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A Knock at the Door
Harry Furniss
1910
14 cm high x 9.6 cm wide, vignetted
Twenty-eighth illustration for A Tale of Two Cities in A Tale of Two Cities, American Notes, and Pictures from Italy, Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910), facing XIII, 280.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"The Citizen Evrémonde, called Darnay," said the first.
"Who seeks him?" answered Darnay.
"I seek him. We seek him. I know you, Evrémonde; I saw you before the Tribunal to-day. You are again the prisoner of the Republic."
The four surrounded him, where he stood with his wife and child clinging to him.
"Tell me how and why am I again a prisoner?"
"It is enough that you return straight to the Conciergerie, and will know to-morrow. You are summoned for to-morrow." [Book Three, "The Track of a Storm," Chapter Seven, "A Knock at the Door," 277]
The essential difference between Furniss's impressionistic treatment of the celebrated scene of Charles Darnay's second arrest by the Revolutionary authorities and earlier treatments by Phiz and MacLenan is a shift in emphasis. Whereas the earlier illustrators such as Hablot Knight Browne have focussed on Darnay, his wife, and child, Furniss has placed them in the background and foregrounded the sanguinary fourth Jacobin, who smokes his pipe and smiles as if this were a routine call rather than an apprehension in a capital trial.
Most significantly, Furniss's Doctor Manette is barely visible, as if his presence can do nothing to prevent his son-in-law's being found guilty of an (as yet) unspecified charge. The unexpected turn of events makes so dramatic a reversal in the fates of Darnay and his family that both John MacLenan in his illustrations for Harper's Weekly and Phiz in his illustrations for the monthly parts independently recognized the scene's narrative power and have effectively realised it, Phiz in a panoramic, theatrical treatment, MacLenan in a telling close up of the Jacobin agents surrounding the Darnays. Again, Darnay's life is threatened, despite his having evaded the 19 September 1793 Republican law enacted against "Aristocrats, Federalists, [and] Monsieurs" (according to Thomas Carlyle's account in The French Revolution, 3. 4. 6, cited in Sanders 148). Darnay, has been "drawn to the loadstone rock" to rescue Gabelle, an Evrémonde family retainer, but through the eloquence of his father-in-law already has already been acquitted of charges of being a returned emigrant. Now the young aristocrat who has renounced his title is unexpectedly rearrested, not by legitimate functionaries of the court, but by four thugs in Phrygian caps whom Dickens does not dignify with uniforms. Little does Darnay realize that he is about to face the dread consequences of his uncle and father's having raped Madame Defarge's sister and having murdered the family, his denouncer being none other than Doctor Manette himself, in a letter written in blood and hidden in his Bastille cell, although Dickens withholds this crucial piece of information until the ensuing second trial.
Whereas Phiz dresses his stage set with screens, fireplace, and well-padded armchair and ottoman to convince the reader of the reality of the illustration, Furniss focuses on the figures, individualising the Jacobins by their poses rather than their faces and attitudes, and merely sketching in the scene of the action lightly. The reader sees Phiz's illustration as if he or she were sitting in the orchestra of a Victorian theatre, surveying the action in the context of a large, comfortable, upper-middle-class drawing room filled with eighteenth-century furnishings, with Doctor Manette stage right; Darnay, his wife, and frightened child, centre; and three rather than four well-armed Jacobins (identified by their caps and rough demeanour) to the right, by the door, balancing Doctor Manette's figure on the left — the fourth Jacobin is presumably standing guard outside.
Using this 1859 steel engraving as his primary reference point, Furniss has realigned the scene from a vantage point in the corridor outside the drawing room, thereby moving the reader into the scene so that the figures occur in perspective, with exterior guard as the largest and Doctor Manette, the furthest figure, as the smallest. Although the Darnay family are still at the centre of Furniss's composition, this Baroque realignment enables the illustrator to have the three Jacobins within surround the Darnays while reducing the figure of Doctor Manette. Significantly, Furniss has distinguished these dubious agents of the state by their poses and uniforms — the pipe-smoking guard at the door wearing his Phrygian cap over an officer's helmet, by which juxtaposition Furniss implies that these uniforms of the regular army are the spoils of the insurrection, and that these men have no legitimate authority as agents of the court. While the Jacobin to the right strikes a pose and grins at the prisoner, his simple-minded companion in the foreground attempts to play with the Darnay's spaniel, his enormous sabre representing the extent of the danger under which Darnay now stands. Although both illustrators are technically incorrect in their disposition of the Jacobins, all four of whom surround Darnay in the letterpress, Furniss has corrected Phiz's composition in terms of the lamp rather than the guttering candle which Doctor Manette holds in the earlier illustration.
Since Dickens notes that the four ruffians enter the suite of rooms with a "rude clattering of feet over the floor," we should assume that these patriots are wearing wooden shoes rather than military boots, but only one of Furniss's posse is wearing clogs, as opposed to two of the three in Phiz's' illustration. However, in spirit Furniss's illustration seems more effectively and naturally organized, with the later artist emphasizing the arrogant self-assurance of those despatched to arrest Darnay. The capriciousness of the Jacobins in the 1910 illustration, epitomized by their supercilious expressions, betokens a greater threat to Darnay than the stolid militiamen of Phiz's 1859 engraving. In terms of composition, Furniss has replaced the static, tableau vivant quality of Phiz's stage scene for aerial perspective and a certain dynamism of the figures in action, emphasized by the Jacobin's attending to the dog rather than prisoner, a piece of comic business in the midst of an otherwise serious action, such comic relief being one of the hallmarks of Furniss's style, which includes a bit of incongruous humour as one of the Jacobins attempts to play with the Darnays' dog.
Above: "The Knock at the Door" by Phiz in the sixth monthly number (November 1859).
Left: McLenan's 5 October 1859 depiction of the re-arrest of Darnay after his first trial, "The Citizen Evrémonde, called Darnay". Right: Dixon's version of Darnay's re-arrest following the Defarges' denunciation, "I know you, Evrémonde!" (1905).
Above: Barnard's Household Edition illustration depicting Darnay's being led away after his second trial in Book Three, Chapter Nine, As he was drawn away, his wife released him, and stood looking after him with her hands touching one another in the attitude of prayer (1874).
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__________. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). London: Chapman and Hall, 1859.
__________. A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 16 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
__________. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874.
__________. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by A. A. Dixon. London: Collins, 1905.
__________. A Tale of Two Cities, American Notes, and Pictures from Italy. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol. 13.
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Created 27 December 2013
Last modified 12 January 2020