CHARLOTTE CORDAY.

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BY JULIA KAVANAGH.

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Amongst the women of the French Revolution, there is one who stands essentially apart: a solitary episode of the eventful story. She appears for a moment, performs a deed—heroic as to the intention, criminal as to the means—and disappears for ever; lost in the shadow of time—an unfathomed mystery.

And it is, perhaps, this very mystery that has invested with so much interest the name of one known by a single deed; which, though intended by her to deliver her country, changed little in its destinies. To admire her entirely is impossible; to condemn her is equally difficult. No one can read her history without feeling that, to judge her absolutely, lies not in the province of man. Beautiful, pure, gentle, and a murderess, she attracts and repels us in almost equal degrees; like all those beings whose nature is inexplicable and strange, according to the ordinary standard of humanity. Although it is generally acknowledged that site did not exercise over contemporary events that repressing power for which she sacrificed her life, it is felt, nevertheless, that no history of the times in which she lived, is complete without her name; and to her brief and tragic history an eloquent modern historian^[12] has devoted some of his most impressive pages.

The 31st of May was the signal of the fall and dispersion of the Girondists. Some, like Barbaroux, Buzot, Louvet, and their friends, retired to the provinces, which they endeavored to rouse for one last struggle. Others, like Madame Roland and the twenty-two, prepared themselves in their silent prison solitude for death and the scaffold. The name of the Girondists now became a sound as proscribed as that of Royalist had been during their brief sway. No voice gifted with power was raised throughout the republic in favor of the men by whom, in the midst of such enthusiastic acclamations, that republic had been founded. France was rapidly sinking into that state of silent apathy which foreboded the Reign of Terror: discouraged by their experience of the past, men lost their faith in humanity, and selfishly despaired of the future. A maiden’s heroic spirit alone conceived the daring project of saving those who had so long and so nobly striven for freedom; or, if this might not be, of avenging their fall, and striking terror into the hearts of their foes, by a deed of solemn immolation, worthy of the stern sacrifices of paganism, offered of yore on the blood-stained shrines of the goddess Nemesis.

The maiden was Marie-Anne Charlotte, of Corday and of Armont, one of the last descendants of a noble, though impoverished Norman family, which counted amongst its near relatives, Fontenelle, the wit and philosopher of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and amongst its ancestors, the father of the great tragic poet of France, Pierre Corneille.

Her father, Jacques of Corday and of Armont, was a younger son of this noble line. He was, however, poorer than many of the peasants amongst whom he lived, cultivating with his own hands, his narrow inheritance. He married in early life a lady of gentle blood, but as poor as himself. They had five children and a noble name to support, in a vain show of dignity, on their insufficient income. It thus happened that Charlotte, their fourth child and second daughter, was born in a thatched dwelling, in the village of Saint-Saturnin des Lignerets; and that in the register of the parish church where she was baptized, on the 28th of July, 1768, the day after her birth, she is described as “born in lawful wedlock of Jacques Francois of Corday, esquire, sieur of Armont, and of the noble dame Marie Charlotte-Jacqueline, of Gauthier des Authieux, his wife.” It was under these difficult circumstances, which embittered his temper, and often caused him to inveigh in energetic terms against the injustice of the law of primogeniture, that M. d’Armont reared his family. As soon as they were of age, his sons entered the army; one of his daughters died young; and he became a widower when the other two were emerging from childhood into youth. They remained for some time with their father, but at length entered the Abbaye aux Dames, in the neighboring town of Caen.

The greatest portion of the youth of Charlotte Corday—to give her the name by which she is generally known—was spent in the calm obscurity of her convent solitude. Many high visions, many burning dreams and lofty aspirations, already haunted her imaginative and enthusiastic mind, as she slowly paced the silent cloisters, or rested, lost in thought, beneath the shadow of the ancient elms. It is said that, like Madame Roland, she contemplated secluding herself for ever from the world in her monastic retreat; but, affected by the scepticism of the age, which penetrated even beyond convent walls, she gave up this project. From these early religions feelings, Charlotte derived, however, the calm devotedness which characterized her brief career: for though self-sacrifice may not be the exclusive attribute of Christianity, it cannot be denied that the deep humility by which it is accompanied—a feeling almost unknown to the ancients—is in itself the very spirit of Christ. The peaceful and solemn shadow of the old cloister favored the mild seriousness of Charlotte’s character. Within the precincts of her sacred retreat she grew up in grave and serene loveliness, a being fit for the gentlest duties of woman’s household life, or for one of those austere and fearless deeds which lead to the scaffold and give martyrdom in a holy cause.

