WHOLESALE MASSACRE.
The twenty-two deputies were already condemned by the will of the
ensanguined mob.
On the eve of the last day in May (1793), of those twenty-two, only
one, the leader, Vergniaud, slept in his own home. The others feared
an assassination, and sought the aid of friends.
A vote being carried against the moderates, the victors proposed to
walk with the people through the city, which was illuminated. The
Girondists, as a measure of precaution, joined in the procession.
While the procession was progressing, that now organized band, the
Revolutionary Committee, sent to arrest Madame Roland’s husband.
That evening, Roland, who does not show well in this business,
fled into hiding. Madame Roland then determined to go down to the
Convention and upbraid it. So far, the French had not begun to behead
women. Starting from her home, she was surprised to find the city
had been suddenly illuminated. Making her way to the Convention,
she found it closed. And she learnt that the moderate party were
overthrown, and that they would soon be headless.
She returned home, to await her fate. She did not seek to fly.
Roland, poor man, remained in concealment—only, after a time, to be
ashamed of his cowardice, and to commit suicide.
She prepared to send away her daughter to trusted friends, made up
a packet of clothing to take with her to prison, and waited. At
midnight, they came beating at her door, and she had to be awakened;
for no fear of death deprived her of that balm of life—sleep.
“How much you are beloved!” said the leader of the sectionaries,
seeing the eagerness with which the young daughter kissed her mother.
“Because I love,” she replied, proudly.
Reaching the carriage waiting for her, she was asked if she would
have the window closed.
“No,” she replied; “I have done no harm, and I can face my enemies.”
“You are braver than many men waiting the decree of justice.”
“If in France there were justice, _I_ should not be seated with
_you_. I shall go to the scaffold as fearlessly as I go to prison. I
despise life.”
Marat now became supreme. “Rise, sovereign people!” he cried; “no man
dare oppose you.”
There was never given a more fearful impetus to murder than these
words.
What it pleased men to call a Committee of Public Safety was now
organized, and its operation was the killing of every human being who
could by any means be made to appear not utterly to sympathise with
the seething mob.
The Convention existed, but its power was completely at an end. Its
votes were laughed at. Queen Guillotine was the one power left in
France.
Every day the foreign arms directed against France obtained
successes. Meanwhile, the land was like a vessel without a rudder. No
man was strong enough to control the mob. Indeed, it was only when
Napoleon Bonaparte rose, that internal peace was established. It is
not to be wondered at that he came to be looked up to as a demigod.
Twenty thousand Royalist volunteers were now in arms against Marat,
in one department of France alone.
Marat was at this time King of Paris. Robespierre was waiting. Danton
was threatening and trembling at the same time. Another week, and the
foul Marat would have conquered both, and been proclaimed, by the
voice of the streets, President of the Republic.
But his hideous career was to be arrested by the feeble hand of a
girl—Charlotte Corday.
Just before the commencement of the Reign of Terror in France, there
might have been seen in a quiet corner of a quiet old street in Caen
(that city in Normandy so much mixed up with the early history of
English), a quiet old house, called the Grand Manor—a house around a
court-yard, in the centre of which was a mossy fountain. Near this
fountain, through the sunny hours, might frequently be seen a very
beautiful girl, the niece of an aged woman, who was the maiden’s
aunt. This was Charlotte Corday. Fair of skin, and grey of eye, her
hair was what had not inaptly been termed gilded-black. In other
words, it was black hair, golden-tipped, with golden lines veining
it. She was always dressed plainly, in brown cloth, and her voice
was sweet and lingering. No man has ever breathed a word against her
character.
By a peculiar course of study—which it is needless to analyze—she
had brought herself to that condition of mind when the sufferer
experiences the belief that a self-sacrifice of some nature must be
made, in order to appease an inexplicable, unknown longing to do some
good—a something which is supposed to be good—in the world.
She was essentially a Republican; but gradually, slowly, the
conviction enchained her, that Marat was its monster, and that he
must die. Her resolve appears to have been hastened by the departure
of her lover, who joined the Caen volunteers. This gentleman, one
Franquelin, was, it is said, accused by Marat as a conspirator
against the republic, and assassinated by villains hired for that
purpose. He did not die on the spot, as it was at first reported, but
returned home after Charlotte Corday’s execution. His last words were
an entreaty to his mother to bury with him Charlotte’s portrait, and
all the letters she had ever written to him.
