[From the People's Journal.]
CHARLOTTE CORDAY.
Perhaps the event that lingers longest in the memory, among all the appalling episodes and startling passages of the French Revolution, is the assassination of the tyrant Marat, by Charlotte Corday. With the blood of old Corneille running in her veins, and possessing something of his stern and masculine love of liberty, this simple child of nature hears in her distant home that her friends, the Girondists, are proscribed, and that a hated triumvirate in Paris, tramples on the feelings and liberties of the people. Full of one idea, she purchases a knife, and, without a single confidant, sets out for the metropolis, where, procuring an interview with Marat, she stabs him to the heart, and with one blow accomplishes her revenge, and what she vainly supposed to be the people's redemption.
In Miss Julia Kavanagh's charming volumes she gives us a pretty faithful memoir of this extraordinary woman. Among the women of the French Revolution, there is one, says the gifted authoress, who stands essentially apart: a solitary episode of the eventful story. She appears for a moment, performs a deed—heroic as to the intention, criminal as to the means—and disappears forever; lost in the shadow of time—an unfathomed mystery.
The greatest portion of the youth of Charlotte Corday—to give her the name by which she is generally known—was spent in the calm obscurity of her convent solitude. Many high visions, many burning dreams and lofty aspirations, already haunted her imaginative and enthusiastic mind, as she slowly paced the silent cloisters, or rested, lost in thought, beneath the shadow of the ancient elms. It is said that, like Madame Roland, she contemplated secluding herself for ever from the world in her monastic retreat; but, affected by the skepticism of the age, which penetrated even beyond convent walls, she gave up the project....
All the austerity and republican enthusiasm of her illustrious ancestor, Pierre Corneille, seemed to have come down to his young descendant. Even Rousseau and Raynal, the apostles of democracy, had no pages that could absorb her so deeply as those of ancient history, with its stirring deeds and immortal recollections. Often, like Manon Philipon in the recess of her father's workshop, might Charlotte Corday be seen in her convent cell, thoughtfully bending over an open volume of Plutarch, that powerful and eloquent historian of all heroic sacrifices.
When the Abbaye aux Dames was closed, in consequence of the Revolution, Charlotte was in her twentieth year, in the prime of life, and of wonderful beauty; and never, perhaps, did a vision of more dazzling loveliness step forth from beneath the dark convent portal into the light of the free and open world. She was rather tall, but admirably proportioned, with a figure full of native grace and dignity: her hands, arms, and shoulders were models of pure sculptural beauty. An expression of singular gentleness and serenity characterized her fair, oval countenance and regular features. Her open forehead, dark and well-arched eyebrows, and eyes of a gray so deep that it was often mistaken for blue, added to her natural grave and meditative appearance; her nose was straight and well formed, her mouth serious but exquisitely beautiful.
On leaving the convent in which she had been educated, Charlotte Corday went to reside with her aunt, Madame Coutellier de Bretteville Gouville, an old royalist lady, who inhabited an ancient-looking house in one of the principal streets of Caën. There the young girl, who had inherited a little property, spent several years, chiefly engaged in watching the progress of the Revolution.
A silent reserve characterized this epoch of Charlotte Corday's life; her enthusiasm was not external but inward; she listened to the discussions which were carried on around her without taking a part in them herself. She seemed to feel instinctively that great thoughts are always better nursed in the heart's solitude: that they can only lose their native depth and intensity by being revealed too freely before the indifferent gaze of the world. Those with whom she then occasionally conversed took little heed of the substance of her discourse, and could remember nothing of it when she afterward became celebrated; but all recollected well her voice, and spoke with strange enthusiasm of its pure, silvery sound.
The fall of the Girondists, on the 31st of May, first suggested to Charlotte Corday the possibility of giving an active shape to her hitherto passive feelings. She watched with intense, though still silent interest, the progress of events, concealing her secret indignation and thoughts of vengeance under her habitually calm aspect. Those feelings were heightened in her soul by the presence of the fugitive Girondists, who had found a refuge in Caën, and were urging the Normans to raise an army to march on Paris. She found a pretense to call upon Barbaroux, then with his friends at the Intendance. She came twice, accompanied by an old servant, and protected by her own modest dignity. Péthion saw her in the hall, where she was waiting for the handsome Girondist, and observed with a smile, "So the beautiful aristocrat is come to see republicans." "Citizen Péthion," she replied, "you now judge me without knowing me, but a time will come when you shall learn who I am." With Barbaroux, Charlotte chiefly conversed of the imprisoned Girondists; of Madame Roland and Marat. The name of this man had long haunted her with a mingled feeling of dread and horror. To Marat she ascribed the proscription of the Girondists, the woes of the Republic, and on him she resolved to avenge her ill-fated country. Charlotte was not aware that Marat was but the tool of Danton and Robespierre. "If such actions could be counseled," afterward said Barbaroux, "it is not Marat whom we would have advised her to strike."
