Summary of Book 2, Chapter 7: Monseigneur in Town
Chapter 7 of Book the Second shifts the novel from London to Paris, plunging the reader into the decadent world of the French aristocracy on the eve of revolution. The chapter divides into two sharply contrasting halves: the first satirizes the absurd luxury of the ruling class, while the second dramatizes a single act of aristocratic cruelty that crystallizes Dickens's case for why the Revolution was inevitable.
Monseigneur's Reception
The chapter opens at the grand Parisian hotel of Monseigneur, a powerful lord at Court, who is taking his morning chocolate. lavishes satirical detail on the ritual: four gorgeously dressed servants are required merely to convey the cup to Monseigneur's lips. The scene expands outward to the reception rooms, which are packed with courtiers, military officers ignorant of warfare, naval officers who have never seen a ship, corrupt ecclesiastics, quack doctors, and philosophical charlatans. Every person in attendance is "totally unfit" for their position, appointed solely through aristocratic connections. The women of this world have abandoned motherhood entirely, leaving their children to peasant wet-nurses while grandmothers of sixty dress as though they were twenty.
calls this spectacle "the leprosy of unreality." Dress is the "one unfailing talisman" holding the old order together—even the common executioner is required to perform his duties in powdered wig, gold-laced coat, and white silk stockings. After receiving his worshippers, Monseigneur retreats to his inner sanctum, and the crowd disperses.
The Marquis St. Evrémonde
One guest lingers: a man of about sixty with a handsome, mask-like face. He is the Marquis St. Evrémonde, whose only visible emotion shows in the occasional dilation of his pinched nostrils, giving his countenance "a look of treachery, and cruelty." Cursing Monseigneur under his breath, the Marquis departs in his carriage, which tears recklessly through the narrow streets of Paris, scattering pedestrians.
The Death of the Child
At a street corner near a fountain, the carriage jolts sickeningly, and a crowd screams. A child has been run over and killed. The father, Gaspard, howls over the small body like a wild animal. The Marquis is unmoved: he blames the common people for not keeping out of the way, worries only about possible injury to his horses, and tosses a gold coin at the grieving father. Defarge, the wine-shop keeper, arrives and consoles Gaspard with the grim observation that it is "better for the poor little plaything to die so, than to live." The Marquis throws Defarge a second coin and prepares to drive on.
But someone flings the coin back into the carriage. The Marquis erupts in cold fury, declaring he would "ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from the earth." In the silent, watchful crowd, only one figure refuses to cower: a dark, stout woman, knitting steadily—Madame Defarge, whose knitting records the names of those marked for revolutionary vengeance. The chapter closes with the Fancy Ball of carriages streaming past while the common people watch from behind barriers of soldiers, and Madame Defarge knits on "with the steadfastness of Fate."
Themes and Significance
This chapter is a turning point in the novel. It establishes the Marquis St. Evrémonde as the embodiment of aristocratic evil and introduces the central act of violence—the killing of Gaspard's child—that will trigger a chain of retribution spanning the rest of the story. The returned coin is the first overt act of defiance against the aristocracy, and Madame Defarge's silent, steady knitting transforms a domestic craft into a symbol of patient, implacable revolutionary justice.