“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 Pontecoulant—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 Hauer, 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 lock of her hair to M. Hauer, 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. Hauer 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loveliness of her countenance, and the sculptural beauty of her figure became more fully revealed, pity and admiration superseded every other feeling.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. Amongst those who waited its approach, was a young German, named Adam Luz, who stood at the entrance of the Rue Sainte Honore, 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. Not one wandering look of “those beautiful eyes, which revealed a soul as intrepid as it was tender,” escaped him. Every earthly grace so soon to perish in death, every trace of the lofty and immortal spirit, filled him with bitter and intoxicating emotions unknown till then. “To die for her; to be struck by the same hand; to feel in death the same cold axe which had severed the angelic head of Charlotte; to be united to her in heroism, freedom, love, and death, was now the only hope and desire of his heart.”
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 axe 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.
A few days after her execution, Adam Luz published a pamphlet, in which he enthusiastically praised her deed, and proposed that a statue with the inscription, “Greater than Brutus,” should be erected to her memory on the spot where she had perished. He was arrested and thrown into prison. On entering the Abbaye, he passionately exclaimed, “I am going to die for her!” His wish was fulfilled ere long.
Strange, feverish times were those which could rouse a gentle and lovely maiden to avenge freedom by such a deadly deed; which could waken in a human heart a love whose thoughts were not of life or earthly bliss, but of the grave and the scaffold. Let the times, then, explain those natures, where so much evil and heroism are blended, that man cannot mark the limits between both. Whatever judgment may be passed upon her, the character of Charlotte Corday was certainly not cast in an ordinary mould. It is a striking and noble trait, that to the last she did not repent: never was error more sincere. If she could have repented, she would never have become guilty.
Her deed created an extraordinary impression throughout France. On hearing of it, a beautiful royalist lady fell down on her knees, and invoked “Saint Charlotte Corday.” The republican Madame Roland calls her a heroine worthy of a better age. The poet, Andre Chenier—who, before a year had elapsed, followed her on the scaffold—sang her heroism in a soul-stirring strain.