Supplemental to the latter motive, Charlotte Corday believed Marat
was ruining all France. Here she believed truly.
She obtained a letter to one of the Conventionists. No one had the
slightest idea of her intentions. She retained a sweet, soft gaiety,
which was quite natural to her, and which accompanied this lady to
the scaffold. An anecdote is very characteristic of her life. Just
before she started for Paris, passing a _café_, outside of which some
men were card-playing, she said, “Cards! Do you know your country is
dying?”
Taking a sheet of drawing-paper one morning, she said, “Aunt, I am
going to sketch the hay-makers—kiss me.”
Going out, she met a child, of whom she was very fond.
“Here, Robert,” she said, giving him the drawing-paper; “kiss me, and
be a good boy. You will never see me again.”
She chattered in the coach most of the way to Paris. One young
man fell in love with her, and asked to apply to her friends. She
mirthfully repulsed him, and told him to wait, at least for some days.
It was now July. On the eleventh of that month, Charlotte Corday
reached Paris. At five in the afternoon she retired to rest in a
public-house, and slept until next day, when she presented her letter
at the house of the Conventionist, Duperret. When she saw him, she
vaguely entreated him to flee from Paris. “After to-morrow evening,”
she said, “it will be too late.”
Duperret spoke of her as a beautiful girl, slightly deranged.
Her great desire was to remain unknown by name in connection with the
death of Marat. With this view, she determined to kill him before
the people, so that she might at once be torn to pieces, and her
mutilated face be beyond recognition. But she learnt that Marat was
so ill that he could not appear in public again. He still issued,
daily, stronger and more defiant demands for men’s lives. It was said
he remained at home from fear of assassination. Charlotte Corday
resolved to seek him in his home.
She wrote this letter:—
“I have just arrived from Caen. Your patriotism allows me to be
presumptive enough to hope that you will hear privately what I
have to say concerning events in that city. I shall present myself
at your door about one o’clock. I pray you for the good of all
France—receive me!”
She went to his house, and was refused admittance. She wrote another
letter:—
“I cannot believe that it was you yourself refused me admission:
you are too good a patriot. I repeat, I have important news to tell
you; that I have just arrived from the north, and I have secrets to
disclose. I am persecuted. Will _you_, then, not aid me?”
At seven the next morning she dressed herself very carefully. She
wore a white dress, with a silk scarf crossed over the breast and
knotted behind—a white Normandy cap, bound with a green ribbon—her
hair falling over her shoulders. Her face was bright, fresh-colored,
her countenance smiling.
Thus she presented herself at the house occupied by Marat, who
happened to be in his bath, which he used, not for its cleanly
offices, but because it reduced the bodily inflammation which had now
become habitual to him.
The house, which bore all the aspects of that poverty in which Marat
was really plunged, was jealously guarded. But what men could
suspect a beautiful girl, clothed in brilliant white, her face
flushing with youth and beauty?
Charlotte Corday stepped from her coach, and approached the house.
She reached the outer door of the apartments in which Marat lived,
and there her entrance was jealously opposed by Albertine, Marat’s
mistress, and a female friend.
Marat, hearing the altercation, and associating the pleading voice
with the letters he had received, imperatively ordered the applicant
to be admitted.
Now mark what occurred. The woman Albertine, offended, walked away,
her friend followed her, and Charlotte Corday was alone with Marat.
The room was dark, close, and smelt abominably. He was wrapped in a
dirty sheet, and sitting in a bath, across which was a rough piece
of wood which he made his desk, for he passed hours in the water.
He was writing when Charlotte Corday entered. He had finished this
sentence:—“I demand that every man in France who has the blood of the
Bourbons in his veins, however little, shall be put upon his trial,
and his wife and children also.”
She approached this human monster, her eyes downcast. He spoke to her
imperiously—“What is the state of Normandy?”
“Certain deputies have taken refuge in Caen.”
