A famous escape in history or fiction
One remembers Charles Dicken’s “A Tale of Two Cities” for various reasons – for the characters, for the description of the French Revolution but above these for the escape of Evremonde. Charles Evremonde, the son of an aristocrat escapes from the guillotine for three reasons and none of them of his own making. He reaches the guillotine also because of reasons not of his own making. His escape is an escape from death and from the chaos and revenge prevalent in revolutionary France. The man who helps him to escape is not even a fellow countryman and he has no love for Charles Evremonde himself. He is an Englishman, Sydney Carton, the idlest and most unpromising of men, a man who has willingly accepted a back seat in life.
What leads him to help Charles Evremonde and why ? Is Charles Evremonde guilty or innocent. when he is sentenced to the guillotine ? To what extent is his escape successful ? Evremonde is first put into the prison of La France when he enters France in answer to the plea of a fellow countryman. He comes under the name of Charles Darney. When he is proven innocent and released that very afternoon he is denounced by Madame Defarge as being the son of aristocratic parents and is consequently put back into prison to be marched to the guillotine within twenty-four hours. Therefore he is an innocent person marching to his death simply because of reasons which he could not have helped.
When reason fails to prevail, it is obvious that the only way lies in escape. But Evremonde cannot even think of it in a time like that. It is Sydney Carton who comes to his help and arranges everything. He resembles Evremonde; people have in the past mistaken him for the Frenchman. He offers himself as a substitute because he loves Evremonde’s wife Lucie Manette and would see her happy. Once he had proposed marriage to her but she had refused. He had then promised her that he would do anything for her and those dear to her. He tells her to remember that there “is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!” He keeps his word when such an occasion arises. The escape is successful because he doesn’t simply take away Charles Evremonde but substitutes himself for him to walk to the guillotine.
He comes to the prison obviously to bid him goodbye, in an obvious state of semi-collapse. There he asks Charles Evremonde to change places with him but when Evremonde is reluctant to accept such a big sacrifice, he cleverly asks him to sit down and write a letter and by using some kind of ether he renders him unconscious. Then he sends him out of the prison. The gaolers think that he has been overcome by this last meeting with his friend.
Carton had already arranged with Jarvis Lorry to escort the family to England and had handed over his papers to him. Charles Evremonde, still in his unconscious state, travels under the identify of “Sydney Carton Advocate, English”. He is thus safely out of France.
The real Sydney Carton walks to the guillotine with his hand in the hand of an unknown seamstress. comforting her and consoling her. She had known Evremonde and is thus able to know that he is someone else. He has the supreme satisfaction of doing something that would bring happiness to others and he knows that Lucie and her family will always remember him. Evremonde’s escape is thus arranged for him. Had he consciously accepted such a big sacrifice, guilt would have gnawed at him; but he is pushed into it. This escape does not have the heroic quality of an adventure. It is something far more valuable. It is the heroic quality of inner strength and of spiritual courage.
