STIRRING TIMES

Evening Star, Issue 19763, 13 January 1928, Page 1

STIRRING TIMES

CHARLOTTE CORDAY ASSASSINATION OF MARAT THE STORY RETOLD. Eight days before she was. beheaded for killing Marat the beautiful Charlotte Corday wrote a letter to her father in which she bade him farewell as she set out upon her journey of vengeance. This Jotter, which was recently taken to Now York by Thomas F. Madigan, was written at a moment when her plans had been made to take the diligence from Caen to Paris on the morning of July 11, 1793. Yet by not a word nor a faltering stroke of the pen does it reveal that her whole being was filled with the single purpose to rid her native land of the “ ferocious beast that would have devoured Franco by the fire of civil war,” She wrote:— “1 give you obedience, my dear papa, yet I leave without your permission. I leave without speaking to you because it would have been too painful. 1 am going to England because I do not believe that one can live happily and peacefully in France for any length time. As I leave I put this letter in the post for yon, and when .you receive it I will no longer bo in this country. Heaven refuses us the happiness of living together as it lias refused it to others; it may perhaps bo more kindly to our country. Farewell, my dear papa. Embrace my sister for me and do not forget me. “CORDAY.” It bears the date July 9, 1793. Little more than a week 'later Legros, the executioner’s assistant, lifted the bead of Mario Anne Charlotte Corday d’Annont from the block, and, striking the face with the flat of his hand, held it up to the public. Charlotte Corday lived in stirring times, says the New York ‘ Times,’ in announcing the fact that the letter had now found a home in America. France lay gasping in the aftermath of the revolution, and the Government was under the ruthless domination of the triumvirate composed of Marat, Robespierre, and Danton. She grew up in Caen, the capital of Normandy, which, in the turbulent days when the Monta-gnards were in power in Paris, threw open its doors to the Girondists. Bho frequently sought out the company of Barbaronx, Petion, Louvel, Buzol, but never allowed herself to be unduly influenced by them.

From her earliest childhood Charlotte Corday was steeped in revolutionary doctrines. These she learned from her father, an impecunious nobleman, on whose estate she lived and worked until, at the ago of nine, she entered the Abbayo anx Dames. Afton lon years spent in the seclusion of the convent Charlotte was obliged to go lo live with an aged aunt, Dime. De Bretovillo, who occupied a grey and melancholy mansion at Caen, known as the Grand Manoir. A SOLITARY EXISTENCE.

For live years she lived an almost solitary existence, devoting long hours to her studies. Constantly she heard the name Jean Paul Marat. The thought of his cruelties became an obsession, until it seemed to her that every crime in France must be laid at his door and that once the land was rid of him Heaven might “be more kindly” to her country.

Nearly all that is known of her last days, from the time that she left her home at Caen until she stepped into the tumbril to be driven through the howling mobs to the guillotine is drawn in the Conciergeric, Rarely Ims such a frank confession been made in writing of the intent to kill, and the actual perpetration of the deed as that made by the twenty-foiir-ycar-oid girl in a document addressed to Barbaronx, the eloquent Girondist, who had spurred her on. From her own hand wo know of her trip to Paris and her call on Lauze De Pcrrct. Wc know, too, how she arose early on the morning of July 13 and made her way to tho gardens of the Palais Royal, where she listened to the birds and romped with tho children. There she waited fo hear the rattling of shutters as tho shops were opened announcing that the hour had come when she could buy a dagger with which she was to end Marat’s life before nightfall. At 11 o’clock she went to the dingy house in the Rue dcs Cordeliers where Marat lived, only to learn that no one who ■ had not. particular business with the “ Ami du Peuplo ” was allowed admission. During the course of tile day she sent, or took, a letter to him announcing that she had news of (he Girondists in the Calvados. “ 1 will put you in a way to render a great service to France,” she added. The lie that served as a wedge to open the way for her into Marat's presence was, in her own opinion, the only hlot on her reputation. 1

At 7 that night she returned to the house. She was dressed in white. Admission was gainer! through the aid of Simnionc lOvrard, Marat's mistress. Charlotte ('onlay was ushered into his presence. The sick man was reclining in a hot bath, his only means of obtaining relief from the sores that covered bis tortured body. FACE TO FACE WITH MARAT. in the man’s distorted features she saw the stamp that hatred and passion had left. The dour closed behind her. The two were alone. She came close to Marat, and he demanded to know tho names of the traitors. She disclosed them, if any pity had stirred in, her heart when she beheld his haggard face and misshapen body it vanished as he gloated over the prospect of new heads lor the guillotine. His last words were a cry, “ A nioi, ma. chore amie, a moil” Charlotte Corday’s dagger was in his bosom. This was not the end for which she had hoped. She had thought to strike her victim in the open, at the head of his forces; to be caught by the angered mob and torn to pieces on the spot, dying a glorious death, her name unknown and forever a secret. As it was, the cries of Siimnone Evrard and the servants attracted the guard. With their bayonets the soldiers protected Corday from the anger ol those who crowded into the room. Word of what had happened flew through the town. She was questioned on the spot. “How did you know how to strike his heart?” “ The indignation that swelled my own showed me the place,' she replied. Her testimony convicted her. At 2 in the morning she was taken away in the same carriage that had brought her to Marat’s house. SWIFT TRIAL. Her trail was swift. Though the head of the tribunal gladly would have proved her insane, her answers were too lucid. In vain, too, they tried to make her admit that she was a tool of the Girondists. “I came solely to kill Marat,” she announced, and gave as her reason his many crimes, the desolation of France, and the civil war he had kindled throughout the kingdom. Her vibrant

tones rang through the hall, stirring all who heard them; for “sound was part of her beauty ’’ it is said that Danton and Robe* spierro stood among the menacing crowds that herded in the streets through which the death cart had to pass. The two were curious to see this “angel of assassination” whose ex-' alted passion had carried her to the point of striking down their companion. As one thinks of her standing proudly in the swaying cart, scarcely conscious of the howls of hate that had surged around her, one remembers that on the morning of her departure for Paris she left a Bible on her bed, on whose open page was the verse- “ Judith went - out of the city adorned with a marvellous beauty which the Lord had given her fdr th« deliverance of Israel.”