“Their names?”
She gave certain names, and he wrote them down.
“Good!” he said; “before another week is past, they shall be
guillotined.”
At this moment she raised the dagger she took from the breast of her
dress, and plunged it down into his bosom.
“Help, my dear, help!” he cried, and fell back dead.
Albertine, the woman, and a man named Basse rushed forward in time
to see his last-drawn breath. By this time the water was like that
crimson stream Marat was for ever demanding. He was bathed in it
himself now.
She did not attempt to escape. She drew out the dagger, let it fall,
and took two or three steps to the window. The man Basse caught up
a chair and beat her down, whereupon the woman, Albertine, trampled
upon her.
The news spread in an incalculably short space of time, and the
seething people called up into the air, “Throw her out to us; we are
waiting.”
Soldiers rushed in, forming a hedge of steel about Charlotte Corday,
and beat back the blaspheming crowd.
Charlotte showed no fear, crossed her hands ready for the cords, and
her first words were “Poor woman!” in reference to Albertine, who was
rending the air with her cries.
She said afterwards she had not asked herself the question, “Could
this man be loved?”
“Poor people!” she said to those who endeavored to tear her to
pieces; “you desire my death, whilst you owe me an altar for
having freed you from a monster! Oh, throw me to the people,” she
said to the soldiers; “as they regret him, they are fit to be my
executioners!”
She was not cast among the people—at least, she died in peace. She
boasted of her act, and declared herself a martyr.
Paris turned pale at the news. The panic reaching the Convention,
business was arrested. One Henriot, the Commandant-General of the
National Guard, entered.
“Tremble!” he cried. “Marat has been assassinated by a girl, who
boasts of her deed! Tremble! Such a fate threatens all! Mistrust
green ribbons, and let us swear to avenge the death of this great
man.”
Charlotte Corday, accused of murder, stood beautiful and smiling in
the midst of accusers, all of whom wore fierce looks of hate and rage.
She was fearless until she reached the street, when the blaze of
shouts so terrified this young country girl, that she fainted.
Restored to consciousness, (they had bound her weak hands), she
cried, “Alas! do I still live?”
Then quite consistently, she thanked her guardians for saving her
from the crowd.
She never for one moment looked upon her act as a crime. When
interrogated at her trial, she adhered to this statement:—“I saw
civil war enveloping France. I considered Marat its chief cause, and
to save my country I sacrificed myself, and slew him.”
That her virtue was attacked at her trial, is a condition of things
which clearly proves how deeply dyed in prejudice by this time had
become the revolutionary tribunals.
One Chabot under pretence of suspecting a concealed paper, tore off
her breast kerchief. She leaped back at the outrage, the string of
her dress broke, and her fair chest was exposed to the gaze of a
number of savage men. Her hands were corded, so that she could not
save herself from degradation; and her virtue gave of itself her
best proof, for she crouched down to hide her disarranged dress.
Entreating them to untie her hands, they complied; and turning her
back to the wall, she rapidly completed her toilette. Where the cords
had been, the flesh was marked with great blue bands; and very meekly
she asked to be allowed to put on her long gloves before the knots
were again tied. Upon her dress, after her death, was found pinned a
long address to France, in which she entreated all men to destroy the
Jacobins, and save France.
She was condemned to die the following morning. An artist, during her
trial, having been remarked by her drawing her face, she requested he
might complete it, and the painter was introduced to her cell. One
man endeavored to save her by maintaining she was insane. In this
shape of pity, he nearly lost his own head.
She wrote of Marat finally:—“Pardon me, oh men! The name of Marat
dishonors your race. He was a beast of prey seeking to devour France
by war and hate. I thank Heaven that by birth he was no Frenchman.”
She was pained by the accusation made by Chabot, the wretch who had
torn away her neckerchief, who declared she had been his mistress,
far more than by the thought of approaching death. “Chabot,” she
wrote, “is a mere madman. I never even dreamed of this man. He need
not be feared—he has not intellect enough to be dangerous.”
