After reading · Part II · Chapter 9
Part II · Chapter 9The Marquis and His Heir
Reading boundary
Start: It was a heavy mass of building, that chateau of Monsieur the Marquis
Stop after: Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.
Summary
Charles Darnay—Monsieur Charles Evrémonde—meets his uncle at the château. Darnay condemns a family system maintained through fear and suffering, renounces his claim to the estate, and says he intends to live by work in England. The Marquis defends repression as the family’s proper power and mocks his nephew’s reforms.
By morning, the Marquis lies dead with a knife in his heart. A note attached to it tells others to drive him quickly to his tomb and is signed “Jacques.” The château’s carved stone face seems to have acquired the dead man’s expression.
Who’s who
- Charles Darnay / Charles Evrémonde — The Marquis’s nephew and heir, rejecting his family inheritance.
- The Marquis — Darnay’s uncle, committed to aristocratic domination.
- Gabelle — A local official associated with the estate.