""Sweet Charlotte Corday Kills the Ogre Marat. . ."

It was the summer of 1793 and the world, the French world at any rate, was in chaos. Friends became enemies, enemies became traitors and the world changed forever.

Amidst the swirl of faceless names and nameless faces to cross the stage of the French Revolution came a young girl from Normandy, from Caen in fact. Well-read, intelligent with a doting father and a loving family, Charlotte Corday was the very opposite of the extremist radicals that had captured the revolutionary movement. No monarchist, and certainly no reactionary, Charlotte was thoughtful, endearing (to some then and now) and concerned about the well-being of her country and, equally important in her eyes, her countrymen.

She watched as her beloved France fell under the despotism of the masses, led by such extremists as Georges Danton, Maximilien Robespierre and Jean-Paul Marat. A Swiss-born physician turned political journalist, Marat had just turned 50 years old in May of 1793 and was by all accounts, even to his erstwhile friends, an oppressive and oppressing human being. Still, he had garnered the trust of the "people" through his incorrigible nature, his constant persecution of those he deemed the enemies of the state and his unwillingness to veer from the path of "truth, justice and the pursuit of liberty for all," if all meant those who agreed with his policies.

An avowed moderate, Charlotte read with growing fear and then anger the increasing reports of Marat's attacks on the moderate revolutionary leaders such as the Marquis de La Fayette and Jacques Necker, the king's former Minister of finance (and much beloved by the masses). In fact, Marat was forced to flee to London for daring to impugn and insult the honor of both men. He eventually returned but had not been chastened by the experience. In fact, he stepped up his attacks on the moderates, in particular against the group of men often referred to as the "Girondins." Not a political party per se, this particular group of men in the National Assembly shared similar ideas and were so called since most of the deputies were from the Gironde.

In early June of 1793 Marat's campaign succeeded and the collapse of the Girondin movement ensured the supremacy of reactionary politics in Paris. But Marat's days were numbered. His own comrades in particular Danton and Robespierre began distancing themselves from him, as did the rest of the radical "Jacobins." His usefulness in bringing about the destruction of the moderates was coming to an end as the next phase of revolution politics was about to begin.

But Charlotte, "sweet Charlotte," was not privy to either the thoughts or the inner workings of the revolutionary leaders. She only knew what she read in the papers and from what she knew Marat was the very core, the heart of this very terrible plague that had infected the French body politic.

For Charlotte there was only way to stop the national pain, to bring an end to this internecine warfare, and that was to strike at the very root, the heart of the disease. So this young, thoughtful, intelligent girl decided sometime in late June or early July of 1793 to go straight to Paris and murder Marat.

Simple.

Charlotte arrived in Paris by coach from Normandy on 11 July. We know quite a bit of what she did during those final hours in Paris since she was very explicit about her movements during her (brief) trial.

She was let off at the Place des Victoires and checked into the nearby Hotel de la Providence, located at no. 19, rue Vieux Augustin. She was given a room on the second floor and after refreshing herself she walked to the home of a friend a M. Duperet to announce her arrival in the city.

On the morning of 13 July Charlotte rose from bed, dressed and strolled over to the galleries then located in the arcade at the Palais Rayal. She stopped at a cutlery shop at no. 177 rue de Valois (the street which today borders the backside of the arcade) where for two francs she purchased a 6-inch long kitchen knife with an ebony handle.

She then walked over to the gardens in the Palais Royal and found a bench to sit and rest and, quite possibly to collect her thoughts.

Did she have second thoughts? Was she simply tired from her journey? We'll never know. We do know that she never once wavered from her course of action nor did she ever seem then or later a figure hampered by fatigue.

She left the bench in the gardens at the Palais Royal and walked over to the Place des Victoires, just a few short meters away, where she found a cab to take her across the river. At 10am she arrived in front of Marat's house at 30 rue des Cordeliers only to be turned away.

Charlotte returned at 7pm that same evening and using the ruse of having secret dispatches from Normandy that named reactionary conspirators, she eventually gained entrance to Marat's private rooms upstairs. She approached Marat, who was sitting in a bath of water to help soothe a debilitating skin disease. After a few moments conversation she pulled the knife out of her corset and stabbed him once in the chest. Marat died a few moments later.

After her arrest she was removed to the prison at the Abbaye (the abbey at St. Germain des Pres) before being removed to the Conciergerie from which place few ever left alive.

At 8am on 17 July Charlotte's trial began. Her attorney was the well-known and highly respected advocate Claude Francois Chauveau-Lagarde.

Since the verdict had already been rendered in Charlotte's case there was little more to glean from a trial. Much to his credit though, Chauvreau-Lagarde emphasized that it was the "exaltation of political fanaticism" that had brought Charlotte to Marat's house, knife in hand. As for Charlotte herself she was clear, lucid and to the point. She made a point of declaring that she had always acted alone and that there were no other "conspirators" involved.

The verdict was swift: death. She was led from the courtroom and placed in one of the many "tumbrils" assigned to take prisoners from the Ile de la Cite to the right bank and to the guillotine set up on the Place de la Revolution.

Charlotte's head was removed form her body at 6pm and her body, after a short autopsy to determine if in fact she was a virgin as she claimed during her trial (she was) her body was taken along with several others to the nearby Madeleine Cemetery and dumped into a mass grave, joining the king’s body who had been executed in January. Marie Antoinette would join them all in October.

Most of the places in Paris where Charlotte spent her final hours are long gone: the rue des Vieux Augustin and the Hotel de la Providence stripped and torn down during the heyday of Baron Haussmann's realignment of the city center. Even the Palais Royal has changed significantly since that July of 1793, although Charlotte might indeed recognize the gardens.

Charlotte would still recognize the Conciergerie however:

Marat's house has also gone and rue des Cordeliers is now the rue de L'Ecole de Medicines and in fact the entire block has been incorporated into the University of Paris Medical School. (The building that housed the old and venerable Cordeliers Club does exist however.)

The Place de la Revolution is now the Place de la Concorde and here Charlotte would certainly recognize the two large imposing buildings at the northern side since they existed in her time as well.


The location of the mass grave is today remembered by La Chapelle Expiatoire and is located on the bustling Boulevard Haussmann in the middle of one of the busiest shopping districts of Paris. The remains of Louis and Marie Antoinette were eventually removed to the ancient royal tombs at St. Denis.

Chauveau-Lagarde went on to defend many of the city's leading monarchists, the most famous of course was the queen herself, Marie Antoinette. Although his life was at risk many times during the Reign of Terror, Chauveau-Lagarde survived it all and died in Paris in 1841. He is buried in Montparnasse cemetery.

Was Charlotte Corday a zealot? A fanatic? Insane? It seems unlikely, at least from the known record.

Was she a patriot? Possibly. She would certainly argue that it was solely from patriotic motives that moved her to do the "unthinkable," to take another life. Her hope was to have saved the lives of thousands by taking the one.

Her one regret, it seems, as outlined in a letter to her father after she left home, was that she had not been a dutiful daughter and she apologized for leaving without asking his permission.

With the death of Marat the radical elements within the revolutionary party in France further tightened their grip on society and would eventually bring about the death of thousands more the following year during the Reign of Terror.

Charlotte's failure became, in effect, Robespierre's success. But even that had its limitations and eventually he, too, would meet his end on the guillotine.