The scepticism that prevailed for the last few years preceding the Revolution, was not the sensual atheism which had disgraced the eighteenth century so long. The faith in a first and eternal cause, in the sacredness of human rights and the holiness of duty, was firmly held by many noble spirits, who hailed with enthusiasm the first dawn of democracy. This faith was blended in the soul of Charlotte Corday, with a passionate admiration of antiquity. All the austerity and republican enthusiasm of her illustrious ancestor, Pierre Corneille, seemed to have come down to his young descendant. Even Rousseau and Raynal, the apostles of democracy, had no pages that could absorb her so deeply as those of ancient history, with its stirring deeds and immortal recollections. Often, like Manon Philipon, in the recess of her father’s workshop, might Charlotte Corday be seen in her convent cell, thoughtfully bending over an open volume of Plutarch; that powerful and eloquent historian of all heroic sacrifices.

When the Abbaye aux Dames was closed, in consequence of the Revolution, Charlotte was in her twentieth year, in the prime of life and of her wonderful beauty; and never, perhaps, did a vision of more dazzling loveliness step forth from beneath the dark convent portal into the light of the free and open world. She was rather tall, but admirably proportioned, with a figure full of native grace and dignity; her hands, arms, and shoulders, were models of pure sculptural beauty. An expression of singular gentleness and serenity characterized her fair, oval countenance and regular features. Her open forehead, dark and well-arched eyebrows, and eyes of a gray so deep that it was often mistaken for blue, added to her naturally grave and meditative appearance; her nose was straight and well formed, her mouth serious but exquisitely beautiful. Like most of the women of the Norman race, she had a complexion of transparent purity; enhanced by the rich brown hair which fell in thick curls around her neck, according to the fashion of the period. A simple severity characterized her dress of sombre hue, and the low and becoming lace cap which she habitually wore is still known by her name in France. Her whole aspect was fraught with so much modest grace and dignity, that, notwithstanding her youth, the first feeling she invariably inspired was one of respect; blended with involuntary admiration, for a being of such pure and touching loveliness.

On leaving the convent in which she had been educated, Charlotte Corday went to reside with her aunt, Madame Coutellier de Bretteville Gouville; an old royalist lady, who inhabited an ancient-looking house in one of the principal streets of Caen. There the young girl, who had inherited a little property, spent several years, chiefly engaged in watching the progress of the Revolution. The feelings of her father were similarly engrossed: he wrote several pamphlets in favor of the revolutionary principles; and one in which he attacked the right of primogeniture. His republican tendencies confirmed Charlotte in her opinions; but of the deep, overpowering strength which those opinions acquired in her soul, during the long hours she daily devoted to meditation, no one ever knew, until a stern and fearful deed—more stern and fearful in one so gentle—had revealed it to all France. A silent reserve characterized this epoch of Charlotte Corday’s life: her enthusiasm was not external, but inward: she listened to the discussions which were carried on around her without taking a part in them herself. She seemed to feel instinctively that great thoughts are always better nursed in the heart’s solitude: that they can only lose their native depth and intensity by being revealed too freely before the indifferent gaze of the world. Those with whom she then occasionally conversed, took little heed of the substance of her discourse, and could remember nothing of it when she afterward became celebrated; but all recollected well her voice, and spoke with strange enthusiasm of its pure, silvery sound. Like Madame Roland, whom she resembled in so many respects, Charlotte possessed this rare and great attraction; and there was something so touching in her youthful and almost childlike utterance of heroic thoughts, that it affected even to tears those who heard her on her trial, calmly defending herself from the infamous accusations of her judges, and glorying with the same low, sweet tones, in the deadly deed which had brought her before them.

The fall of the Girondists, on the 31st of May, first suggested to Charlotte Corday the possibility of giving an active shape to her hitherto passive feelings. She watched with intense, though still silent, interest the progress of events, concealing her secret indignation and thoughts of vengeance under her habitually calm aspect. Those feelings were heightened in her soul by the presence of the fugitive Girondists, who had found a refuge in Caen, and were urging the Normans to raise an army to march on Paris. She found a pretence to call upon Barbaroux, then with his friends at the Intendance. She came twice, accompanied by an old servant, and protected by her own modest dignity. Pethion saw her in the hall, where she was waiting for the handsome Girondist, and observed, with a smile—

“So, the beautiful aristocrat is come to see republicans.”

“Citizen Pethion,” she replied, “you now judge me without knowing me, but a time will come what you shall learn who I am.”

