Charlotte Corday [12 Apr 2003|10:35am] Marie-Anne Charlotte Corday d'Armont Corday, a Norman member of the nobility of the sword, was an idealistic romanticist. Early in her life she had been exposed to the work of one of her ancestors Corneille, who had become a dramatists, and to the works of the philosopher Rousseau. These writers shaped the character of Corday, who would remain a dreamer for her entire life. Charlotte Corday shocked the country by murdering a leader of the Paris Commune and Jacobin Party by the name of Jean-Paul Marat. (This was during the revolution of 1789, not the Paris Commune of 1871.) She was sentenced to death and guillotined. Corday refused the ministrations of a priest in the moments before death; her last request was that a National Guard officer named Hauer paint her portrait. (This is the one above) This is the famous painting by David representing Marat murdered in his bathtub. She managed to kill him in the following way. She pretended to inform him on counter-revolutionary activities in Caen, where the Girondins had taken refuge in. The Girondins were a faction of the National Convention that had been thrown out by the Jacobins, a faction of which Marat was a leader. Corday was an ardent follower of the Girondists’ party, which was heavily influenced by the republican government of the United States. They wanted a federal state, to counter the power of Paris. Marat was in his bathtub because he had skin problems (eczema) which he relieved by spending time in water. She calmly discussed with him to gain his confidence, and he was very interested in her account of what the Girondins were planning to do. Indeed, she was quite well aware of all those activities, as she herself belonged to the Girondins inner circle. She had decided to assassinate Marat, who was a major Girondins opponent. There are many views on Marat, but the fact is that he was behind the execution and torture of many people who opposed his views on the way the French revolution was to go. Charlotte and many others saw him as a wannabe tyrant. He may have become one, we will never know. I always have wondered if she was right to have done what she did. I think she wasn't, as assassinating Marat did not change much the course of the revolution, and killing somebody does not kill his ideas. Having gained his confidence, she stabbed him in the heart. She remained calm during all the rest, her arrest, trial and execution. Even her enemies admired her sang-froid. During her trial, Corday took great pains to point out that she had conceived and carried out the assasination plot alone, proving "the value of the people of the Calvados," where "even the women of the country are capable of firmness."

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