This answer had a happy effect upon the audience.
Cries in exaltation of the well-known good physician rent the hall.
So capriciously were the people moved, that tears immediately rolled down several ferocious countenances which had been glaring at the prisoner a moment before, as if with impatience to pluck him out into the streets and kill him.
On these few steps of his dangerous way, Charles Darnay had set his foot according to Doctor Manette's reiterated instructions. The same cautious counsel directed every step that lay before him, and had prepared every inch of his road.
The President asked, why had he returned to France when he did, and not sooner?
He had not returned sooner, he replied, simply because he had no means of living in France, save those he had resigned; whereas, in England, he lived by giving instruction in the French language and literature.
He had returned when he did, on the pressing and written entreaty of a French citizen, who represented that his life was endangered by his absence.
He had come back, to save a citizen's life, and to bear his testimony, at whatever personal hazard, to the truth.
Was that criminal in the eyes of the Republic?
The populace cried enthusiastically, "No!" and the President rang his bell to quiet them. Which it did not, for they continued to cry "No!" until they left off, of their own will.