The beauty and the Beast

Murder of a Friend of the People

To put an end to the career of a hardware politician, it is enough to dismiss him. A public politician gripped by an all-consuming thirst for power can only be stopped through physical elimination. However, the court of history rarely justifies political murders. One of the few exceptions is the murder of Jean-Paul Marat by Charlotte Corday.

Two truisms have taken root in the mass consciousness—and, what is more surprising, in the scientific consciousness as well. History does not know the subjunctive mood, says the first; The role of the individual in history is determined by objective circumstances, says the second.
Therefore, on the one hand, it is impossible to say whether concentration camps, gas chambers and crematoria would have been built in Germany if Adolf Hitler had not been there; Three million Khmers would have died under the blows of hoes if there had been no Pol Pot, or how many lives would have been saved if the tsarist government had dealt with the Bolshevik conspirators led by Vladimir Ulyanov at the beginning of the century.
On the other hand, it still seems that the death of the main characters of the events mentioned would change the course of world history for the better.
From a human moral point of view, everything is even more complicated. And yet, the nobility of the motives that pushed Charlotte Corday to kill Marat has long been beyond doubt by anyone who has seriously studied the history of the French Revolution.

Maid Corday
Marie-Charlotte Corday d'Armont was born on July 27, 1768. Her family belonged to an impoverished aristocratic family - Charlotte's mother traced her descent from Corneille.
After the death of Madame d'Armont in 1782, Charlotte was sent by her father to be raised at the Monastery of Our Lady in Caen. By this time, the girl’s character was fully formed. Her teacher described it as follows: “This girl is merciless to herself; she never complains about suffering, and you have to guess that she is sick - she endures the most severe pain so firmly.”
Charlotte read a lot. Modernity disgusted her. The deeds of the ancients seemed to her free from the vulgarity and pettiness that she saw around her. “How few true patriots are in our time who are ready to die for the fatherland!” she exclaims in one of her letters. “Almost everywhere there is selfishness!” Contempt for her contemporaries took on extreme forms: she rejected several excellent matches and announced her firm decision never to get married.
With a vow of celibacy, Charlotte finally broke with reality. She chose to live in a dream world. Her thoughts and feelings were completely taken over by the stern valor of antiquity; the cult of the homeland, the republic and self-sacrifice became its religion. Charlotte borrowed from Corneille the motto “Everything for the Fatherland!”
When the revolutionary decree of February 13, 1790 closed the monasteries in France, M. d'Armont, unable to support his children, sent Charlotte to his aunt in Caen.
During the Revolution, Charlotte immediately sided with the Republicans. However, the execution of Louis XVI forced her to recognize the people who demanded the death of the king as executioners of freedom. Here is an exact snapshot of her state of mind, made by herself in a letter written a few days after the execution of the monarch: “I shudder with horror and indignation... All these people who promised us freedom killed her; these are executioners - and nothing more... All our friends are victims of persecution... I would follow the example of the emigrants, but God keeps us here for other purposes..."

Life physician Marat
Unlike Charlotte Corday, who had been thinking about her fatherland since her adolescence, the republican Marat dreamed of glory since childhood. Here is what he wrote about himself with discouraging frankness: “From early childhood I was tormented by a thirst for fame; when I was 5 years old, I wanted to be a school teacher, at 15 years old - a professor, at 18 years old - a writer, at 20 years old - a creator of brilliant works and then throughout my life my constant desire was to become an apostle and preacher of higher ideas."
Marat truly had extraordinary abilities. When the time of youthful dreams had passed, Marat chose a medical career and received a doctorate in medicine. His skill secured him a position as personal physician at the court of the Count of Artois, a member of the royal family.
In the medical world, Marat was known as a supporter of live cuttings and experiments on animals. Once he even entered into a contract with a certain butcher, according to which he supplied him with animals intended for slaughter for experiments. A letter from Marat has been preserved, where he expresses his thoughts and feelings about his own exercises: “Wanting to do a lot of good to some, you have to cause a little pain to others; only in this way can you become a benefactor of humanity.”
However, experiments on animals did not bring Marat widespread fame. But the revolution opened up the opportunity for him to experiment on people. The scalpel was replaced by the guillotine, and tens of thousands of people were deprived of their lives - in accordance with the already well-known principle “If you want to do a lot of good to some, you have to inflict a little pain on others.”
Marat founded the newspaper "Friend of the People", which soon became the de facto official body for the imposition of death sentences. In 1792, Marat on its pages demanded the execution of 20 thousand “aristocrats”, a year later - 40 thousand, and then another 270 thousand. All this, of course, for the good of the homeland and all humanity. He proposed hanging the headless corpses on the walls of the Convention as a warning to future traitors. And after the king’s arrest, in every issue of “Friend of the People,” he demanded death for the “traitor Capet,” to whom he had recently flatteringly dedicated his scientific works.
Marat's influence on the Parisians was terrifying. In September 1792, an excited crowd broke into Parisian prisons and tore to pieces the “aristocrats” there, that is, everyone who fell into their hands - priests, nobles, bourgeois, bourgeois, peasants, men and women... The bosses of this massacre were those hired by Marat criminals. More than a thousand people died in Paris alone. And some other cities followed his example.
When, at the insistence of the Girondins, Marat was put on trial by a revolutionary tribunal for inciting civil war and inciting murders, the judges acquitted him - they found no motive for the accusation. After the verdict was announced, Marat shouted defiantly: “No earthly force can prevent me from seeing the traitors and exposing them, probably thanks to the higher organization of my mind!”
The crowd crowned the acquitted Marat with an oak wreath and carried him home from court in his arms.

