England at that time was not on good terms with France, and Darnay, who was of French birth, was accused of selling information concerning the English forts and army to the French Government. This was a very serious charge, for men convicted of treason then were put to death in the cruelest ways that could be invented.
The charge was not true, and Darnay himself knew quite well who was working against him.
The fact was that Charles Darnay was not his true name. He was really Charles St. Evrémonde, the descendant of a rich and noble French family, though he chose to live in London as Charles Darnay, and earned his living by giving lessons in French. He did this because he would not be one of the hated noble class of his own country, who treated the poor so heartlessly.
In France the peasants had to pay many oppressive taxes, and were wretched and half-starved, while the rich nobles rode in gilded coaches, and, if they ran over a little peasant child, threw a coin to its mother and drove on without a further thought. Among the hardest-hearted of all, and the most hated by the common people, were the Evrémondes, the family of the young man who was now accused of treason. As soon as he was old enough to know how unjust was his family's treatment of the poor who were dependent on them, he had protested against it. When he became a man he had refused to live on the money that was thus taken from the hungry peasantry, and had left his home and come to London to earn his own way by teaching.
His heartless uncle, the Marquis de St. Evrémonde, in France, the head of the family, hated the young man for this noble spirit. It was this uncle who had invented the plot to accuse his nephew of treason. He had hired a dishonest spy known as Barsad, who swore he had found papers in Darnay's trunk that proved his guilt, and, as Darnay had been often back and forth to France on family matters, the case looked dark for him.
Cruelly enough, among those who were called to the trial as witnesses, to show that Darnay had made these frequent journeys to France, were Doctor Manette and Lucie—because they had seen him on the boat during that memorable crossing. Lucie's tears fell fast as she gave her testimony, believing him innocent and knowing that her words would be used to condemn him.
Darnay would doubtless have been convicted but for a curious coincidence: A dissipated young lawyer, named Sydney Carton, sitting in the court room, had noticed with surprise that he himself looked very much like the prisoner; in fact, that they were so much alike they might almost have been taken for twin brothers. He called the attention of Darnay's lawyer to this, and the latter—while one of the witnesses against Darnay was making oath that he had seen him in a certain place in France—made Carton take off his wig (all lawyers wear wigs in England while in court) and stand up beside Darnay. The two were so alike the witness was puzzled, and he could not swear which of the two he had seen. For this reason Darnay, to Lucie's great joy, was found not guilty.
Sydney Carton, who had thought of and suggested this clever thing, was a reckless, besotted young man. He cared for nobody, and nobody, he used to say, cared for him. He lacked energy and ambition to work and struggle for himself, but for the sake of plenty of money with which to buy liquor, he studied cases for another lawyer, who was fast growing rich by his labor. His master, who hired him, was the lion; Carton was content, through his own indolence and lack of purpose, to be the jackal.
His conscience had always condemned him for this, and now, as he saw the innocent Darnay's look, noble and straightforward, so like himself as he might have been, and as he thought of Lucie's sweet face and of how she had wept as she was forced to give testimony against the other, Carton felt that he almost hated the man whose life he had saved.
The trial brought Lucie and these two men (so like each other in feature, yet so unlike in character) together, and afterward they often met at Doctor Manette's house.