Manette
The Physician
"Alaxandre Manette, a profound French doctor of medicine. With a history of imprisonment and recovery the story of this man in very intriguing."
-French Reporter.
The Story.
From a learned doctor to a pale old shoe maker.
Dr. Alexandre Manette was once a respected physician in Paris - intelligent, and quietly principled. He lived a stable life with his wife and daughter, devoted to his medical practice.
Dr. Manette was secretly summoned by the Evrémonde brothers to treat a woman and her brother who were both dying and injured. Through them, he discovered that the brothers had abused the family and caused their pain. Shocked and determined to report the crime, he was arrested before he could do anything and was put in the Bastille without trial.
He spent eighteen years by himself in a cell called “One Hundred and Five, North Tower.” During that time, he lost his health, a lot of his memory, and his identity. To cope with the isolation, he learned shoemaking, which became his passion, past time, and mental escape.
After he was released, he was found living above a wine shop, still making shoes, but he gradually recovered when reunited with his daughter Lucie and moved to London to resume his medical practice. Though the trauma never fully left him, he later used his influence as a former prisoner during the French Revolution to try to save his son-in-law, Charles Darnay.
Life during the revolution.
During the French Revolution, Dr. Manette returned to Paris to save Charles Darnay and was known as a former Bastille prisoner, which helped protect him for a while. However, when a letter Dr. Manette had written in prison was used against Darnay in trial, the shock brought back trauma.