Jean-Paul Marat

Jean-Paul Marat
Portrait byJoseph Boze,1793
Member of theNational Convention
In office 9 September 1792 – 13 July 1793
Constituency	Paris
Personal details
Born	Jean-Paul Mara (1743-05-24)24 May 1743 Boudry,Principality of Neuchâtel
Died	13 July 1793(1793-07-13)(aged 50) Paris, France
Manner of death	Assassination(stab wound)
Political party	The Mountain
Other political affiliations	Cordeliers Club(from 1790) Jacobin Club(from 1792)
Spouse	Simonne Évrard ​ (m.1792)​
Parent	Jean Mara(father)
Alma mater	University of St Andrews(MD)
Occupation	Journalist, politician, physician, scientist, political theorist
Signature

Jean-Paul Marat(UK:/ˈmærɑː/,US:/məˈrɑː/,French:[ʒɑ̃pɔlmaʁa];bornMara;24 May 1743 – 13 July 1793) was a Frenchpolitical theorist,physician, and scientist.A journalist and politician during theFrench Revolution,he was a vigorous defender of thesans-culottes,a radical voice, and published his views in pamphlets, placards and newspapers. His periodicalL'Ami du peuple(The Friend of the People) made him an unofficial link with the radicalJacobingroup that came to power after June 1793.

His journalism was known for its fierce tone and uncompromising stance toward the new leaders and institutions of the revolution. Responsibility for theSeptember massacreshas been attributed to him, given his position of renown at the time, and a paper trail of decisions leading up to the massacres.Others posit the collective mentality that made them possible resulted from circumstances and not from the will of any particular individual.Marat was assassinated byCharlotte Corday,aGirondinsympathizer, while taking a medicinal bath for his debilitating skin condition. Corday was executed four days later for his assassination, on 17 July 1793.

In death, Marat became an icon to theMontagnardsfaction of the Jacobins as well as the greater sans-culotte population, and a revolutionarymartyr;according to contemporary accounts, some even mourned him with a kind of prayer: "O heart of Jesus! O sacred heart of Marat".The most famous painter in Paris,Jacques-Louis David,immortalized Marat in his iconic paintingThe Death of Marat.David and Marat were part of theParis Communeleadership anchored in theCordelierssection, from where the Revolution is said to have started in 1789 because those who stormed theBastillelived there. Both David and Marat were on the Commune'sCommittee of General Securityduring the beginnings of what would become known as theReign of Terror.

Early life, education, and early writing

Family

Commemorative plaqueon the house where Marat was born, inBoudryinSwitzerland

Jean-Paul Marat was born inBoudry,in the PrussianPrincipality of Neuchâtel(now acantonofSwitzerland), on 24 May 1743.He was the first of five children born to Jean Mara (born Juan Salvador Mara; 1704–1783), aSardinianfromCagliari,and Louise Cabrol (1724–1782), fromGeneva.His father studied in Spain and Sardinia before becoming aMercedarianfriar in 1720, at age 16, but at some point left the order and converted toCalvinism,and in 1740 immigrated to the ProtestantRepublic of Geneva.His mother, who hadHuguenotbackground from both sides of her family, was the daughter of FrenchperruquierLouis Cabrol, originally fromCastres,Languedoc,and Genevan citizen after 1723, and his wife Pauline-Catherine Molinier. Jean Mara and Louise Cabrol married on 19 March 1741 at the parish church of Le Petit-Saconnex, a district of Geneva.One of Marat's brothers, David Mara (born in 1756), was a professor at theTsarskoye Selo Lyceumin theRussian Empire,where he hadAlexander Pushkinas his student.

Marat's family lived in moderate circumstances, as his father was well educated but unable to secure a stable profession. Marat credits his father for instilling in him a love of learning. He explains he felt "exceptionally fortunate to have had the advantage of receiving a very careful education in my paternal home."From his mother, he claims to have been taught a strong sense of morality and social conscience. Marat left home at the age of 16, desiring to seek an education in France. He was aware of the limited opportunities for those seen as outsiders as his highly educated father had been turned down for several college (secondary) teaching posts. In 1754 his family settled inNeuchâtel,capital of the Principality, where Marat's father began working as atutor.

