My wife? Dead by the hand of Manett’s servant? How could it be? My wife, full of fervor and determination! Can one woman’s love outweigh my wife’s thirst for vengeance against those tied to Marquis St. Everemonde? Surely my wife had love. A love for the Revolution! Oh, how she led with such great vigor when we stormed the aristocrats emblem of power, the dreaded Bastille. Was it bloodlust? Was it hope, strife, passion, and confidence in the will of the people? Bloodlust, revenge: is that what the people desire? Have they been blinded by the spatter of La Guillotine? Their frenzy has thrown them to a place they have never been before. It seems normal for the Revolution to run rampant for a time, but at a point it must end. For when the people are submerged in darkness, where will the hope for a new day emerge? Most definitively not from the remains of the rich or the sparks of the grindstone.

My mind has come alight in this hour of darkness. In the sky up above stars shine against the deep, onyx backdrop. Our worldly situation is so much the same, but those very stars have been dampened by the terror that has crept across our land. My wife’s spirit has fallen but the ideals we once had shall be, must be, recalled to life. 

If any example be required by the Vengeance, let it be that of my wife. For, in the chaos and craze of this glorious time, she was swept up in a storm. Let not her death go on in vain. End this storm! Its time has passed. The horizon is clearest after the fiercest rain. The future is brightest after the darkest hardship.  A man’s burdens are lightest when he has kinsmen to depend on. Why heavy our nations burden with the corpses of kinsmen? La Guillotine is satisfied when the people are satisfied. The people are satisfied when they are able to look past La Guillotine. Must we build our nation on a foundation of skeletons? 

My wife, killed by skeletons of her past, saw cowardice in me. I talked, she waged war. Her cold collectedness shined brightly like ice on a sunny day. As I was confounded by the many missions of Mr. Lorry and the Manette’s, she held true. Her consistency was like tight-knit yarn: subtle but strong. Her knitting was consistent: it was her way of taking action when we could not. She was magical: only a witch could turn kings into rats.

Isn’t her stolidness a thing of the past? Mustn’t the revolution feel again in order for the country to live again? France shall be born again, but not in the common sense. It shall be born again like a lion from a pig; like glory from gluttony. We must be born again because, like a being, a country cannot prosper in its own waste. 

The magnificent filth of France has been laid waste to. The hidden ores have matured, their veins run deep, their thickness remains strong. Let the manure we have laid serve us well in growing this new sprig of life, for every crop needs a nutrient. Let us not bury our newborn in filth, since every organism must have moderation. An over indulgent being is a pig, and France is no longer a land of pigs.

My wife’s strife for vengeance created a beginning, her spirit was a catalyst, now let her death serve as an example for us all. If we are consumed by vengeance, if Wrath’s long, encroaching arms are unleashed onto the Revolution, France shall implode.  Take heed of this warning; take heed of my wife’s warning, given to us by death.