Marie Anne Victoire Charlotte Cordet,
The daughter of a man attached by a place to the court. The demoiselle Cordet was zealous for freedom; rich, young, beautiful—a woman—she was, nevertheless, a republican. An enthusiast, but not a frantic; she possessed the warmth of the one character, without the extravagance of the other. At the place of execution, she uttered not a single word. Her face still possessed an heroic calmness; and she seemed conscious of future glory, and approaching happiness. Although silent, her gesticulations were, however, eloquently impressive; for she frequently placed her hand on her heart, and seemed to say, “I rejoice, in having exterminated a monster!”
Brutus and Cordet both equally struck for liberty, and, alas! neither of them was happy enough to secure it; but the execution of Robespierre seems to have effected for modern France, what the punishment of Antony, and the banishment of Octavius, could not perhaps have produced in degenerate Rome.
To this woman, Greece would have erected statues; Rome, temples. France may some day insert her name in the calendar of her martyrs;—the ancients would have placed her among their gods!
Translation of a letter from Marie Anne Victoire Charlotte Cordet, to her father, written on the evening before her trial:
“From the prison of the Conciergerie, in the apartment lately occupied by the deputy Brisot,
“July 16, 1793.
“My dear respected Father,
“Peace is about to reign in my dear native country, for Marat is no more!
“Be comforted, and bury my memory in eternal oblivion.