With Barbaroux, Charlotte chiefly conversed of the imprisoned Girondists; of Madame Roland and Marat. The name of this man had long haunted her with a mingled feeling of dread and horror. To Marat she ascribed the proscription of the Girondists, the woes of the republic, and on him she resolved to avenge her ill-fated country. Charlotte was not aware that Marat was but the tool of Dunton and Robespierre. “If such actions could be counseled,” afterward said Barbaroux, “it is not Marat whom we would have advised her to strike.”

Whilst this deadly thought was daily strengthening itself in Charlotte’s mind, she received several offers of marriage. She declined them, on the plea of wishing to remain free: but strange indeed must have seemed to her, at that moment, those proposals of earthly love. One of those whom her beauty had enamored, M. de Franquelin, a young volunteer in the cause of the Girondists, died of grief on learning her fate. His last request was, that her portrait and a few letters he had formerly received from her, might be buried with him in his grave.

For several days after her last interview with Barbaroux, Charlotte brooded silently over her great thought, often meditating on the history of Judith. Her aunt subsequently remembered that, on entering her room one morning, she found an old Bible open on her bed: the verse in which it is recorded that “the Lord had gifted Judith with a special beauty and fairness,” for the deliverance of Israel, was underlined with a pencil.

On another occasion Madame de Bretteville found her niece weeping alone; she inquired into the cause of her tears.

“They flow,” replied Charlotte, “for the misfortunes of my country.”

Heroic and devoted as she was, she then also wept, perchance, over her own youth and beauty, so soon to be sacrificed for ever. No personal considerations altered her resolve; she procured a passport, provided herself with money, and paid a farewell visit to her father, to inform him that, considering the unsettled condition of France, she thought it best to retire to England. He approved of her intention, and bade her adieu. On returning to Caen, Charlotte told the same tale to Madame de Bretteville, left a secret provision for an old nurse, and distributed the little property she possessed amongst her friends.

It was on the morning of the 9th of July, 1793, that she left the house of her aunt, without trusting herself with a last farewell. Her most earnest wish was, when her deed should have been accomplished, to perish, wholly unknown, by the hands of an infuriated multitude. The woman who could contemplate such a fate, and calmly devote herself to it, without one selfish thought of future renown, had indeed the heroic soul of a martyr.

Her journey to Paris was marked by no other event than the unwelcome attentions of some Jacobins with whom she traveled. One of them, struck by her modest and gentle beauty, made her a very serious proposal of marriage: she playfully evaded his request, but promised that he should learn who and what she was at some future period. On entering Paris, she proceeded immediately to the Hotel de la Providence, Rue des Vieux Augustins, not far from Marat’s dwelling. Here she rested for two days, before calling on her intended victim. Nothing can mark more forcibly the singular calmness of her mind: she felt no hurry to accomplish the deed for which she had journeyed so far, and over which she had meditated so deeply: her soul remained serene and undaunted to the last. The room which she occupied, and which has been often pointed out to inquiring strangers, was a dark and wretched attic, into which light scarcely ever penetrated. There she read again the volume of Plutarch she had brought with her—unwilling to part from her favorite author even in her last hours—and probably composed that energetic address to the people, which was found upon her after her apprehension. One of the first acts of Charlotte was to call on the Girondist, Duperret, for whom she was provided with a letter from Barbaroux, relative to the supposed business she had in Paris: her real motive was to learn how she could see Marat. She had first intended to strike him in the Champ de Mars, on the 14th of July, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, when a great and imposing ceremony was to take place. The festival being delayed, she resolved to seek him in the convention, and immolate him on the very summit of the mountain; but Marat was too ill to attend the meetings of the National Assembly: this Charlotte learned from Duperret. She resolved, nevertheless, to go to the convention, in order to fortify herself in her resolve. Mingling with the horde of Jacobins who crowded the galleries, she watched with deep attention the scene below. Saint Just was then urging the convention to proscribe Lanjuinais, the heroic defender of the Girondists. A young foreigner, a friend of Lanjuinais, and who stood at a short distance from Charlotte, noticed the expression of stern indignation which gathered over her features; until, like one over-powered by her feelings, and apprehensive of displaying them too openly, she abruptly left the place. Struck with her whole appearance, he followed her out; a sudden shower of rain, which compelled them to seek shelter under the same archway, afforded him an opportunity of entering into conversation with her. When she learned that he was a friend of Lanjuinais she waived her reserve, and questioned him with much interest concerning Madame Roland and the Girondists. She also asked him about Marat, with whom she said she had some business.

