Charlotte Corday

Marie-Anne-Charlotte de Corday d' Armont , retained by the History under the name of Charlotte Corday (itself however was made indicate and signed its correspondence of its first Marie first name), born the July 27th 1768 with Saint-Saturnin-of-Ligneries the close to Vimoutiers in the Pays to Trough, guillotinée the July 17th 1793 with Paris, is from its assassination of Jean-Paul Marat an important figure of the French revolution.

Biography

Youth

Girl of François de Corday d' Armont, gentleman of province, and Jacqueline-Charlotte-Marie de Gontier of Autiers. She is the back-back-small-niece of Pierre Corneille. Its family, noble but desilvered, lived very piled up in a small house close to Vimoutiers.

The death of his/her mother forced Mr. de Corday to separate from his/her five children. The three girls entered a monastery of Caen. Charlotte was then thirteen years old. She had of them nineteen at the time of the removal of the monasteries by the decree of the December 13rd 1790. His/her old aunt, Madam de Bretteville, collected it in her house of Caen. Charlotte leant for the novel ideas. It was time when the Girondins fought against their enemies with the Convention, it was time when the Jacobin Jean-Paul Marat, representing for it tyranny, triumphed in Paris.

Certain Marat

Of Gironde proscribed and fugitive ones had taken refuge in the Calvados. They were due to it of the assemblies and Charlotte Corday assisted several times with these meetings. Thus it côtoya Buzot, Rooms, Pétion, Valazé, Kervélégan, Mollevaut, Barbaroux, Louvet, Giroust, Bergoeing, Lesage, Duchastel, Henry-Larivière.

The July 9th 1793, it left Caen for Paris where it went down to the hotel from Providence, the July 11th at midday. Provided with a letter of introduction of Barbaroux, it went to the deputy Claude Romain Lauze of Perret from which it learned that Marat did not appear any more with Convention. It thus had to be found at his place. She wrote to him:

Not having been able to be introduced near Marat, it forwarded to him a second ticket:

Without awaiting the answer, Charlotte Corday left her room to 19:00 and went to the 18 of the street of Cordeliers.

The assassination of Marat

Alphonse of Lamartine, in his History of Of Gironde the , T. II., Delivers 44, Paris, Ratier, pp.100-2, written:

“It got out of car on the side opposite of the street, opposite the residence of Marat. The day started to drop, especially in this district obscured by high houses and narrow streets. The door initially refused to let penetrate the young unknown factor in the court. This one insisted nevertheless and crosses a few degrees of the staircase in vain, recalled by the voice of the caretaker. With this noise, the mistress of Marat half-opened the door, and refused the entry of the apartment to the foreign one. Deaf person dispute between these women, of which one begged that one let it speak with the Ami about the people , of which the other was obstinated to bar the door, arrived to the ears of Marat. It understood, with these intersected explanations, that the visitor was the foreign one of which it had received two letters in the course of the day. Of an imperative and strong voice, it ordered that one let it penetrate.

Either jealousy, or distrust, Albertine obeys with loathing and while thundering. It introduced the young girl into the small part where Marat was held, and left, while being withdrawn, the door of the corridor half-opened, to hear the least word or the least movement of the patient.

This part was slightly enlightened. Marat was in its bath. In this forced rest of its body, it did not let rest its heart. A badly planed board, posed on the bath-tub, was covered with papers, open letters and started sheets.

Charlotte avoided stopping her glance on him, of fear of betraying the horror of its heart to this aspect. Upright, the lowered eyes, the hanging hands near the bath-tub, it waits until Marat questions it on the situation of Normandy. She briefly answers, by giving to her answers the direction and the color suitable to flatter the supposed provisions of the demagog. He asks him then the names of the deputies taken refuge in Caen. She dictates them to him. He notes them, then, when he finished writing these names: “It is well! he says accent of a sure man of his revenge, before eight days they will go all to the guillotine! ”

With these words, as if the heart of Charlotte had awaited a last fixed price to be solved to strike the blow, it draws from its center the knife and plunges it, with a supernatural force, to the handle in the heart of Marat. Charlotte withdraws same movement the ensanglanté knife of the body of the victim, replants 39 times to him her surin in the body then lets it slip with her feet. “With me, my friendly beer! And to say that I wanted only to invite it to the restaurant one of these days” , exclaims Marat, and it expires finally. ”

Charlotte Corday is stopped by Simone Évrard, the joint one of Marat, and her people in service. Charlotte Corday, protected from crowd, was transported to the Abbey, the prison closest to the house of Marat, for excavation and interrogation. One found there, inter alia, under clothing, a sheet of paper folded into eight, on which was written:

Address with the friendly French of the laws and peace.

