Citizens: You see before you the widow of Marat. I do not come here
to ask your favors, such as cupidity would covet, or even such as
would relieve indigence--Marat's widow needs no more than a tomb.
Before arriving at that happy termination to my existence, however,
I come to ask that justice may be done in respect to the reports
recently put forth in this body against the memory of at once the
most intrepid and the most outraged defender of the people.
--_Simonne Evrard Marat, to the Convention_
[Illustration: JEAN PAUL MARAT]
The French Revolution traces a lineal descent direct from Voltaire and
Jean Jacques Rousseau. These men were contemporaries; they came to the
same conclusions, expressing the same thought, each in his own way,
absolutely independent of the other. And as genius seldom recognizes
genius, neither knew the greatness of the other.
Voltaire was an aristocrat--the friend of kings and courtiers, the
brilliant cynic, the pet of the salons and the center of the culture and
brains of his time.
Rousseau was a man of the people, plain and unpretentious--a man without
ambition--a dreamer. His first writings were mere debating-society
monologs, done for his own amusement and the half-dozen or so cronies
who cared to listen.
But, as he wrote, things came to him; the significance of his words
became to him apparent. Opposition made it necessary to define his
position, and threat made it wise to amplify and explain. He grew
through exercise, as all men do who grow at all; the spirit of the times
acted upon him, and knowledge unrolled as a scroll.
The sum of Rousseau's political philosophy found embodiment in his book,
"The Social Contract," and his ideas on education in "Emile." "The
Social Contract" became the Bible of the Revolution, and as Emerson
says all of our philosophy will be found in Plato, so in a more exact
sense can every argument of the men of the Revolution be found in "The
Social Contract." But Rousseau did not know what firebrands he was
supplying. He was essentially a man of peace--he launched these children
of his brain, indifferently, like his children of the flesh, upon the
world and left their fate to the god of Chance.
* * * * *
Out of the dust and din of the French Revolution, now seen by us on the
horizon of time, there emerge four names: Robespierre, Mirabeau, Danton
and Marat.
Undaunted men all, hated and loved, feared and idolized, despised and
deified--even yet we find it hard to gauge their worth, and give due
credit for the good that was in each.
Oratory played a most important part in bringing about the explosion.
Oratory arouses passion--fear, vengeance, hate--and draws a beautiful
picture of peace and plenty just beyond.
Without oratory there would have been no political revolution in France,
nor elsewhere.
Politics, more than any other function of human affairs, turns on
oratory. Orators make and unmake kings, but kings are seldom orators,
and orators never secure thrones. Orators are made to die--the cross,
the torch, the noose, the guillotine, the dagger, awaits them. They die
through the passion that they fan to flame--the fear they generate turns
upon themselves, and they are no more.
But they have their reward. Their names are not writ in water; rather
are they traced in blood on history's page. We know them, while the
ensconced smug and successful have sunk into oblivion; and if now and
then a name like that of Pilate or Caiaphas or Judas comes to us, it is
only because Fate has linked the man to his victim, like unto that
Roman soldier who thrust his spear into the side of the Unselfish Man.
In the qualities that mark the four chief orators of the French
Revolution, there is much alloy--much that seems like clay. Each had
undergone an apprenticeship to Fate--each had been preparing for his
work; and in this preparation who shall say what lessons could have been
omitted and what not! Explosions require time to prepare: revolutions,
political and domestic, are a long time getting ready. Orators, like
artists, must go as did Dante, down into the nether regions and get a
glimpse of hell.
Jean Paul Marat was exactly five feet high, and his weight when at his
best was one hundred twenty pounds--just the weight of Shakespeare. Jean
Paul had a nose like the beak of a hawk, an eye like an eagle, a mouth
that matched his nose, and a chin that argued trouble. Not only did he
have red hair, but Carlyle refers to him as "red-headed."
His parents were poor and obscure people, and his relationship with them
seems a pure matter of accident. He was born at the village of Boudry,
Switzerland, in Seventeen Hundred Forty-three. His childhood and boyhood
were that of any other peasant boy born into a family where poverty held
grim sway, and toil and hardship never relaxed their chilling grasp.
