Marat now became supreme. “Rise, sovereign people!” he cried; “no man dare oppose you.”
There was never given a more fearful impetus to murder than these words.
What it pleased men to call a Committee of Public Safety was now organized, and its operation was the killing of every human being who could by any means be made to appear not utterly to sympathise with the seething mob.
The Convention existed, but its power was completely at an end. Its votes were laughed at. Queen Guillotine was the one power left in France.
Every day the foreign arms directed against France obtained successes. Meanwhile, the land was like a vessel without a rudder. No man was strong enough to control the mob. Indeed, it was only when Napoleon Bonaparte rose, that internal peace was established. It is not to be wondered at that he came to be looked up to as a demigod.
Twenty thousand Royalist volunteers were now in arms against Marat, in one department of France alone.
Marat was at this time King of Paris. Robespierre was waiting. Danton was threatening and trembling at the same time. Another week, and the foul Marat would have conquered both, and been proclaimed, by the voice of the streets, President of the Republic.
But his hideous career was to be arrested by the feeble hand of a girl—Charlotte Corday.
Just before the commencement of the Reign of Terror in France, there might have been seen in a quiet corner of a quiet old street in Caen (that city in Normandy so much mixed up with the early history of English), a quiet old house, called the Grand Manor—a house around a court-yard, in the centre of which was a mossy fountain. Near this fountain, through the sunny hours, might frequently be seen a very beautiful girl, the niece of an aged woman, who was the maiden’s aunt. This was Charlotte Corday. Fair of skin, and grey of eye, her hair was what had not inaptly been termed gilded-black. In other words, it was black hair, golden-tipped, with golden lines veining it. She was always dressed plainly, in brown cloth, and her voice was sweet and lingering. No man has ever breathed a word against her character.