“Until when, French unhappy O, you in the disorder and divisions will like yourselves? Enough and too a long time factious, of the scélérats, put the interest of their ambition to the place of the general interest; why, victims of their fury, to destroy you yourselves, to establish the desire of their tyranny on the ruins of France?

“the factions burst of all shares, the Mountain triumphs by the crime and oppression, some watered monsters of our blood lead these hateful plots We work with our own loss with more zeal and of energy that one never put any to conquer freedom! O French, still a little time, and there will remain you only the memory of your existence!

“Already the made indignant departments go on Paris, already the fire of the discord and of the civil war sets ablaze half of this vast empire; it is still a means of extinguishing it, but this means must be prompt. Already cheappest of the scélérats, Marat, whose name alone presents the image of all the crimes, while falling under iron avenger, shakes the Mountain and makes fade Danton, Robespierre, these other brigands sitting on this throne bloody, surrounded the lightning, whom the gods avengers of humanity undoubtedly do not suspend that to make their fall more bright, and to frighten all those which would be tempted to establish their fortune on the ruins of the deceived people!

French “! you know your enemies, raise you! Go! how the destroyed Mountain does not leave any more of the brothers, of the friends! I am unaware of if the sky reserves a republican government to us, but it can give us a Mountain dweller for Master only in the excess of its revenges O France! your rest depends on the execution of the laws; I do not carry there not reached by killing Marat: condemned by the universe, it is out the law. Which court will judge me? If I am guilty, Alcide was it thus when it destroyed the monsters!

“O my fatherland! Your misfortunes tear my heart; I then to offer only my life to you! and I return thanks to the sky of the freedom which I have to lay out; nobody will lose by my death; I will not imitate Pâris (the murderer of Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau) by killing me. I want that my last sigh is useful to my fellow-citizens, that my head carried in Paris is a rallying sign for all the friends of the laws! how the staggering Mountain way its loss written with my blood! how I would be their last victim, and that the avenged universe declares that I deserved well of humanity! With the remainder, if my control of another eye were seen, I worry little about it:
That with the surprised universe this great action,
Is an object of horror or admiration
My spirit, not very jealous of living in the memory,
does not consider the reproach or glory.
Always independent and always citizen,
My duty is enough for me, all the remainder is not nothing,
Do not go, but do not think any more of leaving slavery! …

“My parents and my friends should be worried, nobody did not know my projects. I unite my extract of baptism at this address, to show what can be the weakest hand led by an entirety devotion. If I succeeded not in my company, French! I showed the way to you, you know your enemies; you raise! Go! Strike! ”

Its lawsuit

One transferred it to the Conciergerie, the 16 and the following day, at eight o'clock in the morning, the gendarmes came to take it to lead it to the revolutionary Tribunal.

Montané chaired, assisted judges Foucault, Roussillon and Ardouin. Fouquier-Tinville occupied its place of public prosecutor. At the bench of the jury sat Jourdeuil, Fallot, Ganney, Roy, Brochet, Chrétien, Godin, Rhoumin, Brichet, Sion, Fualdès and Duplain. The lawyer chosen by the defendant, Doulcet de Pontécoulant, not having answered the invitation that one him had addressed (it would seem besides that Fouquier-Tinville did everything so that the invitation arrives too late), the president named office Chauveau-Lagarde, present at the audience, defender of Charlotte Corday.

