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NOTES ON ISSUE 6: GLOSSARY
PART 1 OF 2

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Charles Darnay was established in England as a higher teacher of the French language who was conversant with French literature. In this age, he would have been a Professor; in that age, he was a Tutor.

In the 18th century, modern languages like French were not officially taught at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where a gentleman’s education traditionally required instruction in ancient languages – Latin and Greek. King George I established professorships of Modern History and Modern Languages at both Oxford and Cambridge as early as 1724, but these professors were not language instructors themselves; instead, they were responsible for hiring subordinate instructors who could teach language skills. Modern languages were considered a practical acquirement for students who intended to enter certain professions – the diplomatic service, for example. Instruction in modern languages at the chief English universities was thus a kind of freelance and ad hoc affair, and Charles Darnay (as a teacher of French language and literature) would be – despite all apparent merit – merely a tutor.

Such masters were not at that time easily found; Princes that had been, and Kings that were to be, were not yet of the Teacher class, and no ruined nobility had dropped out of Tellson’s ledgers, to turn cooks and carpenters.

King Louis-Phillippe, who reigned in France after the July Revolution of 1830, was the son of the Duc d’Orléans; during the Reign of Terror, he found refuge in Switzerland and taught mathematics (Sanders 98). Carlyle makes reference to him in The French Revolution: “Brave young Orléans Egalité [the Duc d’Orléans became known as Egalité (“Equality”) during the French Revolution], deprived of all, only not deprived of himself, is gone to Coire in the Grisons, under the name of Corby, to teach Mathematics” (681). Many aristocrats emigrated during the Revolution and lived in reduced circumstances abroad.

A certain portion of his time was passed at Cambridge, where he read with undergraduates as a sort of tolerated smuggler who drove a contraband trade in European languages, instead of conveying Greek and Latin through the Custom-house.

Darnay’s “trade” in European languages is “contraband” because the traditional curriculum at Cambridge was concerned with the ancient languages, Latin and Greek. Instruction in modern languages was available from instructors who worked on a part-time, ad hoc basis. For example, in the 1760s, French instruction was available at a coffee house next to Emmanuel College in Cambridge (Maxwell 457). Darnay would have held such a position – associated with the university, but not in an official capacity.

The actual “Custom House,” in London, was located on the Thames, and dealt with imported goods of a more tangible kind.

Harrison’s New and Universal History, Description and Survey of … London (1776) gives this illustration of the Custom House, together with the following account of its condition, appearance, and function in the late 18th century:

THE CUSTOM-HOUSE … is a very spacious edifice, erected for the receipt of his majesty’s customs on goods imported and exported…. In antient times the business of the Custom-House was transacted in a more irregular manner at Billingsgate: but in the year 1559, an act being passed that goods should not be any where landed but in such places as were appointed by the commissioners of the revenue, this was the spot pitched upon for the entries into the port of London, and here a Custom-house was ordered to be erected. This first building was destroyed by the [Great Fire] of London [of 1666]: after which it was rebuilt by king Charles II in a more magnificent and commodious manner, at the expense of £10,000. But that being also destroyed in the same manner, in 1718, the present structure was erected in its stead…. It is substantially built with brick and stone, and has underneath, and on each side, large warehouses for the reception of goods on the public account. It is 189 feet in length; the middle of it is 27 feet deep, and the wings considerably more. The center stands back from the river; the wings approach much nearer to it, and the building is judiciously and handsomely decorated with the orders of architecture. Under the wings is a colonnade of the Tuscan order, and the upper story is ornamented with Ionic columns and pediments. It consists of two floors, in the uppermost of which is a magnificent room 15 feet high, that runs almost the whole length of the building: this is called the Long Room; and here sit the commissioners of the customs, with their officers and clerks. The different parts of the building are properly disposed and sufficiently enlightened; and the entrances are so well contrived as to answer all the purposes for which it was erected.

The business transacted at the Custom-House is under the management of nine commissioners, whose authority extends over all the ports of England. Each of these commissioners has a salary of £1000 per annum, and hold their places by patent from the king; as do also several of the principal officers under them. (492)

…making a grand clearance among Mr. Stryver’s papers before the setting in of the long vacation. The clearance was effected at last; the Stryver arrears were handsomely fetched up; everything was got rid of, until November should come with its fogs atmospheric and fogs legal, and bring grist to the mill again.

The annual “long vacation,” when the legal activity of the courts was suspended, ran from July to October; Michaelmas Term – the first term after the vacation – began on November 2nd (Ford and Monod xx).

Sydney was none the livelier and none the soberer for so much application. It had taken a deal of extra wet-toweling to pull him through the night; a correspondingly extra quantity of wine had preceded the toweling; and he was in a very damaged condition, as he now pulled his turban off and threw it into the basin in which he had steeped it at intervals for the last six hours.

Carton’s remedy – the application of a wet towel – is still practiced today. Such a bandage helps constrict throbbing blood vessels (Camlot, Treating a Hangover).

“Find out some respectable woman with a little property – somebody in the landlady way, or lodging-letting way – and marry her, against a rainy day.”

A landlady, or a lady in the “lodging-letting way,” would be a woman possessed of some property and a steady income. In the 18th century, as in Dickens’ time, the legal position of women was limited, and a woman’s property became her husband’s upon marriage. A woman’s legal circumstances are detailed in the Dictionary of Daily Wants (1859) under

MARRIED WOMEN, LEGAL POSITION OF. – When a woman becomes married, her individuality, in a legal point of view, becomes merged in that of her husband. She is relieved of the responsibility, and indeed disabled from performing any contract, or effecting any act as a sole and independent person. She is, also, to a certain extent, absolved from moral responsibility, provided she act under the direction of her husband. A married woman, except under certain conditions, cannot exercise a separate and independent control over monies, houses, lands or other possessions, it being held in law that those which belong to her belong by a still stronger claim to her husband. (664)

Thus, if Carton were to marry a landlady, he would be marrying a certain amount of regularly-remunerative property, together with a person capable of managing it without assistance. Stryver, well apprized of the laws concerning marital property, takes a savvy view of landladies.

Mr. Stryver … resolved to make [Lucie’s] happiness known to her before he left town for the Long Vacation…. [T]hey could then arrange at their leisure whether he should give her his hand a week or two before Michaelmas Term, or in the little Christmas vacation between it and Hilary.

Mr. Stryver, sure of the success of his suit, plans to woo and win Lucie before leaving, in July, for the Long Vacation. He anticipates setting a wedding date for late October (a week or two before the beginning of Michaelmas Term on November 2nd), or in the “little Christmas vacation” between November 25th (the end of Michaelmas Term) and January 11th (the beginning of Hilary Term) (Ford and Monod xx).

He called himself for the plaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence, the counsel for the defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn to consider. After trying it, Stryver C.J. was satisfied that no plainer case could be.

In the imaginary trial to which Stryver subjects his cause (the wooing of Lucie Manette), he assumes every part in turn. As counsel for the
plaintiff(a plaintiff is “the party who brings a suit into a court of law; a complainant, prosecutor; opposed to defendant” [Oxford English Dictionary]), Stryver puts his case so much to his own satisfaction that his imaginary opponent throws up his prepared statement of the facts (his “brief”) in dismay; the jury (normally consisting, in England, of 12 people for civil or criminal trials [OED]) does not even bother to deliberate concerning the outcome of the case; and the chief justice (in the person of Stryver himself, “C.J.”) is easily convinced.

 

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