“Marat is ill; it would be better for you to apply to the public accuser, Fouquier Tinville,” said the stranger.

“I do not want him now, but I may have to deal with him yet,” she significantly replied.

Perceiving that the rain did not cease, she requested her companion to procure her a conveyance. He complied, and before parting from her, begged to be favored with her name. She refused, adding, however, “You will know it before long.” With Italian courtesy, he kissed her hand as he assisted her into the fiacre. She smiled, and bade him farewell.

Charlotte perceived that to call on Marat was the only means by which she might accomplish her purpose. She did so on the morning of the 13th of July, having first purchased a knife in the Palais Royal, and written him a note, in which she requested an interview. She was refused admittance. She then wrote him a second note, more pressing than the first, and in which she represented herself as persecuted for the cause of freedom. Without waiting to see what effect this note might produce, she called again at half-past seven the same evening.

Marat then resided in the Rue des Cordeliers, in a gloomy-looking house, which has since been demolished. His constant fears of assassination were shared by those around him; the porter, seeing a strange woman pass by his lodge without pausing to make any inquiry, ran out and called her back. She did not heed his remonstrance, but swiftly ascended the old stone stair-case, until she had reached the door of Marat’s apartment. It was cautiously opened by Albertine, a woman with whom Marat cohabited, and who passed for his wife. Recognizing the same young and handsome girl who had already called on her husband, and animated, perhaps, by a feeling of jealous mistrust, Albertine refused to admit her: Charlotte insisted with great earnestness. The sound of their altercation reached Marat; he immediately ordered his wife to admit the stranger, whom he recognized as the author of the two letters he had received in the course of the day. Albertine obeyed reluctantly; she allowed Charlotte to enter; and, after crossing with her an antechamber, where she had been occupied with a man named Laurent Basse, in folding some numbers of the “Ami du People,” she ushered her through two other rooms, until they came to a narrow closet, where Marat was then in a bath. He gave a look at Charlotte, and ordered his wife to leave them alone: she complied, but allowed the door of the closet to remain half open, and kept within call.

According to his usual custom, Marat wore a soiled handkerchief bound round his head, increasing his natural hideousness. A coarse covering was thrown across his bath; a board, likewise placed transversely, supported his papers. Laying down his pen, he asked Charlotte the purport of her visit. The closet was so narrow that she touched the bath near which she stood. She gazed on him with ill-disguised horror and disgust, but answered as composedly as she could, that she had come from Caen, in order to give him correct intelligence concerning the proceedings of the Girondists there. He listened, questioned her eagerly, wrote down the name of the Girondists, then added with a smile of triumph—

“Before a week, they shall have perished on the guillotine.”

“These words,” afterward said Charlotte, “sealed his fate.” Drawing from beneath the handkerchief which covered her bosom, the knife she had kept there all along, she plunged it to the hilt in Marat’s heart. He gave one loud expiring cry for help, and sank back dead in the bath. By an instinctive impulse, Charlotte had instantly drawn out the knife from the breast of her victim, but she did not strike again; casting it down at his feet, she left the closet and sat down in a neighboring room, thoughtfully passing her hand across her brow: her task was done.

The wife of Marat had rushed to his aid, on hearing his cry for help. Laurent Basse, seeing that all was over, turned round toward Charlotte, and with a blow of a chair felled her to the floor, whilst the infuriated Albertine trampled her under her feet. The tumult aroused the other tenants of the house; the alarm spread, and a crowd gathered in the apartment, who learned with stupor that Marat, the Friend of the People, had been murdered. Deeper still was their wonder when they gazed on the murderess. She stood there before them with still disordered garments, and her disheveled hair, loosely bound by a broad green ribbon, falling around her; but so calm, so serenely lovely, that those who most abhorred her crime gazed on her with involuntary admiration.

“Was she then so beautiful?” was the question addressed many years afterward, to on old man, one of the few remaining witnesses of this scene.

“Beautiful!” he echoed enthusiastically, adding with the eternal regrets of old age: “Ay, there are none such now!”

The commissary of police began his interrogatory in the saloon of Marat’s apartment. She told him her name, how long she had been in Paris, confessed her crime, and recognized the knife with which it had been perpetrated. The sheath was found in her pocket, with a thimble, some thread, money, and her watch.

“What was your motive in assassinating Marat?” asked the commissary.

“To prevent a civil war,” she answered.

“Who are your accomplices?”

“I have none.”

