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Charlotte Corday
Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont (27 July 1768 – 17 July 1793), known simply as Charlotte Corday (French: [kɔʁdɛ]), was a figure of the French Revolution who assassinated revolutionary and Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat on 13 July 1793. Corday was a sympathiser of the Girondins, a moderate faction of French revolutionaries in opposition to the Jacobins. She held Marat responsible for the September Massacres of 1792 and, believing that the Revolution was in jeopardy from the more radical course the Jacobins had taken, she decided to assassinate Marat.
On 13 July 1793, having travelled to Paris and obtained an audience with Marat, Corday fatally stabbed him with a knife while he was taking a medicinal bath. Marat's assassination was memorialised in the painting The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David. Corday was immediately arrested, found guilty by the Revolutionary Tribunal and on 17 July, four days after Marat's death, executed by the guillotine on the Place de Grève. In 1847, writer Alphonse de Lamartine gave Corday the posthumous nickname l'ange de l'assassinat (the Angel of Assassination).
Born in Saint-Saturnin-des-Ligneries, a hamlet in the commune of Écorches (Orne), in Normandy, Corday was a member of a minor aristocratic family. Her father was Jacques François de Corday, Seigneur d'Armont, and her mother was Charlotte Marie Jacqueline Gaultier de Mesnival. Her parents were cousins, and she was a fifth-generation descendant of the dramatist Pierre Corneille.
While a young girl, her older sister and her mother died. Her father, unable to cope with his grief over their deaths, sent Corday and her younger sister to the Abbaye aux Dames convent in Caen, where Corday had access to the abbey's library and first encountered the writings of Plutarch, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire. After 1791, she lived in Caen with her aunt, Madame le Coustellier de Bretteville-Gouville. The two developed a close relationship, and Corday was the sole heir to her aunt's estate.
Corday's physical appearance is described on her passport as "five feet and one inch ... hair and eyebrows auburn, eyes gray, forehead high, mouth medium size, chin dimpled, and an oval face".
After the National Convention radicalised further and headed towards terror, Corday began to sympathise with the Girondins. She admired their speeches and grew fond of many of the Girondist groups whom she met while living in Caen. She respected the political principles of the Girondins and came to align herself with their thinking. She regarded them as a movement that would ultimately save France. The Girondins represented a more moderate approach to the revolution and they, like Corday, were sceptical about the direction the revolution was taking. They opposed the Montagnards, who advocated a more radical approach to the revolution, which included the extreme idea that the only way the revolution would survive invasion and civil war was through terrorising and executing those opposed to it.[page needed]
The influence of Girondin ideas on Corday is evident in her words at her trial: "I have killed one man to save a hundred thousand." As the revolution progressed, the Girondins had become progressively more opposed to the radical, violent propositions of the Montagnards such as Marat and Maximilien Robespierre. Corday's notion that she was saving a hundred thousand lives echoes this Girondin sentiment as they attempted to slow the revolution and reverse the violence that had escalated since the September Massacres of 1792.[citation needed]
Jean-Paul Marat was a member of the radical Jacobin faction that had a leading role during the Reign of Terror. As a journalist, he exerted power and influence through his newspaper, L'Ami du peuple ("The Friend of the People"). Corday's decision to kill Marat was stimulated by her revulsion at the September Massacres, for which she held Marat responsible, and by her fear of an all-out civil war. She believed that Marat was threatening the republic and that his death would end violence throughout the country. She also believed that King Louis XVI should not have been executed.
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Charlotte Corday
Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont (27 July 1768 – 17 July 1793), known simply as Charlotte Corday (French: [kɔʁdɛ]), was a figure of the French Revolution who assassinated revolutionary and Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat on 13 July 1793. Corday was a sympathiser of the Girondins, a moderate faction of French revolutionaries in opposition to the Jacobins. She held Marat responsible for the September Massacres of 1792 and, believing that the Revolution was in jeopardy from the more radical course the Jacobins had taken, she decided to assassinate Marat.
On 13 July 1793, having travelled to Paris and obtained an audience with Marat, Corday fatally stabbed him with a knife while he was taking a medicinal bath. Marat's assassination was memorialised in the painting The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David. Corday was immediately arrested, found guilty by the Revolutionary Tribunal and on 17 July, four days after Marat's death, executed by the guillotine on the Place de Grève. In 1847, writer Alphonse de Lamartine gave Corday the posthumous nickname l'ange de l'assassinat (the Angel of Assassination).
Born in Saint-Saturnin-des-Ligneries, a hamlet in the commune of Écorches (Orne), in Normandy, Corday was a member of a minor aristocratic family. Her father was Jacques François de Corday, Seigneur d'Armont, and her mother was Charlotte Marie Jacqueline Gaultier de Mesnival. Her parents were cousins, and she was a fifth-generation descendant of the dramatist Pierre Corneille.
While a young girl, her older sister and her mother died. Her father, unable to cope with his grief over their deaths, sent Corday and her younger sister to the Abbaye aux Dames convent in Caen, where Corday had access to the abbey's library and first encountered the writings of Plutarch, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire. After 1791, she lived in Caen with her aunt, Madame le Coustellier de Bretteville-Gouville. The two developed a close relationship, and Corday was the sole heir to her aunt's estate.
Corday's physical appearance is described on her passport as "five feet and one inch ... hair and eyebrows auburn, eyes gray, forehead high, mouth medium size, chin dimpled, and an oval face".
After the National Convention radicalised further and headed towards terror, Corday began to sympathise with the Girondins. She admired their speeches and grew fond of many of the Girondist groups whom she met while living in Caen. She respected the political principles of the Girondins and came to align herself with their thinking. She regarded them as a movement that would ultimately save France. The Girondins represented a more moderate approach to the revolution and they, like Corday, were sceptical about the direction the revolution was taking. They opposed the Montagnards, who advocated a more radical approach to the revolution, which included the extreme idea that the only way the revolution would survive invasion and civil war was through terrorising and executing those opposed to it.[page needed]
The influence of Girondin ideas on Corday is evident in her words at her trial: "I have killed one man to save a hundred thousand." As the revolution progressed, the Girondins had become progressively more opposed to the radical, violent propositions of the Montagnards such as Marat and Maximilien Robespierre. Corday's notion that she was saving a hundred thousand lives echoes this Girondin sentiment as they attempted to slow the revolution and reverse the violence that had escalated since the September Massacres of 1792.[citation needed]
Jean-Paul Marat was a member of the radical Jacobin faction that had a leading role during the Reign of Terror. As a journalist, he exerted power and influence through his newspaper, L'Ami du peuple ("The Friend of the People"). Corday's decision to kill Marat was stimulated by her revulsion at the September Massacres, for which she held Marat responsible, and by her fear of an all-out civil war. She believed that Marat was threatening the republic and that his death would end violence throughout the country. She also believed that King Louis XVI should not have been executed.
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