While this deadly thought was daily strengthening itself in Charlotte's mind, she received several offers of marriage. She declined them, on the plea of wishing to remain free: but strange indeed must have seemed to her, at that moment, those proposals of earthly love. One of those whom her beauty had enamored, M. de Franquelin, a young volunteer in the cause of the Girondists, died of grief on learning her fate; his last request was, that her portrait, and a few letters he had formerly received from her, might be buried with him in his grave.
For several days after her last interview with Barbaroux, Charlotte brooded silently over her great thought; often meditating on the history of Judith. Her aunt subsequently remembered that, on entering her room one morning, she found an old Bible open on her bed: the verse in which it is recorded that "the Lord had gifted Judith with a special beauty and fairness," for the deliverance of Israel, was underlined with a pencil.
On another occasion Madame de Bretteville found her niece weeping alone; she inquired into the cause of her tears. "They flow," replied Charlotte, "for the misfortunes of my country." Heroic and devoted as she was, she then also wept, perchance, over her own youth and beauty, so soon to be sacrificed forever. No personal considerations altered her resolve: she procured a passport, provided herself with money, and paid a farewell visit to her father, to inform him that, considering the unsettled condition of France, she thought it best to retire to England. He approved of her intention, and bade her adieu. On returning to Caën, Charlotte told the same tale to Madame de Bretteville, left a secret provision for an old nurse, and distributed the little property she possessed among her friends.
It was on the morning of the 9th of July, 1793, that she left the house of her aunt, without trusting herself with a last farewell. Her most earnest wish was, when her deed should have been accomplished, to perish, wholly unknown, by the hands of an infuriated multitude. The woman who could contemplate such a fate, and calmly devote herself to it, without one selfish thought of future renown, had indeed the heroic soul of a martyr.
Her journey to Paris was marked by no other event than the unwelcome attentions of some Jacobins with whom she traveled. One of them, struck by her modest and gentle beauty, made her a very serious proposal of marriage: she playfully evaded his request, but promised that he should learn who and what she was at some future period. On entering Paris, she proceeded immediately to the Hotel de la Providence, Rue ties Vieux Augustins, not far from Marat's dwelling. Here she rested for two days before calling on her intended victim. Nothing can mark more forcibly the singular calmness of her mind: she felt no hurry to accomplish the deed for which she had journeyed so far, and over which she had meditated so deeply: her soul remained serene and undaunted to the last. The room which she occupied, and which has often been pointed out to inquiring strangers, was a dark and wretched attic, into which light scarcely ever penetrated. There she read again the volume of Plutarch she had brought with her—unwilling to part from her favorite author, even in her last hours—and probably composed that energetic address to the people which was found upon her after her apprehension.
Charlotte perceived that to call on Marat was the only means by which she might accomplish her purpose. She did so on the morning of the 13th of July, having first purchased a knife in the Palais Royal, and written him a note, in which she requested an interview. She was refused admittance. She then wrote him a second note, more pressing than the first, and in which she represented herself as persecuted for the cause of freedom. Without waiting to see what effect this note might produce, she called again at half-past seven the same evening.
Marat then resided in the Rue des Cordeliers, in a gloomy-looking house, which has since been demolished. His constant fears of assassination were shared by those around him; the porter seeing a strange woman pass by his lodge, without pausing to make any inquiry, ran out and called her back. She did not heed his remonstrance, but swiftly ascended the old stone staircase, until she had reached the door of Marat's apartment. It was cautiously opened by Albertine, a woman with whom Marat cohabited, and who passed for his wife. Recognizing the same young and handsome girl who had already called on her husband, and animated, perhaps by a feeling of jealous mistrust, Albertine refused to admit her; Charlotte insisted with great earnestness. The sound of their altercation reached Marat: he immediately ordered his wife to admit the stranger, whom he recognized as the author of the two letters he had received in the course of the day. Albertine obeyed reluctantly; she allowed Charlotte to enter; and after crossing with her an ante chamber, where she had been occupied with a man named Laurent Basse in folding some numbers of the "Ami du Peuple," she ushered her through two other rooms, until they came to a narrow closet where Marat was then in a bath. He gave a look at Charlotte, and ordered his wife to leave them alone: she complied, but allowed the door of the closet to remain half open, and kept within call.
According to his usual custom, Marat wore a soiled handkerchief bound round his head, increasing his natural hideousness. A coarse covering was thrown across the bath; a board, likewise, placed transversely, supported his papers. Laying down his pen, he asked Charlotte the purport of her visit. The closet was so narrow that she touched the bath near which she stood. She gazed on him with ill-disguised horror and disgust, but answered as composedly as she could, that she had come from Caën, in order to give him correct intelligence concerning the proceedings of the Girondists there. He listened, questioned her eagerly, wrote down the names of the Girondists, then added, with a smile of triumph: "Before a week they shall have perished on the guillotine." "These words," afterward said Charlotte, "sealed his fate." Drawing from beneath the handkerchief which covered her bosom the knife she had kept there all along, she plunged it to the hilt in Marat's heart. He gave one loud, expiring cry for help, and sank back dead, in the bath. By an instinctive impulse, Charlotte had instantly drawn out the knife from the breast of her victim, but she did not strike again; casting it down at his feet, she left the closet, and sat down in the neighboring room, thoughtfully passing her hand across her brow: her task was done.