His education was of the chance kind--but education anyway depends upon
yourself--colleges only supply a few opportunities, and it lies with
the student whether he will improve them or not.
The ignorance of his parents and the squalor of his surroundings acted
upon Jean Paul Marat as a spur, and from his fourteenth year the idea of
cultivating his mental estate was strong upon him.
Switzerland has ever been the refuge of the man who dares to think. It
was there John Calvin lived, demanding the right to his own belief, but
occasionally denying others that precious privilege; a few miles away,
at beautiful Coppet, resided Madame de Stael, the daughter of Necker; at
Geneva, Rousseau wrote, and to name that beautiful little island in the
Rhone after him was not necessary to make his fame endure; but a little
way from Boudry lived Voltaire, pointing his bony finger at every
hypocrite in Christendom.
But as in Greece, in her days of glory, the thinkers were few; so in
Switzerland, the land of freedom, the many have been, and are, chained
to superstition. Jean Paul Marat saw their pride was centered in a
silver crucifix, "that keeps a man from harm"; their conscience
committed to a priest; their labors for the rich; their days the same,
from the rising of the sun to its going down. They did not love, and
their hate was but a peevish dislike. They followed their dull routine
and died the death, hopeful that they would get the reward in another
world which was denied them in this.
And Jean Paul Marat grew to scorn the few who would thus enslave the
many. For priest and publican he had only aversion.
Jean Paul Marat, the bantam, read Voltaire and steeped himself in
Rousseau, and the desire grew strong upon him to do, to dare and to
become.
Tourists had told him of England, and like all hopeful and childlike
minds, he imagined the excellent to be far off, and the splendid at a
distance: Great Britain was to him the Land of Promise.
In the countenance of young Marat was a strange mixture of the ludicrous
and the terrible. This, with his insignificant size, and a bodily
strength that was a miracle of surprise, won the admiration of an
English gentleman; and when the tourist started back for Albion, the
lusty dwarf rode on the box, duly articled, without consent of his
parents, as a valet.
As a servant he was active, alert, intelligent, attentive. He might have
held his position indefinitely, and been handed down to the next
generation with the family plate, had he kept a civil tongue in his red
head and not quoted Descartes and Jean Jacques.
He had ideas, and he expressed them. He was the central sun below
stairs, and passed judgment upon the social order without stint, even
occasionally to argufying economics with his master, the Baron, as he
brushed his breech.
This Baron is known to history through two facts: first, that Jean Paul
Marat brushed his breeches, and second, that he evolved a new breed of
fices.
Now, the master was rich, with an entail of six thousand acres and an
income of five thousand pounds, and very naturally he was
surprised--amazed--to hear that any one should question the divine
origin of the social order.
Religion and government being at that time not merely second cousins,
but Siamese twins, Jean Paul had expressed himself on things churchly as
well as secular.
And now, behold, one fine day he found himself confronted with a charge
of blasphemy, not to mention another damning count of contumacy and
contravention.
In fact, he was commanded not to think, and was cautioned as to the sin
of having ideas. The penalties were pointed out to Jean Paul, and in all
kindness he was asked to make choice between immediate punishment and
future silence.
Thus was the wee philosopher raised at once to the dignity of a martyr;
and the sweet satisfaction of being persecuted for what he believed, was
his.
The city of Edinburgh was not far away, and thither by night the victim
of persecution made his way. There is a serio-comic touch to this
incident that Marat was never quite able to appreciate--the man was not
a humorist. In fact, men headed for the noose, the block, or destined
for immortality by the assassin's dagger, very seldom are jokers--John
Brown and his like do not jest. Of all the emancipators of men, Lincoln
alone stands out as one who was perfectly sane. An ability to see the
ridiculous side of things marks the man of perfect balance.
The martyr type, whose blood is not only the seed of the church, but
also of heresy, is touched with madness. To get the thing done, Nature
sacrifices the man.
Arriving in Edinburgh, Marat thought it necessary for a time to live in
hiding, but finally he came out and was duly installed as barkeep at a
tavern, and a student in the medical department of the University of
Saint Andrews--a rather peculiar combination.
