This is something that we are only actually told in Book the Third, Chapter Ten, and this is one of the central questions that lurk behind the rest of the action of the novel. Let us remember that in this chapter, Defarge reads the letter that Dr. Manette wrote before be slipped into insanity whilst he was a prisoner. It details how Darnay's father and uncle raped a peasant woman, killed her husband and mortally wounded her brother. Dr. Manette is ordered to care for them. When Dr. Manette discovers the truth of what has happened, he refuses to agree never to divulge what he has seen and the horrific acts of the Evremonde brothers. As a result, they arrange for his wrongful imprisonment in the Bastille.
It is of course particularly important that this truth which is hinted at throughout the novel is only revealed at this critical juncture when Darnay's life is in the balance, and Dr. Manette believes that, as before, his presence can actually save his son-in-law. The tremendous irony of this event is of course that it is Dr. Manette who, out of his own mouth (or hand) condemns him to a certain death.
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