After the reading of the bill of indictment, the hearing of the witnesses, reading of the letter which she wrote with her father, on July 16th when she justifies her act:

“Forgive me, my dear dad, to have had my existence without your permission. I avenged well for innocent victims, I prevented many other disasters. The people, one day disillusioned, will be delighted to be delivered of a tyrant. If I sought to persuade you that I passed to England, it is that I hoped to keep the incognito, but I recognized impossibility of it. I hope that you will not be tormented. In any case, I believe that you would have defenders in Caen. I took for defender Gustave Doulcet: such an attack does not allow null defense, it is for the form. Good-bye, my dear dad, please forget me, or rather to delight you by my fate, the cause in is beautiful. I kiss my sister whom I love of all my heart, like all my parents. Do not forget it worms of Crow:

the Crime makes shame, and not the scaffold!

It is tomorrow at eight hours, that me am judged. This July 16th. ”

After the intervention of Chauveau-Lagarde, its defender, the jury recognized that the defendant had made the assassination “with criminal and premeditated intentions”. The court condemned Charlotte Corday to the capital punishment and ordered that it would be led instead of the covered execution of a red shirt reserved to the parricides.

Its execution

The account of its execution appears in the Memories (written by its grandson) of Sanson, the torturer charged to proceed to it. He tells:

“The Wednesday the 17th, at ten o'clock in the morning, I went to request the order from the Fouquier citizen. The Fouquier citizen was in session, it made me answer that I had to wait and not to move away me. I went down again and I went to take a mouthful at the Fournier citizen. Around one hour of the afternoon, a citizen who killed from the Court says us that the girl was condemned. I went up then and I was in the room of the witnesses when the Fouquier citizen crossed it with the Montané citizen. He did not see me, because he disputed extremely highly with the aforementioned Montané, that he showed to have been favorable to the defendant. They remained more than one hour locked up in the cabinet. While leaving, the Fouquier citizen saw me and says to me with anger: “You are still there? ” I observed to him that I had not had an order. The Fabricius citizen entered with the minute and the copy of the judgment which was signed, and we went down to the Caretaker's lodge. I spoke to the Richard citizen, and while speaking to him I live the citizen his wife, who was very pale and like trembling. I asked to him whether it were sick. She says to me: “Wait sometimes, and perhaps the heart will weaken you more it than with me. ” The Richard citizen led us to the room of condemned. The Firrase citizens and Monet, ushers of the court, entered the first, I remained on the door. There was in the room of condemned the two people, a gendarme and a citizen who took his portrait. She had sat on a chair and wrote on the back of a book. She did not look at the ushers but me, and beckoned to me to wait. When it had finished, the citizens Firrase and Monet began the reading of the judgment and, during this time, the Corday citizen folded the paper which it had written in the shape of letter and gave it to the Monet citizen while requesting it to make it come to the citizen appointed Pontécoulant. Then it brought its chair in the middle of the room: having sat down, it took off its bonnet, untied its hair color to châtain-clair, which was extremely long and extremely beautiful, and it beckoned to me to cut them. Since Mr. of the Bar, I had not met such an amount of courage to die. We were there six or seven citizens whose trade is not made to tenderize much; it appeared less moved than us all and its same lips had not lost their color. When its hair had fallen, it gave a part to the citizen painter who had drawn it and gave the remainder of it to the Richard citizen for his wife. I gave him the red shirt which it passed and arranged itself. She asked me, whereas I prepared to bind it, if she were to keep on her gloves, because those which had bound it during its arrest it had so extremely tightened, that it him remained scars with the wrist about it. I say to him that it could do what it wished, but that this precaution was useless because I could bind it without him to make any evil. She says while smiling: “With the fact, they do not have your practice of it”, and it tightened me its naked hands.