Marat's sister and biographer, Albertine, tells us that Jean Paul was
never given to the use of stimulants, and in fact, for the greater part
of his career, was a total abstainer. And the man who knows somewhat of
the eternal paradox of things can readily understand how this little
tapster, proud and defiant, had a supreme contempt for the patrons who
gulped down the stuff that he handed out over the bar. He dealt in that
for which he had no use; and the American bartender today who wears his
kohinoor and draws the pay of a bank cashier is one who "never touches a
drop of anything." The security with which he holds his position is on
that very account.
Marat was hungry for knowledge and thirsty for truth, and in his daily
life he was as abstemious as was Benjamin Franklin, whom he was to meet,
know, and reverence shortly afterward.
Jean Paul was studying medicine at the same place where Oliver
Goldsmith, another exile, studied some years before. Each got his
doctor's degree--just how we do not know. No one ever saw Goldsmith's
diploma--Doctor Johnson once hinted that it was an astral one--but
Marat's is still with us, yellow with age, but plain and legible with
all of its signatures and the big seal with a ribbon that surely might
impress the chance sufferers waiting in an outer room to see the doctor,
who is busy enjoying his siesta on the other side of the partition.
* * * * *
If it is ever your sweet privilege to clap eyes upon a diploma issued by
the ancient and honorable University of Saint Andrews, Edinburgh, you
will see that it reads thus:
"Whereas: Since it is just and reasonable that one who has diligently
attained a high degree of knowledge in some great and useful science,
should be distinguished from the ignorant-vulgar," etc., etc.
The intent of the document, it will be observed, is to certify that the
holder is not one of the "ignorant-vulgar," and the inference is that
those who are not possessed of like certificates probably are.
A copy of the diploma issued to Doctor Jean Paul Marat is before me,
wherein, in most flattering phrase, is set forth the attainments of the
holder, in the science of medicine. And even before the ink was dry upon
that diploma, the "science" of which it boasted had been discarded as
inept and puerile, and a new one inaugurated. And in our day, within the
last twenty-five years, the entire science of healing has shifted ground
and the materia medica of the "Centennial" is now considered obsolete.
In view of these things, how vain is a college degree that certifies, as
the diplomas of Saint Andrews still certify, that the holder is not one
of the "ignorant-vulgar"! Isn't a man who prides himself on not
belonging to the "ignorant-vulgar" apt to be atrociously ignorant and
outrageously vulgar?
Wisdom is a point of view, and knowledge, for the most part, is a
shifting product depending upon environment, atmosphere and condition.
The eternal verities are plain and simple, known to babes and sucklings,
but often unseen by men of learning, who focus on the difficult, soar
high and dive deep, but seldom pay cash. In the sky of truth the fixed
stars are few, and the shepherds who tend their flocks by night are
quite as apt to know them as are the professed and professional Wise Men
of the East--and Edinburgh.
But never mind our little digression--the value of study lies in study.
The reward of thinking is the ability to think--whether one comes to
right conclusions or wrong matters little, says John Stuart Mill in his
essay, "On Liberty."
Thinking is a form of exercise, and growth comes only through
exercise--that is to say, expression.
We learn things only to throw them away: no man ever wrote well until he
had forgotten every rule of rhetoric, and no orator ever spake straight
to the hearts of men until he had tumbled his elocution into the Irish
Sea.
To hold on to things is to lose them. To clutch is to act the part of
the late Mullah Bah, the Turkish wrestler, who came to America and
secured through his prowess a pot of gold. Going back to his native
country, the steamer upon which he had taken passage collided in
mid-ocean with a sunken derelict. Mullah Bah, hearing the alarm, jumped
from his berth and strapped to his person a belt containing five
thousand dollars in gold. He rushed to the side of the sinking ship,
leaped over the rail, and went to Davy Jones' Locker like a plummet,
while all about frail women and weak men in life-preservers bobbed on
the surface and were soon picked up by the boats. The fate of Mullah Bah
is only another proof that athletes die young, and that it is harder to
withstand prosperity than its opposite.
