Born at Boudry, 1744; assassinated in Paris, July, 3, 1793.
In early life he was a medical student, and the author of various
treatises on physical science, and of a pamphlet in favour of the
abolition of capital punishment.
He settled in Paris, and after attempting unsuccessfully many careers,
such as savant, romantic writer and philosopher, was finally glad,
after many efforts, to obtain the position of doctor to the body guard
of the Comte D’Artois. He had lost this situation some time before the
Revolution.
When that took place, Marat adopted the surname of “Friend of the
People”: editing and publishing under that title a weekly newspaper.
Towards the close of 1789, in one of his articles he proposed the
erection of 800 gibbets within the Tuileries Gardens, upon each of
which was to be hanged one of those whom he called “traitors to the
community”; of these the first was to be Mirabeau. In consequence of
this audacious proposal the Constitutional Assembly ordered the arrest
of the author, who took refuge first in the house of an actress at the
Théâtre Français, and later in the presbytery of the _curé_ of St.
Louis at Versailles.
Marat was one of those seven members of the Commune who signed the
order for the September massacres in the prisons of Paris.
At the King’s trial his (Marat’s) vote was couched in these terms: “No
appeal to the people, only an accomplice of the tyrant would demand
this.”
After the execution of Louis XVI. Marat was seized with a frenzied
thirst for blood and massacre, “Let us slay,” he wrote in his journal,
“270,000 partisans of the _ancien régime_, and reduce by
executions the number of the Convention by a quarter.” He constantly
complained that too few persons were executed, adding, “Only the dead
do not return.”
The Girondins succeeded in bringing him before the Revolutionary
Tribune, but by the efforts of Fouquier-Tinville he was triumphantly
acquitted. He soon revenged himself upon them, for all the Girondin
party were ordered into arrest upon the 2nd of June following.
A few escaped from Paris, amongst these was the young gallant and
handsome Barbaroux, who took temporary refuge at Caen in Normandy,
where he met a female descendant of the great Corneille, Charlotte
Corday. Barbaroux’s recitals of the cruelties being exercised in
Paris moved her profoundly; and when a few days later the news of his
execution at Bordeaux reached Caen, she determined ta proceed to Paris
and kill Danton or Marat. The sequel of her journey is too well known
to need repetition here.
After the death of Marat his body lay in state; he was accorded a
magnificent funeral; his bust placed in all French municipalities, and
the honours of the Panthéon decreed to him.
When the reaction came his bust and statue were destroyed, his remains
disinterred and burnt, and their ashes flung into the main sewer of the
Rue Montmârtre.