Why does Darnay hire an escort in Paris in A Tale of Two Cities, Book 3, Chapter 1?
Charles Darnay had to hire the escort because:
The environment was not safe for him given he was considered an emigrant and an aristocrat even though he tried to state he was a citizen. "It is as the good patriot says," observed the timid functionary. "You are an aristocrat, and must have an escort—and must pay for it."
He would not arrive in Paris in time because of the endless check points where he would have to identify himself throughout his journey and where the patriots would have turned him back or even held him in confinement given he was not in the good books of the new order.
“This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the highway twenty times in a stage, but retarded his progress twenty times in a day, by riding after him and taking him back, riding before him and stopping him by anticipation, riding...
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with him and keeping him in charge.”
He needed the escort to help him arrive in Paris safely because he had to clear his name.
Apart from the guards and the checkpoints, Darnay needed the escorts to protect him from the villagers who considered him a traitor and would harm him if they had a chance.
Why does Darnay hire an escort to Paris in A Tale of Two Cities?
Darnay needs an escort for his safe passage to Paris because he has been born a French aristocrat, and a particular one, at that.
In Book the Third, Chapter I, Dickens depicts every village and every town gate as having its own band of citizen-patriots with their muskets in "a most explosive state of readiness." These "red-caps" or sans-culottes,* as they were called, are the revolutionaries, who like Madame Defarge, have registered their enemies in lists of their own and often exercise a capricious judgment when stopping the "comers and goers."
Perhaps because he is a particular emigrant, Darnay is spared immediate death, and is, instead, awakened in the night and told that he must pay for escorts. The two men who escort him allow Darnay to ride his own horse, but they have a line tied to its bridle which they hold.
When they reach the town of Beauvais, the main reason for Darnay's escorts then becomes apparent. "Down with the emigrant!" is a shout from many; a farrier curses him, "Judged!....Aye, and condemned as a traitor." Hearing him, the crowd shouts its approval, so the escorts and the postmaster hurry Darnay's horse into a yard and shut the gates against the rushing crowd.
Further in the narrative, as Darnay is escorted to Paris, he moves from
being a "free traveler and French citizen" to becoming a prisoner handed over
to Monsieur Defarge. As he stands before a desk on which registers lie, Darnay
hears, "Is this the emigrant Evremonde?" After this, he is questioned and
conducted to La Force where he is handed over to the jailer with a note reading
"in secret." Darnay is placed in a cell by himself.
It is, thus, apparent that Darnay has had two particular escorts and has been
turned over to M. Defarge because his name has been knitted into her list, and
his is a special name.
* sans-culotte (a name given to the revolutionaries) = without shorter pants. It was the aristocracy who wore the shortened pants (culottes) with stockings