Education

Marat received his early education in the city ofNeuchâteland there was a student of Jean-Élie Bertrand, who later founded theSociété typographique de Neuchâtel.At 17 years of age he applied for the expedition ofJean-Baptiste Chappe d'AuterochetoTobolskto measure thetransit of Venus,but was turned down.His first patronage was fulfilled with the wealthy Nairac family inBordeaux,where he stayed for two years. He then moved toParisand studied medicine without gaining any formal qualifications. After moving to France, Jean-Paul Marafrancizedhis surname as "Marat". He worked, informally, as a doctor after moving toLondonin 1765 due to a fear of being "drawn into dissipation".While there he befriended theRoyal AcademicianartistAngelica Kauffman.His social circle included Italian artists and architects who met in coffee houses aroundSoho.Highly ambitious, but without patronage or qualifications, he set about inserting himself into the intellectual scene.

Political, philosophical, and medical writing

Around 1770, Marat moved toNewcastle upon Tyne.His first political work,Chains of Slavery(1774), inspired by the extra-parliamentary activities of the disenfranchised MP and later Mayor of LondonJohn Wilkes,was most probably compiledin the central library there. By Marat's own account, while composing it he lived on black coffee for three months and slept two hours a night, and after finishing it he slept soundly for 13 days in a row.He gave it the subtitle, "A work in which the clandestine and villainous attempts of Princes to ruin Liberty are pointed out, and the dreadful scenes of Despotism disclosed". In the work, Marat criticized aspects ofEngland's constitutionthat he believed to be corrupt or despotic. He condemned the King's power to influence Parliament through bribery and attacked limitations on voting rights.Chains of Slavery'spolitical ideology takes clear inspiration fromJean-Jacques Rousseauby attributing the nation's sovereignty to the common people rather than a monarch. He also suggests that the people express sovereignty through representatives who cannot enact legislation without the approval of the people they represent.This work earned him honorary membership of the patriotic societies ofBerwick-upon-Tweed,CarlisleandNewcastle.TheNewcastle Literary and Philosophical SocietyLibrarypossesses a copy, andTyne and Wear Archives Serviceholds three presented to the various Newcastle guilds.

Marat published "A Philosophical Essay on Man," in 1773 and "Chains of Slavery," in 1774.Voltaire's sharp critique of "De l'Homme" (an augmented translation, published 1775–76), partly in defence of his protégéHelvétius,reinforced Marat's growing sense of a widening gulf between thephilosophes,grouped around Voltaire on one hand, and their opponents, loosely grouped aroundRousseauon the other.

After a published essay on curing a friend of gleets (gonorrhoea) he secured medicalrefereesfor an MD from theUniversity of St Andrewsin June 1775.

He publishedEnquiry into the Nature, Cause, and Cure of a Singular Disease of the Eyeson his return to London. In 1776, Marat moved to Paris after stopping in Geneva to visit his family.

In Paris, his growing reputation as a highly effective doctor along with the patronage of theMarquis de l'Aubespine(the husband of one of his patients) secured his appointment as physician to the bodyguard of theComte d'Artois,Louis XVI's youngest brother who was to become king Charles X in 1824.He began this position in June 1777. The position paid 2,000livresa year plus allowances.

Scientific writing

Marat set up a laboratory in theMarquise de l'Aubespine's house with funds obtained by serving as court doctor among the aristocracy. His method was to describe in detail the meticulous series of experiments he had undertaken on a problem, seeking to explore and then exclude all possible conclusions but the one he reached.

He published works on fire and heat,electricity,and light. He published a summary of his scientific views and discoveries inDécouvertes de M. Marat sur le feu, l'électricité et la lumière(English:Mr Marat's Discoveries on Fire, Electricity and Light) in 1779. He published three more detailed and extensive works that expanded on each of his areas of research.

Recherches Physiques sur le Feu

The first of Marat's large-scale publications detailing his experiments and drawing conclusions from them wasRecherches Physiques sur le Feu(English:Research into the Physics of Fire), which was published in 1780 with the approval of the official censors.