But knowledge did not turn the head of Marat. His restless spirit was
reaching out for expression, and we find him drifting to London for a
wider field.
England was then, as now, the refuge of the exile. There is today just
as much liberty, and a little more free speech, in England than in
America. We have hanged witches and burned men at the stake since
England has, and she emancipated her slaves long before we did ours.
Over against the home-thrust that respectable women drink at public bars
from John O'Groat's to Land's End, can be placed the damning count that
in the United States more men are lynched every year than Great Britain
legally executes in double the time.
A too-ready expression of the Rousseau philosophy had made things a bit
unpleasant for Marat in Edinburgh, but in London he found ready
listeners, and the coffeehouses echoed back his radical sentiments.
These underground debating-clubs of London started more than one man off
on the oratorical transverse. Swift, Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith,
Garrick, Burke--all sharpened their wits at the coffeehouses. I see the
same idea is now being revived in New York and Chicago: little clubs of
a dozen or so will rent a room in some restaurant, and fitting it up for
themselves, will dine daily and discuss great themes, or small,
according to the mental caliber of the members.
During the latter part of the Eighteenth Century, these clubs were very
popular in London. Men who could talk or speak were made welcome, and if
the new member generated caloric, so much the better--excitement was at
a premium.
Marat was now able to speak English with precision, and his slight
French accent only added a charm to his words. He was fiery, direct,
impetuous. He was a fighter by disposition, and care was taken never to
cross him beyond a point where the sparks began to fly. The man was
immensely diverting, and his size was to his advantage--orators should
be very big or very little--anything but commonplace. The Duke of Mantua
would have gloried in Jean Paul, and later might have cut off his head
as a precautionary measure.
Among the visitors at one of the coffeehouse clubs was one B. Franklin,
big, patient, kind. He weighed twice as much as Marat: and his years
were sixty, while Marat's were thirty.
Franklin listened with amused smiles at the little man, and the little
man grew to have an idolatrous regard for the big 'un. Franklin carried
copies of a pamphlet called "Common Sense," written by one T. Paine.
Paine was born in England, but was always pleased to be spoken of as an
American, yet he called himself "A Citizen of the World."
Paine's pamphlet, "The Crisis," was known by heart to Marat, and the
success of Franklin and Paine as writers had fired him to write as well
as to orate. As a result, we have "The Chains of Slavery." The work
today has no interest to us except as a literary curiosity. It is a
composite of Rousseau and Paine, done by a sophomore in a mood of
exaltation, and might serve acceptably well as a graduation essay, done
in F major. It lacks the poise of Paine and the reserve of Rousseau, and
all the fine indifference of Franklin is noticeable by its absence.
They say that Marat's name was "Mara" and his ancestors came from County
Down. But never mind that--his heart was right. Of all the inane
imbecilities and stupid untruths of history, none is worse than the
statement that Jean Paul Marat was a demagog, hotly intent on the main
chance.
In this man's character there was nothing subtle, secret nor untrue. He
was simplicity itself, and his undiplomatic bluntness bears witness to
his honesty.
In London, he lived as the Mayor of Boston said William Lloyd Garrison
lived--in a hole in the ground. His services as a physician were free to
all--if they could pay, all right; if not, it made no difference. He
looked after the wants of political refugees, and head, heart and
pocketbook were at the disposal of those who needed them. His
lodging-place was a garret, a cellar--anywhere: he was homeless, and his
public appearances were only at the coffeehouse clubs, or in the parks,
where he would stand on a barrel and speak to the crowd on his one theme
of liberty, fraternity and equality. His plea was for the individual. In
order to have a strong and excellent society, we must have strong and
excellent men and women. That phrase of Paine's, "The world is my
country: to do good is my religion," he repeated over and over again.
* * * * *
In the year Seventeen Hundred Seventy-nine, Marat moved to Paris. He was
then thirty-six years old. In Paris he lived very much the same life
that he had in London. He established himself as a physician, and might
have made a decided success had he put all his eggs in one basket and
then watched the basket.