She was ordered to be transferred to the Abbaye, the nearest prison. An immense and infuriated crowd had gathered around the door of Marat’s house; one of the witnesses perceived that she would have liked to be delivered to this maddened multitude, and thus perish at once. She was not saved from their hands without difficulty; her courage failed her at the sight of the peril she ran, and she fainted away on being conveyed to the fiacre. On reaching the Abbaye, she was questioned until midnight by Chabot and Drouet, two Jacobin members of the convention. She answered their interrogatories with singular firmness; observing, in conclusion: “I have done my task, let others do theirs.” Chabot threatened her with the scaffold; she answered with a smile of disdain. Her behavior until the 17th, the day of her trial, was marked by the same firmness. She wrote to Barbaroux a charming letter, full of graceful wit and heroic feeling. Her playfulness never degenerated into levity: like that of the illustrious Thomas Moore, it was the serenity of a mind whom death had no power to daunt. Speaking of her action, she observes—

“I considered that so many brave men need not come to Paris for the head of one man. He deserved not so much honor: the hand of a woman was enough. . . . I have never hated but one being, and him with what intensity I have sufficiently shown, but there are a thousand whom I love still more than I hated him. . . . I confess that I employed a perfidious artifice in order that he might receive me. In leaving Caen, I thought to sacrifice him on the pinnacle of ‘the mountain,’ but he no longer went to it. In Paris, they cannot understand how a useless woman, whose longest life could have been of no good, could sacrifice herself to save her country. . . . May peace be as soon established as I desire! A great criminal has been laid low. . . . the happiness of my country makes mine. A lively imagination and a feeling heart promise but a stormy life; I beseech those who might regret me to consider this: they will then rejoice at my fate.”

A tenderer tone marks the brief letter she addressed to her father on the eve of her trial and death:

“Forgive me, my dear father,” she observed, “for having disposed of my existence without your permission. I have avenged many innocent victims. I have warded away many disasters. The people, undeceived, will one day rejoice at being delivered from a tyrant. If I endeavored to persuade you that I was going to England, it was because I hoped to remain unknown: I recognized that this was impossible. I hope you will not be subjected to annoyance: you have at least defenders at Caen; I have chosen Gustave Doulcet de Pontecoulant for mine: it is a mere matter of form. Such a deed allows of no defense. Farewell, my dear father. I beseech of you to forget me; or, rather, to rejoice at my fate. I die for a good cause. I embrace my sister, whom I love with my whole heart. Do not forget the line of Corneille:

‘Le crime faite la honte, et non pas l’échafaud.’

To-morrow, at eight, I am to be tried.”

On the morning of the 17th, she was led before her judges. She was dressed with care, and had never looked more lovely. Her bearing was so imposing and dignified, that the spectators and the judges seemed to stand arraigned before her. She interrupted the first witness, by declaring that it was she who had killed Marat.

“Who inspired you with so much hatred against him?” asked the president.

“I needed not the hatred of others, I had enough of my own,” she energetically replied. “Besides, we do not execute well that which we have not ourselves conceived.”

“What, then, did you hate in Marat?”

“His crimes.”

“Do you think that you have assassinated all the Marats?”

“No; but now that he is dead, the rest may fear.”

She answered other questions with equal firmness and laconism. Her project, she declared, had been formed since the 31st of May. “She had killed one man to save a hundred thousand. She was a republican long before the Revolution, and had never failed in energy.”

“What do you understand by energy?” asked the president.

“That feeling,” she replied, “which induces us to cast aside selfish considerations, and sacrifice ourselves for our country.”

Fouquier Tinville here observed, alluding to the sure blow she had given, that she must be well practiced in crime.

“The monster takes me for an assassin!” she exclaimed, in a tone thrilling with indignation.

This closed the debates, and her defender rose. It was not Doulcet de Pontecoulant—who had not received her letter—but Chauveau de la Garde, chosen by the president. Charlotte gave him an anxious look, as though she feared he might seek to save her at the expense of honor. He spoke, and she perceived that her apprehensions were unfounded. Without excusing her crime or attributing it to insanity, he pleaded for the fervor of her conviction; which he had the courage to call sublime. The appeal proved unavailing. Charlotte Corday was condemned. Without deigning to answer the president, who asked her if she had aught to object to the penalty of death being carried out against her, she rose, and walking up to her defender, thanked him gracefully.

“These gentlemen,” said she, pointing to the judges, “have just informed me that the whole of my property is confiscated. I owe something in the prison: as a proof of my friendship and esteem, I request you to pay this little debt.”

