Summary of Book III, Chapter 6: Triumph
Chapter 6 of Book the Third of A Tale of Two Cities opens in the Revolutionary Tribunal, where the dread court sits daily, sending dozens of prisoners to the guillotine with mechanical efficiency. When Charles Darnay’s name—“Charles Evrémonde, called Darnay”—is read aloud at La Force prison, he steps apart into the group reserved for the condemned. Of the twenty-three names called that evening, only twenty prisoners still survive to answer. The night at the Conciergerie is cold and vermin-haunted. The next day, fifteen prisoners are tried and condemned before Darnay even reaches the bar; their trials take an hour and a half total.
Darnay’s Trial Before the Tribunal
Darnay faces the public prosecutor’s charge: as an emigrant, his life is forfeit under the Republic’s decree banishing all emigrants on pain of death. The bloodthirsty audience shouts “Take off his head!” before testimony even begins. The judges wear feathered hats, but the red cap and tricolored cockade dominate the courtroom. Among the spectators, Madame Defarge sits knitting in the front row beside her husband, watching the jury with “a dogged determination”—never once looking at Darnay.
Darnay’s defense follows a careful strategy prepared by Doctor Manette. He argues he voluntarily renounced his aristocratic title and station, leaving France before the decree existed, to live by his own labor in England rather than on the backs of the oppressed French people. He names two witnesses: Théophile Gabelle and Alexandre Manette. When Darnay reveals that his wife is Lucie Manette, daughter of the beloved Doctor, the crowd’s mood shifts instantly—tears roll down faces that moments earlier glared with murderous impatience.
Doctor Manette’s Testimony and the Acquittal
Gabelle testifies that Darnay returned to France only to save his life. Doctor Manette then delivers the decisive testimony: Darnay was his first friend upon release from the Bastille, remained devoted to Lucie in exile, and was even tried for his life by the English government as a friend of France and the United States. Manette’s personal popularity and “the straightforward force of truth and earnestness” unite the jury and the crowd as one. Mr. Lorry corroborates the account. The jury declares unanimously in Darnay’s favor, and the President pronounces him free.
The Crowd’s Fickle Celebration
What follows is one of the Revolution’s “extraordinary scenes”: the same mob that would have torn Darnay apart now weeps, embraces him, and lifts him into a chair draped with a red flag and topped with a pike and red cap. They carry him through the snowy streets in a wild procession. Dickens emphasizes the terrifying fickleness of the crowd—Darnay knows “the very same people, carried by another current, would have rushed at him with the very same intensity, to rend him to pieces.” Meanwhile, five other prisoners are swiftly condemned to die, underscoring how fragile and arbitrary this “triumph” truly is.
Reunion and Gratitude
At home, Lucie faints in Darnay’s arms. After embracing Mr. Lorry, kissing little Lucie, and thanking the faithful Miss Pross, Darnay carries his wife upstairs. They pray together in gratitude. Doctor Manette stands “victorious and proud,” having saved his son-in-law through the moral authority earned by eighteen years of unjust imprisonment. The chapter closes with Manette’s tender reassurance: “You must not be weak, my darling… I have saved him.”