But he didn't. Franklin had inspired him with a passion for invention:
he rubbed amber with wool, made a battery and applied the scheme in a
crude way to the healing art. He wrote articles on electricity and even
foreshadowed the latter-day announcement that electricity is life. And
all the time he discussed economics, and gave out through speech and
written word his views as to the rights of the people. He saw the needs
of the poor--he perceived how through lack of nourishment there
developed a craving for stimulants, and observed how disease and death
fasten themselves upon the ill-fed and the ill-taught. To alleviate the
suffering of the poor, he opened a dispensary as he had done in London,
and gave free medical attendance to all who applied. At this dispensary,
he gave lectures on certain days upon hygiene, at which times he never
failed to introduce his essence of Rousseau and Voltaire.
Some one called him "the people's friend." The name stuck--he liked it.
In August, Seventeen Hundred Eighty-nine, this "terrible dwarf" was
standing on his barrel in Paris haranguing crowds with an oratory that
was tremendous in its impassioned quality. Men stopped to laugh and
remained to applaud.
Not only did he denounce the nobility, but he saw danger in the liberal
leaders, and among others, Mirabeau came in for scathing scorn. Of all
the insane paradoxes this one is the most paradoxical--that men will
hate those who are most like themselves. Family feuds, and the wrangles
of denominations that, to outsiders, hold the same faith, are common.
When churches are locked in America, it is done to keep Christians out.
Christians fight Christians much more than they fight the devil.
Marat had grown to be a power among the lower classes--he was their
friend, their physician, their advocate. He had no fear of interruption
and never sought to pacify. At his belt, within easy reach, and in open
sight, he carried a dagger.
The crowds that hung upon his words were swayed to rank unreason by his
impassioned eloquence.
Marat fell a victim to his own eloquence, and the madness of the mob
reacted upon him. Like the dyer's hand, he became subdued to that in
which he worked. Suspicion and rebellion filled his soul. Wealth to him
was an offense--he had not the prophetic vision to see the rise of
capitalism and all the splendid industrial evolution which the world is
today working out. Society to him was all founded on wrong premises,
and he would uproot it.
In bitter words he denounced the Assembly and declared that all of its
members, including Mirabeau, should be hanged for their inaction in not
giving the people relief from their oppressors.
Mirabeau was very much like Marat. He, too, was working for the people,
only he occupied a public office, while Marat was a private citizen.
Mirabeau and his friends became alarmed at the influence Marat was
gaining over the people, and he was ordered to cease public speaking. As
he failed to comply, a price was put upon his head.
Then it was that he began putting out a daily address in the form of a
tiny pamphlet. This was at first called "The Publiciste," but was soon
changed to "The People's Friend."
Marat was now in hiding, but still his words were making their impress.
In Seventeen Hundred Ninety-one, Mirabeau, the terrible, died--died
peacefully in his bed.
Paris went into universal mourning, and the sky of Marat's popularity
was darkened.
Marat lived in hiding until August of Seventeen Hundred Ninety-two, when
he again publicly appeared and led the riots. The people hailed him as
their deliverer. The insignificant size of the man made him conspicuous.
His proud defiance, the haughtiness of his countenance, his stinging
words, formed a personality that made him the pet of the people.
Danton, the Minister of Justice, dared not kill him, and so he did the
next best thing--he took him to his heart and made him his right-hand
man. It was a great diplomatic move, and the people applauded. Danton
was tall, powerful, athletic and commanding, just past his thirtieth
year. Marat was approaching fifty, and his sufferings while in hiding in
the sewers had told severely on his health, but he was still the
fearless agitator. When Marat and Danton appeared upon the balcony of
the Hotel de Ville, the hearts of the people were with the little man.
But behold, another man had forged to the front, and this was
Robespierre. And so it was that Danton, Marat and Robespierre formed a
triumvirate, and ruled Paris with hands of iron. Coming in the name of
the people, proclaiming peace, they held their place only through a
violence that argued its own death.
Marat was still full of the desire to educate--to make men think.
Deprivation and disease had wrecked his frame until public speaking was
out of the question--the first requisite of oratory is health. But he
could write, and so his little paper, "The People's Friend," went
fluttering forth with its daily message.