Epistolary genre
It is not surprising that Marat became the embodiment of evil for Charlotte Corday; she considered him the main inspirer of the violence that was committed daily before her eyes and about which she read in the newspapers. And she decided to kill.
Early on the morning of July 9, 1793, Charlotte boarded a stagecoach bound for Paris and left Caen forever. Two days later, Charlotte arrived in Paris, where she stayed at one of the hotels. It took her two days to gain access to the Convention, where she hoped to meet Marat. But it turned out that Marat was ill and had not been present at meetings for several days. It was necessary to change the original plan on the fly, since it was unthinkable to wait for Marat’s recovery - arrests and executions multiplied every day.
On July 13, Charlotte, waking up early in the morning (Paris did not influence her provincial habits), sat down to write a letter to Marat: “Citizen, I came from Caen. Your love for the fatherland gives me reason to assume that you will be interested in learning about the unfortunate events in this part Republic. Please receive me and give me a few minutes. I will give you the opportunity to render a great service to France."
Then she went to the Palais Royal, where the shops were crowded. From a cutler she bought for two francs a huge kitchen knife with an ebony handle in a paper case made to look like shagreen leather.
There was some kind of terrible symbolism in this, which Charlotte, of course, did not suspect: a supporter of live cuttings was doomed to die from the instrument that he once wielded “for the good of the homeland and humanity.” While the shopkeeper was wrapping up his purchase and counting the money, the street news-herald shouted about the execution of thirty National Guardsmen, accused of the attempt on the life of a member of the Convention, that had just taken place. Charlotte did not show her feelings in any way.
Leaving the shop, she took a cab to Marat’s house. The door was opened by a woman with a glass eye, Oben's watchman. “Marat is sick,” she said, “and doesn’t accept anyone.” Charlotte tried to insist, but, realizing that it was useless, she handed over the letter and returned to the hotel.
There she wrote a second letter to Marat: “I wrote to you this morning, Marat; have you received my letter? I hope you will not refuse me in view of the important matter; it is enough that I am unhappy to have the right to your patronage.”
And at about six in the evening, the Corday girl put on a gray striped tarpaulin skirt and a hat with a black cockade and green ribbons and again went to 20 Rue Cordeliers.

Death blow
Rising to the floor where Marat’s apartment was, Charlotte saw that the door to it was open; there was no watchman. In the hall, Marat's cook was looking for a spoon so that Marat's friend, Simone Evrard, could stir his medicine for him - pieces of clay in almond milk. The crooked Aubin was folding sheets of “Friend of the People” on the floor (the newspaper was published at Marat’s house).
At that moment two people entered the apartment - Pillet, who brought Marat the bill for the latest issue, and Laurent Bas with a pile of paper for "Friend of the People". Marat was lying in the bath that the doctors prescribed for him (he had eczema). He accepted Pille and signed the bill.
When Pille left Marat, the one-eyed Aubin convinced the girl to leave. Pille had already left when Simone Evrard came out of the kitchen in response to the noise. Having learned that the visitor was coming for the second time, she agreed to go to Marat and ask if he would accept her.
The bath softened Marat, and he agreed to talk with the young republican from Caen. Simone led Charlotte through the dining room, let the girl into the bathroom and, closing the door, returned to the hall.
Two hours later, when everything had already happened, she assured the investigator that she instinctively sensed danger - but perhaps it was just a pang of jealousy. Be that as it may, just in case, she looked at Marat again: Charlotte was sitting calmly near the bathtub with her back to the window. Then Simone grabbed the dish of veal, rice and brains that was standing there, intended for dinner, and left.
She had barely placed the dish in the kitchen when a hoarse scream came from the bathroom. She jerked the door open.
- Come to me, my good friend! - Marat gurgled, and his head fell on his chest, immersed in the quickly reddening water. A stream of blood as thick as a finger was gushing from his chest, and dark streams were already running towards the bedroom door. Pale Charlotte stood at the window; the knife lay on the bathtub shelf among the newspapers, which were quickly swelling with blood.