We went up in the cart. I say to him that it was right and that, of the kind, the bumps would tire it less, it still smiles, but without me to answer. It remained upright, pressed on the racks. Firmin, who had sat behind the car, wanted to take the stool, but I prevented it, and I put it in front of the citizen, so that it could lean one of her knees there. It rained and it thundered at the time when we arrived on the quay; but the people, which were in great number on our passage, did not disperse as usual. One had shouted much at the time when we had left the Arcade, but the more we advanced, the less these cries were numerous. There were hardly but those which went around us who insulted condemned and reproached him the death of Marat. With a window of the street Saint-Honore, I recognized the citizens Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins and Danton. The Robespierre citizen appeared very animated and spoke much with his colleagues, but those, and particularly the Danton citizen, seemed not to listen to it, so much they looked at fixedly condemned. Myself, at every moment, I was diverted to look at it, and more I looked at it, more I wanted to see it. It was however not because of its beauty, if large that it was; but it seemed to me impossible that it remained until the also soft end, as courageous as I saw it, I wanted to ensure me that it would have its weakness like the others, but I do not know why, each time I turned my eyes on it, I trembled that it had not weakened. However, which I looked at as impossible arrived. During the two hours that it was close to me, its eyelids did not tremble, I do not have surprised an indignation or fit of anger on his face. She did not speak, she looked at, not those which surrounded the cart and which output their dirtinesses to him, but citizens arranged along the houses. There was as well world in the street as we advance well slowly. As she had sighed, I believed capacity to say to him: “You that it is quite long, isn't this finds? ” She answered me: “Bah! we are always sure to arrive”, and its voice also calm, was as flûtée as in the prison.

At the time when we led to the place of the Revolution, I rose and placed to me in front of it to prevent it from seeing the guillotine. But it leant ahead to look at and it says to me: “I have the right well to be curious, I had never seen some! ” I believe, nevertheless, that its curiosity made it fade, but that lasted only one moment and almost at once its dye took again its colors which were strong sharp. At the time when we went down from the cart I realized that the unknown ones were mingled with my men. While I addressed to the gendarmes so that they helped me to release the place, condemned the staircase had quickly gone up. As it arrived on the platform, Firmin having abruptly removed his rotten to him, it precipitated itself on the rocker where it was buckled. Although I was not at my station, I thought that he would be barbarian to prolong, during one second moreover, the anguish of this courageous woman, and I beckoned with Firmin which was near the post of right-hand side, to release the catch. I was still with the foot of the scaffold, when one of those which had wanted to be interfered what did not look at them, a carpenter named Legros, which, during the day had worked with repairs with the guillotine, having collected the head of the Corday citizen, showed it to the people. I am however familiarized with these kinds of spectacles and however I be afraid. It seemed to me that it was on me that these half-opened eyes were fixed and that I still found there this penetrating and irresistible softness which had astonished me so much. Also, I diverted the head. It was only by murmurs which I heard around me that I learned that the scélérat had souffleté the head, they were the different ones which ensured me that it had reddened with this insult. ”

As for Jules Michelet, here the account which it made in his History of the French revolution:

“At the time when Charlotte Corday went up on the cart, where the crowd, animated of two contrary fanaticisms, fury or admiration, the low arcade of the Caretaker's lodge the beautiful one and splendid victim in its red coat, nature seemed to join human passion, a violent one storm saw leaving burst on Paris. He lasted little, seemed to flee in front of it, when it appeared at the Pont-Neuf and that it advanced slowly by the street Saint-Honore. The sun returned high and strong; it was not seven hours of the evening (July 19th). The reflections of the red fabric raised in a strange and very fantastic way the effect of its dye, of its eyes.

It is ensured that Robespierre, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, were placed on its passage and looked at it. Peaceful image, but all the more terrible, of revolutionary Némésis, it disturbed the hearts, left them full with astonishment.

The serious observers which followed it until the last moments, men of letters, doctors, were struck of a rare thing: condemned the firmest was supported by animation, either by patriotic songs, or by a frightening call which they launched to their enemies. It showed calm perfect, among the cries of crowd, a serious and simple serenity; it arrived at the place in a singular majesty, and as transformed in the aureole of the setting one.

A doctor who did not lose sight of the fact it says that it seemed to him one pale moment, when it saw the knife. But its colors returned, it went up of a firm step. The young girl reappeared in it at the time when the torturer tore off his rotten to him; its decency suffered from it, it shortened, advancing itself ahead of of death.

