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Updated: May 3, 2025
Marat was, however, the avowed persecutor of priests and religion, and if we attribute any influence to Miss Corday's former habits, we may suppose them to have had some share in the choice of her victim. Her refusal of the ministry of a constitutional priest at the scaffold strengthens this opinion.
Danton having used the Paris sections to overawe the Girondist majority of the Convention, Marat gathered his riotous band of sansculottes, and hounded the discredited remnant of the party to death, flight, or arrest. His bloody career was ended only by Charlotte Corday's dagger.
Thus some famous and foolish professor measured the skull of Charlotte Corday to ascertain the criminal type; he had not historical knowledge enough to know that if there is any "criminal type," certainly Charlotte Corday had not got it. The skull, I believe, afterwards turned out not to be Charlotte Corday's at all; but that is another story.
Marat was, however, the avowed persecutor of priests and religion, and if we attribute any influence to Miss Corday's former habits, we may suppose them to have had some share in the choice of her victim. Her refusal of the ministry of a constitutional priest at the scaffold strengthens this opinion.
No man can doubt the purity of Charlotte Corday's character. She was no ordinary murderer. She did not act from the promptings of anger, or to avenge private wrongs. She felt it to be her duty to rid France of such an unnatural monster, and undoubtedly thought herself God's minister of vengeance. Another spot which may justly be denominated a place of blood, is the Conciergerie.
But Noble went on, as unwitting that he had to do with this prison as that he had to do with Master Torbin's tomato. The face at the window was not like Charlotte Corday's, nor was the window barred, though the prisoner knew a little solace in wondering if she did not suggest that famous picture.
There was Charlemagne's monogram stencilled in tin, and that of Robert of Paris, reproduced in the same manner, those of Louis XIV. and Moliere, of Francis the Catholic and Mary Stuart. There were letters from Robespierre and Danton, requests for money and death-warrants from the Reign of Terror, Charlotte Corday's last letters from prison and the original letters of Napoleon from St. Helena.
Then we see that simple girl thinking by one supreme act of heroism and sacrifice, like Joan of Arc, to save her country. Foolish child! Did she think to slay the monster devouring Paris by cutting off one of his heads? The death of Marat only added to the fury of the tempest, and the falling of Charlotte Corday's head was not more noticed than the falling of a leaf in the forest.
The point is that the poor old man was trying to match Charlotte Corday's mind with her skull without knowing anything whatever about her mind. But I came yesterday upon a yet more crude and startling example. In a popular magazine there is one of the usual articles about criminology; about whether wicked men could be made good if their heads were taken to pieces.
At the time of Charlotte Corday's trial, when his sonorous voice rang out in its pathetic appeal for the misguided woman, Juliette had given him ungrudging admiration.
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