Charlotte Corday
The Beginning
Charlotte Corday was a figure in the French Revolution best known for assassinating Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat.
Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d’Armont was born on July 27th, 1768 in Normandy, France. After the death of her mother and older sister, her grief-stricken father sent Charlotte and her younger sister to a convent in Caen. It was here that Charlotte first encountered the works of Plutarch, Rousseau, and Voltaire.
The Middle
As the French Revolution moved from political revolution to radicalized terror, Charlotte found herself sympathizing with the Jacobin faction known as the Girondins. Many Girondist groups visited Caen, and she was exposed to numerous speeches and Girondin leaders over the years. She regarded them as a movement that would ultimately save France.
The September Massacres of 1792 and the deaths of Girondin leaders by the guillotine angered her further, which eventually led to the moment she is most known for in history – the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat.
The End
Corday believed that Marat’s death would prevent the possibility of a civil war in France, as his radicalized beliefs as a member of the Jacobin faction known as The Mountain had led to only bloodshed and violence thus far.
On July 9th, 1793, Charlotte Corday traveled to Paris and took a room at the Hôtel de Providence. She bought a kitchen knife, and over the course of the next few days, she wrote Adresse aux Français amis des lois et de la paix, or “Address to the French, the friends of Law and Peace.” This piece explained her motives for the upcoming assassination.
On July 13th, 1793, Charlotte Corday visited Marat’s own home with news of a planned Girondist uprising in Caen. Due to a skin condition, Marat conducted business from the comfort of his own bathtub. He listened to Charlotte read names of Girondins involved in the uprising, and as he wrote them down, she plunged the knife directly into his chest. His fiancée rushed into the room, along with another man who seized Corday. Corday made no attempt to escape.
Throughout her trial, the most recurring question was whether she was involved in a larger Girondist plot. She truthfully insisted that this was an act entirely of her own doing, which many of the officials examining her did not believe, as they thought another man had to be behind her schemes.
She requested to be painted before her execution, which was fulfilled by a National Guard officer named Jean-Jacques Hauer. It has been said that Hauer admired her, and took a keen interest in her fate, but was required to portray Charlotte as a vain aristocrat in his portrait. His depiction of her showed Corday as having very light hair – implying that she had taken the time to powder her hair before killing Marat. Her true hair color was darker than this.
On July 17th, 1793, twenty-four year old Charlotte Corday was executed by guillotine for being a condemned traitor who had assassinated a representative of the people.
An angry man named Legros slapped her cheek after her head had fallen off into the basket, and Jacobin leaders had her body autopsied immediately after her death to check for her virginity, convinced that a man sharing her bed was in on the assassination plans.
There was no man, and Charlotte was found to be a virgin. She “alone conceived the plan and executed it.”