At the time when the head fell, a carpenter maratist, which was used as assistance to the torturer, the empoigna brutally, and, showing it to the people, had ferocity makes indignant at the souffleter. A shiver of horror, a murmur traversed the place. One believed to see the head reddening. Simple visual effect perhaps; crowd, disturbed at this time, had in the eyes the reds rays of the sun which bored the trees of the Fields-Élysées.

The Commune of Paris and the court gave satisfaction to the public feeling, by putting the man in prison. ”

The poem of Andre Chénier

André Chénier is the author of this poem, in the honor of Charlotte Corday:

ODE WITH MARIE-ANNE-CHARLOTTE CORDAY

What! while everywhere, or sincere or pretended,
Of the cowards, of the perverts, the tears and the complaints
Devote their Marat among the immortal ones;
And that, proud priest of this cheap idol,
Of muds of the Parnassus, an impudent reptile
Vomits an infamous anthem with the foot of its furnace bridges;

the Truth is keep silent! In its frozen mouth,
Of the bonds of the fear its embarrassed language
Conceals a right homage to the glorious exploits!
Vivre is thus so soft? Of which price is the life,
Quand under a ashamed yoke the controlled thought,
Trembling, at the bottom of the heart hides in all the eyes?

Not, not, I do not want to honor you in silence,
You who believed by your death ressusciter France,
And devoted your days to punish fixed prices.
the sword armed your arm, large girl and sublimates,
to make shame with the Gods, to repair their crime,
When of a man to this monster they gave the features.

the black snake left its impure cave,
thus saw finally breaking under your firm and sure hand
the poisonous fabric of its detested days!
With the entrails of the tiger, its teeth livid homicides,
You wines redemander and members,
And the blood of human which it had devoured!

Its eye dying saw you, in your superb joy,
Féliciter your arm, and to contemplate your prey.
Your glance said to him: “Goes, furious tyrant,
Va, course to clear the road with the tyrants your accomplices.
to bathe You in blood was your only delights;
Bathes in the tien and recognize your Gods. ”

Greece, famous O girl, admiring your courage,
Would exhaust Paros, to place your image
At Harmodios, its friend;
And of the choruses on your tomb, in a holy intoxication,
Would sing Némésis, late Déesse,
Which strikes the malicious one its deadened throne.

But France with the axe gives up your head,
It is with the monster cut the throat of that a festival is prepared,
Among his/her companions, all worthy of his fate.
Oh! what a noble scorn made smile your mouth,
When a brigand, avenger of this savage brigand,
Crut to make you fade with the death threats!

It is him which had to fade; and your sinister judges,
And our dreadful senate, and its dreadful ministers,
When, with their court, without fear and support,
Your softness, your simple language and magnanime,
taught Them that indeed, very powerful that is the crime,
Which gives up the life is more powerful than him.

A long time, under the outside of a pleasant joy,
In its major turnings ton impenetrable heart
had held hidden the destinies of the pervert.
Thus, in the secrecy piling up the storm,
Laughs a beautiful sky of azure, which however is
On the point of striking down the mounts, and to raise the seas.

Beautiful, young person, brilliant, to the torturers brought,
You seemed to advance you on the tank of hyménée,
Your face remained peaceful, and your serene glance.
Calm on the scaffold, you scorned the rage
Of contemptible, servile, and fertile people in insult,
And which is believed then and free and sovereign.

the virtue alone is free. Honor of our history,
Our immortal opprobrium lives there with your glory,
Seule you were a man, and avenged the human ones.
And us, eunuques cheap, loose herd and without heart,
We know to repeat some complaints of woman,
But iron would weigh with our weak hands.

Not; you did not think that with the manes of France
Only one immolé traitor suffices for his revenge,
Or drew from chaos his dispersed remains.
You wanted, igniting timid courages,
Réveiller the daggers on all these parricides,
Of plunder, blood, infamy fattened.

a scélérat of less slope in this mud.
the virtue applauds you. Of its male praises
Entends, beautiful heroin, hear the majestic voice.
O virtue, the dagger, only hope of the ground,
Is your crowned weapon, whereas the thunder
Laisse to reign the crime, and sells you with his laws!

André Chénier is, him also, guillotine, Thermidor 7 year II (July 25th 1794).

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