So scrupulous was Marat in money matters that he would accept no help
from the Government. He neither drew a salary nor would he allow any but
private citizens to help issue his paper. He lived in absolute poverty
with his beloved wife, Simonne Evrard.
They had met about Seventeen Hundred Eighty-eight, and between them had
grown up a very firm and tender bond. He was twenty years older than
she, but Danton said of her, "She has the mind of a man."
Simonne had some property and was descended from a family of note. When
she became the wife of Marat, her kinsmen denounced her, refused to
mention her name, but she was loyal to the man she loved.
The Psalmist speaks of something "that passeth the love of woman," but
the Psalmist was wrong--nothing does.
Simonne Evrard gave her good name, her family position, her money, her
life--her soul into the keeping of Jean Paul Marat. That his love and
gratitude to her was great and profound, there is abundant proof. She
was his only servant, his secretary, his comrade, his friend, his wife.
Not only did she attend him in sickness, but in banishment and disgrace
she never faltered. She even set the type, and at times her arm pulled
the lever of the press that printed the daily message.
Let it stand to the eternal discredit of Thomas Carlyle that he
contemptuously disposes of Simonne Evrard, who represents undying love
and unflinching loyalty, by calling her a "washerwoman." Carlyle, with a
savage strain of Scotch Calvinism in his cold blood, never knew the
sacredness of the love of man and woman--to him sex was a mistake on the
part of God. Even for the sainted Mary of Galilee he has only a grim and
patronizing smile, removing his clay pipe long enough to say to Milburn,
the blind Preacher, "Oh, yes; a country lass elevated by Catholics into
a wooden image and worshiped as a deity!"
Carlyle never held in his arms a child of his own and saw the light of
love reflected in a baby's eyes; and nowhere in his forty-odd volumes
does he recognize the truth that love, art and religion are one. And
this limitation gives Taine excuse for saying, "He writes splendidly,
but it is neither truth nor poetry."
When Charlotte Corday, that poor, deluded rustic, reached the rooms of
Marat, under a friendly pretense, and thrust her murderous dagger to the
sick man's heart, his last breath was a cry freighted with love, "A moi,
chere amie!"
And death-choked, that proud head drooped, and Simonne, seeing the
terrible deed was done, blocked the way and held the murderess at bay
until help arrived.
Hardly had Marat's tired body been laid to rest in the Pantheon, before
Charlotte Corday's spirit had gone across the Border to meet his--gone
to her death by the guillotine that was so soon to embrace both Danton
and Robespierre, the men who had inaugurated and popularized it.
All Paris went into mourning for Marat--the public buildings were draped
with black, and his portrait was displayed in the Pantheon with the
great ones gone. A pension for life was bestowed upon his widow, and
lavish resolutions of gratitude were laid at her feet in loving token of
what she had done in upholding the hands of this strong man.
But Paris, the fickle, in two short years repudiated the pension, the
portrait of Marat was removed from the Pantheon, and his body taken by
night to another resting-place.
Simonne the widow, and Albertine the sister, sisters now in sorrow,
uniting in a mutual love for the dead, lived but in memory of him.
But Carlyle was right--this was a "washerwoman." She spent all of her
patrimony in aiding her husband to publish and distribute his writings,
and after his death, when friends proved false and even the obdurate
kinsmen still considered her name pollution, she took in washing to earn
money that she might defend the memory of the man she loved.
She was a washerwoman.
I uncover in her presence, and stand with bowed head in admiration of
the woman who gave her life for liberty and love, and who chose a life
of honest toil rather than accept charity or all that selfishness and
soft luxury had to offer. She was a washerwoman, but she was more--she
was a Woman.
Let Carlyle have the credit of using the word "washerwoman" as a term of
contempt, as though to do laundry-work were not quite as necessary as to
produce literature.
The sister and the widow wrote his life, republished very much that he
had written, and lived but to keep alive the name and fame of Jean Paul
Marat, whose sole crime seemed to be that he was a sincere and honest
man, and was, throughout his life--often unwisely--the People's Friend.