Arrest
The conversation that took place between Marat and Corday is known from her testimony. Marat asked what the political mood was in Caen and what the Girondins there were doing. And then he demanded to know their names. Charlotte obediently began to list them, Marat entered them into his notebook. (A board thrown over the bathtub served as his desk.)
“Okay,” he finally said in his sepulchral voice, “in a few days I’ll send them to the guillotine.”
The next second, he saw the black handle of a knife sticking out of his chest - Charlotte put all her strength into the blow. The pain came later.
The women who came running raised a heart-rending cry, but did not detain Charlotte. Only in the hallway did the small and weak Laurent Ba knock her down with a blow from a chair. “I threw this monster to the ground and held her by the breasts,” he later boastfully asserted in his testimony.
The main tenant of the house, the dentist Delafonde, came running to the noise. Without stopping in the hallway, where Ba continued to beat the girl lying on the floor, Delafonde proceeded to the bathroom and here he saw the dying Marat, vainly trying to say something. With every heartbeat, streams of blood erupted from the wound. Simone tried in vain to squeeze it with her hand.
Delafonde pulled Marat out of the bath and carried him into the next room. He sent for Aubin for the doctor. A few minutes later the house was full of people demanding to hand over the killer. There were bloody tracks all over the apartment; in the bedroom, blood from Marat’s wound flooded the walls; Bloody water from the bathtub spilled all the way to the kitchen.
Finally the police commissioner arrived. He pushed Charlotte into one of the rooms, where the first interrogation took place. Corday maintained complete composure and clarity of thought.
- You are going to the scaffold! - one of the deputies participating in the interrogation squealed, infuriated by her calmness.
“I know that,” she answered coolly.

Marat's funeral
On July 15, Marat's body was exhibited in the ancient church occupied by the Cordeliers Club, of which he was a member. There was a bathtub next to the coffin, and a bloody sheet hung next to it. The stage designers of the funeral were the artist David and the French Theater.
Busts of Marat were in great demand. The people shed tears, praying for this rough, bestial face. In the salons they read the quatrains of the Marquis de Sade: “The only true republican and dear idol! Having lost you, Marat, we are consoled by looking at your image, we, who tenderly love the great man who adopted the virtues. From the ashes of Scaevola will be born Brutus.”
However, there were other opinions, but they were not intended for replication. Robespierre honored the memory of the Friend of the People with these words: “Marat did a lot of stupid things, it was time for him to die.”
Two days after the funeral, the trial took place. The revolutionary tribunal met in the Tuileries, in the Hall of Equality. Prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville presided. When he asked what prompted her to kill Marat, Charlotte replied:
- His crimes. I killed one man to save hundreds of thousands of others, I killed a scoundrel, a ferocious wild animal, to save the innocent and give rest to my homeland.
-Who instilled such hatred in you?
“I didn’t need the hatred of others, my own was enough.”
Only once did Corday become embarrassed. The bailiff showed her a knife with traces of dried blood and asked if she recognized it. Charlotte turned away: “Yes, I recognize him, I recognize him!”
The jury found her guilty.

Execution of Corday
At six o'clock in the evening the carriage with Charlotte left the prison yard. The huge crowd greeted her with a furious roar, in which the curses and abuse of the so-called furies of the guillotine - women who, for a fee, scolded those convicted by the tribunal, were especially prominent. Suddenly a short but strong thunderstorm broke out. Charlotte rode standing on a cart, wearing a red shirt.
The storm subsided and the sun came out again. The journey to the scaffold lasted almost two hours. At about seven o'clock the cart entered Revolution Square. As she ascended the scaffold, Charlotte shuddered - she saw a guillotine. The executioner tried to shield the execution instrument from her, but Charlotte stopped him: “I have the right to be curious: I have never seen this.”
The executioner tore the scarf from her chest; Charlotte blushed. A few seconds later, he showed the girl’s head with still crimson cheeks to the people.
Contemporaries turned their backs on Corday. Even the Girondins, opponents of Marat, accused her of aggravating the terror with her actions. Soviet historians wrote the same thing about the assassination attempt on Fanny Kaplan, keeping silent about the fact that even before the start of the “Red Terror,” tens of thousands of people were shot in the dungeons of the Cheka in the country. For people like Robespierre and Lenin, terror is not a response; terror is the essence of the political systems they nurture.
As for Charlotte Corday, she was only guilty of loving her homeland a little more than others.

SERGEY TSVETKOV

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Contemporary about Marat
“Marat borders on the mentally ill; proof of this is his bestial exaltation, continuous excited state, extreme, almost feverish mobility, inexhaustible writer’s itch, automatism of thinking and convulsive tension of will, constant insomnia, extreme uncleanliness.”
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Signatures
In pursuit of glory, the personal physician of Count Artois replaced the lancet with a more powerful instrument.
On September 2, 1792, Parisians, following the calls of Marat, broke into the city prisons. But not for the release of prisoners, but for the pronouncement and execution of the final sentence
The convention condemned Louis XYI to death. Upon learning of this, Charlotte Corday condemned Jean-Paul Marat to death.
Charlotte Corday was irreconcilable with the enemies of the republic, among whom she included the Republicans
The first time Corday saw the guillotine was on the day of her own execution.
David, being the official draftsman of the revolution, used all his skill, trying to convey the tragedy and greatness of the death of the Friend of the People

Magazine "Kommersant Vlast" No. 12 dated 04/07/1998, p. 55