As is typical of Charles Dickens, characters and
situations are introduced in the early chapters that will later play larger roles in his
narrative. For instance, in Chapter 5 of "Book the First," a metaphorical chapter on
its own, Dickens introduces Ernest Defarge, the wineshop owner, whose clientele include
men known as "Jacques." Significantly, Mr. Lorry and Miss Manette accompany Defarge up
the staircase, and at the top "they stopped for the third time." (This number three
recurs throughout the novel.) When Mr. Lorry asks the keeper of the wine shop why the
door is locked, Defarge answers,
"Why! Because he has lived so long, locked up,
that he would be frightened--rave--tear himself to pieces--die--come to I know not what
harm--if his door was left open."
"Is it possible!"
exclaimed Mr. Lorry.
As
Defarge and his company reach the summit, they come suddenly upon three
men,
whose
heads were bent down close together at the side of a door, and who were intently looking
into the room...through some chinks or holes in the
wall.
These three men are the
same men who have been drinking in the wine shop. Seeing them staring in at Dr.
Manette, Mr. Lorry asks quietly, but angrily, "Do you make a show of Monsieur Manette?"
Defarge responds that he shows him to a
"chosen few....I choose them as real men, of my
name--Jacques is my name--to whom the sight is likely to do good. Enough, you are
English; that is another
thing...."
Jacques
is the name that the bonnets rouges took; that is, the
revolutionaries of 1789 in France. It is an alias assumed by them to prevent
identification. Defarge shows M. Manette to them because Manette has been a political
prisoner in the Bastille, a prisoner of the aristocracy. Thus, Manette
is representative of the oppression of the hated aristocracy against whom the Jacques
will soon revolt. And, Manette will be seen by them on two other occasions in the
narrative, again making the significant completion that the number three
represents.
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