Charlotte Corday
Charlotte Corday killed Jean-Paul Marat in his bath and was executed four days later. Born in 1768 in Normandy, she was a minor noble descended from the dramatist Corneille, educated in a convent, and turned out when the revolution closed the religious houses. She was a republican. Her sympathies were with the Girondins, the moderate faction expelled from the Convention in June 1793, many of whom took refuge in Caen where she lived and where she heard them speak. She held Marat responsible. As the editor of L'Ami du Peuple he had called for heads by the hundred and then by the thousand, had helped drive the Girondins out, and was, in her judgement, about to bring civil war. She went to Paris in July 1793, bought a kitchen knife at the Palais-Royal, and called at his house. Marat had a disfiguring skin disease and worked in a medicinal bath. She was refused twice and admitted on the third attempt after sending in a note offering the names of Girondins at Caen. He wrote the names down and said they would be guillotined within a week. She stabbed him once, through the lung and the aorta. At her trial she said she had killed one man to save a hundred thousand. She was guillotined on 17 July. An assistant held up her head and struck it, and witnesses reported that the face reddened — which started a long argument about consciousness after decapitation. David painted Marat dead within months. She was twenty-four, and had told her father in a letter that she was going to avenge many innocent victims.
- Lived: 1768 CE – 1793 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: assassin, girondist_sympathiser
