Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She wished to judge him coldly and impartially, or rather to indict him before the throne of God, and to punish him for the crime he had commited ten years ago. Her personal feelings must remain out of the question. Had Charlotte Corday considered her own sensibilities, when with her own hand she put and end to Marat? Juliette remained on her knees for hours.
At the time there lived in Paris a young German named Adam Lux. The continual talk about Charlotte Corday had filled him with curiosity regarding this young girl who had been so daring and so patriotic. She was denounced on every hand as a murderess with the face of a Medusa and the muscles of a Vulcan. Street songs about her were dinned into the ears of Adam Lux.
Great drops of rain fell upon the soldiers' drums. Young, beautiful, unconscious of any wrong, Charlotte Corday stood beneath the shadow of the knife. At the supreme moment a sudden ray from the setting sun broke through the cloud-wrack and fell upon her slender figure until she glowed in the eyes of the startled spectators like a statue cut in burnished bronze.
The Oath in the ball-room on June 20, 1789, with Mirabeau's portrait; the burning of the Bastille, and the head of the commandant; the Jacobite Club, with Marat, Saint-Just, Couthon, Robespierre; the Feast of Brotherhood on the Champ du Mars; the King's Flight to Varennes; Lafayette; the Girondists; the execution of the King and Queen; the Committee of Public Welfare, with Danton and the newly hatched Robespierre; the Reign of Terror; Charlotte Corday stabbing Marat in the bath; Robespierre again; Feast of the Supreme Being; Voltaire's Funeral; Robespierre again, this time on the 9th Thermidor.
She was not quite sure whether to make her Charlotte Corday or Marie Antoinette; but, on reflection, decided that the latter character would suit her best, as she did not think that Annie could ever get sufficient tragedy into her eyes for the former. "I am going to paint myself some day for Charlotte," exclaimed Antonia.
"If I were Marat, and she Charlotte Corday," was the thought that jumped into his head, "she would stab me." "It's a good thing for me you have a cousin, or maybe you wouldn't have let me in. I know now why God gave me the name of Riley. I guess he'll forgive me for borrowing the 'O. I was obliged to get to you somehow. That was the one way I could think of."
How, if it were the noble Charlotte Corday, that in the bloom of youth, that with the loveliest of persons, that with homage waiting upon her smiles wherever she turned her face to scatter them homage that followed those smiles as surely as the carols of birds, after showers in spring, follow the re-appearing sun and the racing of sunbeams over the hills yet thought all these things cheaper than the dust upon her sandals in comparison of deliverance from hell for her dear suffering France?
Louis XVI. was executed early in 1793; and it was enough to have any sort of birthright to be thought dangerous and put to death. The Reign of Terror. Horror at the bloodshed perpetrated by the Mountain led a young girl, named Charlotte Corday, to assassinate Marat, whom she supposed to be the chief cause of the cruelties that were taking place; but his death only added to the dread of reaction.
Fouquier Tinville was afraid to walk the streets; a pistol was snapped at Collot D'Herbois; a young girl, animated apparently by the spirit of Charlotte Corday, attempted to obtain an interview with Robespierre. Suspicions arose; she was searched; and two knives were found about her. She was questioned, and spoke of the Jacobin domination with resolute scorn and aversion.
The slight form of a beautiful woman passes up yonder winding steps to the block. Her hair is dark not so dark, though, as her genius-lighted eyes -and her forehead is white and nobly pure. She kneels, bows down her head to the block, and is forever dead. It was Charlotte Corday, the enthusiast, who assassinated Marat in his bath.
Word Of The Day