The wife of Marat had rushed to his aid on hearing his cry for help. Laurent Basse, seeing that all was over, turned round toward Charlotte, and, with a blow of a chair, felled her to the floor; while the infuriated Albertine trampled her under her feet. The tumult aroused the other tenants of the house; the alarm spread, and a crowd gathered in the apartment, who learned with stupor that Marat, the Friend of the People, had been murdered. Deeper still was their wonder when they gazed on the murderess. She stood there before them with still disordered garments, and her disheveled hair, loosely bound by a broad green ribbon falling around her; but so calm, so serenely lovely, that those who most abhorred her crime gazed on her with involuntary admiration. "Was she then so beautiful?" was the question addressed, many years afterward, to an old man, one of the few remaining witnesses of this scene. "Beautiful!" he echoed, enthusiastically; adding, with the eternal regrets of old age: "Ay, there are none such now!"
On the morning of the 17th, she was led before her judges. She was dressed with care, and had never looked more lovely. Her bearing was so imposing and dignified, that the spectators and the judges seemed to stand arraigned before her. She interrupted the first witness, by declaring that it was she who had killed Marat. "Who inspired you with so much hatred against him?" asked the President.
"I needed not the hatred of others, I had enough of my own," she energetically replied; "besides, we do not execute well that which we have not ourselves conceived."
"What, then, did you hate in Marat?"
"His crimes."
"Do you think that you have assassinated all the Marats?"
"No; but now that he is dead, the rest may fear."
She answered other questions with equal firmness and laconism. Her project, she declared, had been formed since the 31st of May. "She had killed one man to save a hundred thousand She was a republican long before the Revolution, and had never failed in energy."
"What do you understand by energy?" asked the President.
"That feeling," she replied, "which induces us to east aside selfish considerations, and sacrifice ourselves for our country."
Fouquier Tinville here observed, alluding to the sure blow she had given, that she must be well practiced in crime. "The monster takes me for an assassin!" she exclaimed, in a tone thrilling with indignation. This closed the debates, and her defender rose. It was not Doulcet de Pontécoulant—who had not received her letter—but Chauveau de la Garde, chosen by the President. Charlotte gave him an anxious look, as though she feared he might seek to save her at the expense of honor. He spoke, and she perceived that her apprehensions were unfounded. Without excusing her crime, or attributing it to insanity, he pleaded for the fervor of her conviction; which he had the courage to call sublime. The appeal proved unavailing. Charlotte Corday was condemned. Without deigning to answer the President, who asked her if she had aught to object to the penalty of death being carried out against her, she rose, and walking up to her defender, thanked him gracefully. "These gentlemen," said she, pointing to the judges, "have just informed me that the whole of my property is confiscated. I owe something in the prison: as a proof of my friendship and esteem, I request you to pay this little debt."
On returning to the conciergerie, she found an artist, named Hauër, waiting for her, to finish her portrait, which he had begun at the tribunal. They conversed freely together, until the executioner, carrying the red chemise destined for assassins, and the scissors with which he was to cut her hair off, made his appearance. "What, so soon!" exclaimed Charlotte Corday, slightly turning pale; but rallying her courage, she resumed her composure, and presented a look of her hair to M. Hauër, as the only reward in her power to offer. A priest came to offer her his ministry. She thanked him and the persons by whom he had been sent, but declined his spiritual aid. The executioner cut her hair, bound her hands, and threw the red chemise over her. M. Hauër was struck with the almost unearthly loveliness which the crimson hue of this garment imparted to the ill-fated maiden. "This toilet of death, though performed by rude hands, leads to immortality," said Charlotte, with a smile.
A heavy storm broke forth as the car of the condemned left the conciergerie for the Place de la Revolution. An immense crowd lined every street through which Charlotte Corday passed. Hootings and execrations at first rose on her path; but as her pure and serene beauty dawned on the multitude, as the exquisite loveliness of her countenance and the sculptural beauty of her figure became more fully revealed, pity and admiration superseded every other feeling. Her bearing was so admirably calm and dignified, as to rouse sympathy in the breasts of those who detested not only her crime, but the cause for which it had been committed. Many men of every party took off their hats and bowed as the cart passed before them. Among those who waited its approach, was a young German, normed Adam Luz, who stood at the entrance of the Rue Saint Honoré, and followed Charlotte to the scaffold. He gazed on the lovely and heroic maiden with all the enthusiasm of his imaginative race. A love, unexampled perhaps in the history of the human heart, took possession of his soul.
Unconscious of the passionate love she had awakened, Charlotte now stood near the guillotine. She turned pale on first beholding it, but soon resumed her serenity. A deep blush suffused her face when the executioner removed the handkerchief that covered her neck and shoulders, but she calmly laid her head upon the block. The executioner touched a spring and the ax came down. One of Samson's assistants immediately stepped forward, and holding up the lifeless head to the gaze of the crowd, struck it on either cheek. The brutal act only excited a feeling of horror; and it is said that—as though even in death her indignant spirit protested against this outrage—an angry and crimson flush passed over the features of Charlotte Corday.