Peace Now”, “No New Taxes”, “Illegals Go Home”, “Learn English”, etc. – which serve only to keep the public angry and anxious.

If only the political parties and lobbyists would disappear so that citizens could come to a consensus about our values as a nation. By agreeing on values and where the federal government ends and the state governments begin, we might find direction and our congressmen and senators could legislate rather than playing political games in an effort to get re-elected. This is all wishful thinking, unfortunately. The political parties and lobbyists are stronger than ever now that corporations can “buy” elections by outspending the opposition. Even though we need those great minds now more than ever, it is probably a good thing that John Adams and his contemporaries are resting comfortably in their graves. I am afraid the ignorance and ugly partisan politics which keep us from taking care of our country would make the “founding brothers” wish they hadn’t bothered going to war against the English.

Copyright 2010, Teresa Friedlander, all rights reserved

Janice Meredith

Janice Meredith by Paul Leicester Ford (1865-1902)


Book review by Teresa Friedlander, copyright 2010

Sometimes a book can be like an old friend, someone you used to know when you were young, someone you rarely think about but when you do, the happy memories come rushing back. Janice Meredith is, for me, such a book. Having read and enjoyed this romantic novel of the Revolutionary War as a teenager, I renewed my acquaintance this past summer through a chance encounter.

While touring colleges in North Carolina, my family stopped in Asheville to see the Biltmore Estate, built by the grandson of railroad magnate, Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877). George Washington Vanderbilt, II (1862-1914), unlike his grandfather had nothing but leisure time and thanks to his father and grandfather had a vast fortune at his disposal. Biltmore, a French-style chateau of roughly 175,000 square feet, situated on 8,000 acres of carefully landscaped North Carolina mountain wilderness, was a monument to the gilded age in America, an era when buildings reflected the stature of their owners and were meant to celebrate mankind’s highest achievements, and therefore required hundreds of skilled craftsmen and builders to construct and maintain them. Aesthetics were of paramount importance and George Vanderbilt was a connoisseur of everything which served a life of beauty, culture, tranquility, and style. He was quite well educated and traveled in literary circles, often inviting artists and writers to stay at Biltmore.

One of George Vanderbilt’s close friends was Paul Leicester Ford, a biographer and historian who also happened to be writing a novel. Mr. Ford spent a period of several weeks in residence at Biltmore while he worked on Janice Meredith, and later wrote to his good friend: “…as I have read the proofs of this book I have found more than once that the pages have faded out of sight and in their stead I have seen Mount Pisgah and the French Broad River, or the ramp and terrace of Biltmore House, just as I saw them when writing the words which served to recall them to me…” Strolling through the gardens, over meadows, across bridges spanning sparkling brooks, a visitor can easily imagine Mr. Ford finding Biltmore the perfect place to work on his most famous book.

As I walked through the rooms of the beautiful Biltmore mansion, listening to the recorded tour guide, I paused in a room with a view of a rolling valley and mountains in the distance. The guide explained that it was in this room that Paul Leicester Ford had written Janice Meredith, causing me to exclaim out loud, “Janice Meredith!” to the great embarrassment of my teenaged daughter. (I hadn’t thought about Janice in at least 20 years, and remembered how my mother, sister, and I had enjoyed reading old books found in antique and junk stores near the summer cottage we owned close to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Of all those books, Janice Meredith was our favorite and we each re-read it several times.) Later, when our Biltmore tour was over, my family left the estate to browse some shops in Asheville. Immediately upon entering a funky junk shop, somewhat off the beaten path, I saw – on top of a stack of old books – a copy of Janice Meredith just as I had remembered her. It was a true new age moment.

As a novel, Janice Meredith has it all: plot, characters, romance, rivalry, intrigue, heroes, villains, battlefields, and family drama. The story takes place shortly after the Continental Congress has declared independence from Great Britain. Janice, the teenaged daughter of one of the King’s landed gentry, is beautiful, headstrong, impulsive, and a bit of a snob. Her suitor, Philemon, is the son of another squire who chafes under the king’s rules, but remains loyal just the same. Philemon and his father, Squire Hennion, are descendents of early New Jersey settlers and are thus pure country folks. They are unpolished and inarticulate, being so far removed from British society, but prominent nonetheless due to their land holdings. Even though the marriage would benefit her family by consolidating the two estates, Janice will not consider it and her father doesn’t force her.

A mysterious indentured servant enters the Meredith household as tensions between Loyalists and Revolutionaries begin playing out in living rooms and marketplaces throughout New England. Even though ragged and unkempt, Charles the servant has a certain magnetism about him which Janice finds irresistible. The feeling is mutual and sparks fly in spite of Janice’s attempts to ignore them out of class awareness. Meanwhile, George Washington, the dashing young general of the Continental Army passes through town. When Janice meets him, she is so carried away that she teeters between loyalty to her family and wanting the handsome and courageous general to win the war.