In the same paper she said, “All Parisians are such good citizens,
they cannot comprehend how a useless woman, whose longest term of
life would be good for nothing, can calmly sacrifice herself for her
country. To-morrow, at twelve, _I shall have lived!_”
Again she said, “’Tis crime gives the shame—it is not the block.”
This is the verse of the great French poet Corneille, who was her
ancestor.
Tried at eight in the morning, and knowing she should die at mid-day,
she said, upon leaving the prison, “Madame Richard, pray let my
breakfast be ready upon my return, or we shall not have time to take
it together.”
At her trial, it being maintained that the nature of the blow which
killed Marat had been that of one accomplished in the use of the
dagger, she cried, “Miserable wretch—he takes me for an assassin!”
The counsel for her defence urged that she only pleaded that in
killing Marat she was doing a public good.
The jury directly found her guilty, and ordered her property to be
confiscated.
“Sir,” she said to her defender, “you have done well. But I cannot
pay you, for you have heard how my property has been seized. However,
I do you this honor; I pray that you will pay the few pieces of
silver I owe to the prison people—they ought to be paid.”
Going back to her prison, where the painter finished her portrait,
she conversed about painting.
A knock at the cell-door, and the executioner entered, carrying
scissors with which to cut away her hair, and the red garments worn
by the condemned on their way to execution.
“Sir,” she said to the painter, “I can only offer you a lock of hair.”
And taking the gaoler’s scissors, she cut a lock of the wonderful
hair.
A priest coming, she said, “I thank those who have been kind enough
to send you, but I do not require your services. The blood I have
spilt, and my own, which I am about to shed, are the only sacrifices
I can offer the Eternal.”
The executioner now cut off her hair, and flung over her head the red
garment.
“This,” she said, “is the toilette of death, arranged by somewhat
rude hands, but it leads to immortality.”
As she stepped upon the cart, such as carried all those condemned to
death to the place of execution, a violent storm burst over Paris.
Women danced about the death-cart, uttering imprecations; hers was
the only calm face to be seen. Strangely enough, the rain wetting the
red flannel—her only covering to the waist—it clung to her skin, and
betrayed her to be exquisitely formed, especially as her hands were
so tied behind her that she was forced to hold herself upright.
As she neared the scaffold, the sun appeared, and the gold threads in
her hair shone out magnificently.
The leaders of the rebellion, Danton, Robespierre, Camille
Desmoulins, standing at a window, saw her pass. She had preserved
them from Marat, but, at the same time, she had shown how a tyrant
could be slain. She saved their lives by her act; but she taught,
also, how they might be taken.
One Adam Lux, a German, was hopelessly stricken by love as she passed
along. He followed to the scaffold’s feet, asking to die with her.
Reaching the scaffold, she turned pale, and, for one moment, shrank;
but the next, recovering herself, ascended the steps as rapidly as
her long red dress and pinioned arms would allow.
When the executioner pulled down her dress, that her neck might be
bare, she was for the last time outraged while living. She placed
herself upon the plank, and, the next moment, her head fell.
Legros, a miserable scaffold-dog, took up the head by the remaining
hair, and struck at the cheeks. It is said the skin grew scarlet, as
though the modesty of Charlotte Corday outlasted her life.
Did her face change color? Some hold that the head has consciousness
and power after being severed from the body, and that it can see and
hear. Nay, it was urged during the Revolution that the passion of the
heads remained, because the interior of the wicker baskets in which
the heads were carried away were often found to be gnawed, as though
the teeth of the heads gnashed after separation from the body. For my
part, I believe that this gnawing was effected by rats, which at that
time, even more than now, overran Paris.
Such was the death of Marat—of his murderer, whom we cannot praise.
But who can blame her? Assuredly her death was necessary to purge her
of assassination, to some extent.
Adam Lux, wild with love, published a defence of Charlotte Corday. He
was seized, and, three days afterwards, died by the very knife which
destroyed her life.
Chénier, the patriotic poet, sang her heroism. He was soon arrested,
and therefore beheaded.
But what good had Charlotte Corday done?
She had strengthened the love of the people for desperate measures;
she had made a martyr of their most foul leader. She gave a dignity
to those who advocated the scaffold. The liberal twenty-two knew that
this last act annihilated them.