On returning to the conciergerie, she found an artist, named Hauer, waiting for her, to finish her portrait, which he had begun at the tribunal. They conversed freely together, until the executioner, carrying the red chemise destined for assassins, and the scissors with which he was to cut her hair off, made his appearance.

“What, so soon?” exclaimed Charlotte Corday, slightly turning pale; but rallying her courage, she resumed her composure, and presented a lock of her hair to M. Hauer, as the only reward in her power to offer. A priest came to offer her his ministry. She thanked him and the persons by whom he had been sent, but declined his spiritual aid. The executioner cut her hair, bound her hands, and threw the red chemise over her. M. Hauer was struck with the almost unearthly loveliness which the crimson hue of this garment imparted to the ill-fated maiden. “This toilet of death, though performed by rude hands, leads to immortality,” said Charlotte, with a smile.

A heavy storm broke forth as the car of the condemned left the conciergerie for the Place de la Revolution. An immense crowd lined every street through which Charlotte Corday passed. Hootings and execrations at first rose on her path; but as her pure and serene beauty dawned on the multitude, as the exquisite loveliness of her countenance, and the sculptural beauty of her figure became more fully revealed, pity and admiration superseded every other feeling. Her bearing was so admirably calm and dignified, as to rouse sympathy in the breasts of those who detested not only her crime, but the cause for which it had been committed. Many men of every party took off their hats and bowed as the cart passed before them. Amongst those who waited its approach, was a young German, named Adam Luz, who stood at the entrance of the Rue Sainte Honore, and followed Charlotte to the scaffold. He gazed on the lovely and heroic maiden with all the enthusiasm of his imaginative race. A love, unexampled perhaps in the history of the human heart, took possession of his soul. Not one wandering look of “those beautiful eyes, which revealed a soul as intrepid as it was tender,” escaped him. Every earthly grace so soon to perish in death, every trace of the lofty and immortal spirit, filled him with bitter and intoxicating emotions unknown till then. “To die for her; to be struck by the same hand; to feel in death the same cold axe which had severed the angelic head of Charlotte; to be united to her in heroism, freedom, love, and death, was now the only hope and desire of his heart.”

Unconscious of the passionate love she had awakened, Charlotte now stood near the guillotine. She turned pale on first beholding it, but soon resumed her serenity. A deep blush suffused her face when the executioner removed the handkerchief that covered her neck and shoulders, but she calmly laid her head upon the block. The executioner touched a spring, and the axe came down. One of Samson’s assistants immediately stepped forward, and holding up the lifeless head to the gaze of the crowd, struck it on either cheek. The brutal act only excited a feeling of horror; and it is said that—as though even in death her indignant spirit protested against this outrage—an angry and crimson flush passed over the features of Charlotte Corday.

A few days after her execution, Adam Luz published a pamphlet, in which he enthusiastically praised her deed, and proposed that a statue with the inscription, “Greater than Brutus,” should be erected to her memory on the spot where she had perished. He was arrested and thrown into prison. On entering the Abbaye, he passionately exclaimed, “I am going to die for her!” His wish was fulfilled ere long.

Strange, feverish times were those which could rouse a gentle and lovely maiden to avenge freedom by such a deadly deed; which could waken in a human heart a love whose thoughts were not of life or earthly bliss, but of the grave and the scaffold. Let the times, then, explain those natures, where so much evil and heroism are blended, that man cannot mark the limits between both. Whatever judgment may be passed upon her, the character of Charlotte Corday was certainly not cast in an ordinary mould. It is a striking and noble trait, that to the last she did not repent: never was error more sincere. If she could have repented, she would never have become guilty.

Her deed created an extraordinary impression throughout France. On hearing of it, a beautiful royalist lady fell down on her knees, and invoked “Saint Charlotte Corday.” The republican Madame Roland calls her a heroine worthy of a better age. The poet, Andre Chenier—who, before a year had elapsed, followed her on the scaffold—sang her heroism in a soul-stirring strain.

The political influence of that deed may be estimated by the exclamation of Vergniaud: “She kills us, but she teaches us how to die!” It was so. The assassination of Marat exasperated all his fanatic partisans against the Girondists. Almost divine honors were paid to his memory; forms of prayer were addressed to him; altars were erected to his honor, and numberless victims sent to the scaffold as a peace-offering to his manes. On the wreck of his popularity rose the far more dangerous power of Robespierre; a new impulse was given to the Reign of Terror. Such was the “peace” which the erring and heroic Charlotte Corday won for France.