What is most interesting about this book is Mr. Ford’s understanding of what it was like to be in the middle of a bitter and bloody revolution: there were true believers on either side, but in the middle were people who hedged their bets depending on which army was winning. The Meredith and Hennion families serve to illustrate how complicated relationships became within communities and even families as the winds of war whipped the continent. Supporters of the king tended to have faith that the Royal Army and Navy could easily vanquish the rebels. For the most part, Loyalists had no great love for the motherland but as long as the status quo kept them in power and ensured their economic wellbeing, the so-called Tories fought the agents of change. Even though we know how the war ended, Mr. Ford kept the suspense high throughout the novel with his clear analyses of critical battles and conditions on the ground. Janice Meredith provides a gripping description of how hard won our nation’s independence truly was.

Unlike War and Peace, perhaps the world’s greatest work of historical fiction, Janice Meredith does not go into detail about military strategy and descriptions of battlefields. Rather, this book is fast-paced, even thrilling, in its depictions of some of the early battles of the Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was ill-equipped, under-dressed, and frequently un-fed during the eight years from 1775 until the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, and yet they fought on. After securing New England, George Washington led the army south where the war swept through the remaining colonies. In 1778, the French offered naval support of the war effort against the British when it became clear that the colonies’ rebellion had a chance of succeeding. As events transpired and battles were won and lost, Janice and her family stayed informed through correspondence, word of mouth, and messengers. Mr. Ford skillfully wove the sequence of historical events into the story of how a rebellion, fully supported by less than half the population, overcame the British Army and Navy. His novel touched upon the many underlying issues which the new nation would have to grapple with, such as slavery. While Janice Meredith has a happy ending and most of the main characters “let bygones by bygones”, in reality not every American was happy with the outcome of the war. For one thing, the new nation had an overwhelming debt to France. For another, many previously wealthy loyalists, were now personae non gratae at home and abroad. Additionally, there was no guarantee that the now independent American States could form and hold together as a nation. Each former colony was an entity unto itself and was loathe to cede power hard won from the British to a new and untested governing body. The Revolutionary War’s aftermath, however, was beyond the scope of Paul Leicester Ford’s Janice Meredith. His goal was to inform and entertain readers who had time on their hands, not unlike Janice Meredith, herself.

The struggles between Janice and her family are meant to be a parable of the larger theatre of war. In the end, after Janice has matured and gained a degree of wisdom, the victorious (and fictionalized) General Washington tells her father that Janice’s rebellious choice of a husband is analogous to the relationship the United States will have with Great Britain. “You need not fear that the new tie will efface the old one. We have ended the mother country’s rule of us, but ‘tis probable her children will never cease to feel affection for the one who gave them being; and so you will find it with Miss Janice.”

Even though Janice Meredith was written long ago for very different readers than exist today, it has a timeless quality about it. For one thing, it made me think about patriotism and what it means to be a patriot. During the Revolutionary War, a Patriot was a rebel committing acts of treason against the remote, ruling monarchy. The Patriots, guided by the Continental Congress’s formal Declaration of Independence knew precisely what they were fighting for: freedom from a kingdom which demanded much and gave little, until its interests were threatened. The true Patriots never wavered and willingly died in the name of freedom. “Freedom”, a word which today has a lot of subtext associated with it, was simple and tangible during the Revolution. It was about self-determination, not having to pay punitive taxes to a useless king, and being able to enjoy the fruits of one’s labor to the fullest.

Today freedom means many things to many people. The Revolutionaries who gifted us with our Constitution and triad government couldn’t have foreseen the industrial revolution, two world wars, the population topping 300 million, the internet, and ubiquitous sex and drugs. They were, however, far-sighted enough to create a flexible form of government, capable of changing with the times. Our Constitution has endured through all the profound changes in our society and the world at large and still protects our freedom. We can say what we think, we can protest against the government, and we can decide our own spiritual and family values. Moreover, we remain free from military and police abuses, thanks to the rule of law that the separation of powers ensures.

In our present world, freedom, to some, means that men can marry men and women can marry women. To others, freedom means that anyone and everyone can own a gun, no questions asked. Military jets screaming across the sky are called “the sound of freedom”. Freedom means that sometimes criminals get away with murder because the laws which prevent innocent people from being jailed without cause or being imprisoned without a fair trial put the burden of proof on prosecutors. There is no perfect freedom and there never will be because we, the people, are not perfect. Just the same, the United States of America is the best example of a free country the world has yet produced. Life is a lot more complicated now than it was during Janice Meredith’s day, but thanks to the Patriots who sacrificed so much blood and treasure to create a more perfect union, freedom still rings loud and clear.

(This book is long out of print but is available in digital form. Visit www.gutenberg.org for a free download.)