This publication describes 166 experiments conducted to demonstrate that fire was not, as was widely held, a material element but an "igneousfluid. "He asked theAcademy of Sciencesto appraise his work, and it appointed a commission to do so, which reported in April 1779. The report avoided endorsing Marat's conclusions but praised his "new, precise and well-executed experiments, appropriately and ingeniously designed". Marat then published his work, with the claim that the Academy approved of its contents. Since the Academy had endorsed his methods but said nothing about his conclusions, this claim drew the ire ofAntoine Lavoisier,who demanded that the Academy repudiate it. When the Academy did so, this marked the beginning of worsening relations between Marat and many of its leading members. A number of them, including Lavoisier himself, as well asCondorcetandLaplacetook a strong dislike to Marat. However,LamarckandLacépèdewrote positively about Marat's experiments and conclusions.

Découvertes sur la Lumière

In Marat's time,Newton's views on light and colour were regarded almost universally as definitive, yet Marat's explicit purpose in his second major workDécouvertes sur la Lumière(Discoveries on Light) was to demonstrate that in certain key areas, Newton was wrong.

The focus of Marat's work was the study of how light bends around objects, and his main argument was that while Newton held that white light was broken down into colours byrefraction,the colours were actually caused bydiffraction.When a beam of sunlight shone through an aperture, passed through a prism and projected colour onto a wall, the splitting of the light into colours took place not in the prism, as Newton maintained, but at the edges of the aperture itself.Marat sought to demonstrate that there are only threeprimary colours,rather than seven as Newton had argued.

Once again, Marat requested the Academy of Sciences review his work, and it set up a commission to do so. Over a period of seven months, from June 1779 to January 1780, Marat performed his experiments in the presence of the commissioners so that they could appraise his methods and conclusions. The drafting of their final report was assigned toJean-Baptiste Le Roy.The report was finally produced after many delays in May 1780, and consisted of just three short paragraphs. Significantly, the report concluded that"these experiments are so very numerous...[but]...they do not appear to us to prove what the author believes they establish".The Academy declined to endorse Marat's work.When it was published,Découvertes sur la lumièredid not carry the royal approbation. According to the title page, it was printed in London, so that either, Marat could not get the official censor to approve it, or, he did not want to spend the time and effort to do so.

Recherches Physiques sur L'Électricité

Marat's third major work,Recherches Physiques sur l'Électricité(English:Research on the Physics of Electricity), outlined 214 experiments. One of his major areas of interest was inelectrical attraction and repulsion.Repulsion, he held, was not a basic force of nature. He addressed a number of other areas of enquiry in his work, concluding with a section onlightning rodswhich argued that those with pointed ends were more effective than those with blunt ends, and denouncing the idea of "earthquake rods"advocated byPierre Bertholon de Saint-Lazare.This book was published with the censor's stamp of approval, but Marat did not seek the endorsement of the Academy of Sciences.

In April 1783,he resigned his court appointment and devoted his energies full-time to scientific research. Apart from his major works, during this period Marat published shorter essays on the medical use of electricity (Mémoire sur l'électricité médicale(1783)) and on optics (Notions élémentaires d'optique(1784)). He published a well-received translation of Newton'sOpticks(1787), which was still in print until recently,and later a collection of essays on his experimental findings, including a study on the effect of light on soap bubbles in hisMémoires académiques, ou nouvelles découvertes sur la lumière(Academic memoirs, or new discoveries on light,1788).Benjamin Franklinvisited him on several occasions andGoethedescribed his rejection by the Academy as a glaring example of scientific despotism.

Other pre-Revolutionary writing

In 1780, Marat published his "favourite work," aPlan de législation criminelle.It was apolemicfor penal reform which had been entered into a competition announced by theBerneEconomic Society in February 1777 and backed byFrederick the Greatand Voltaire. Marat was inspired by RousseauandCesare Beccaria's"Il libro dei delitti e delle pene".

Marat's entry contained many radical ideas, including the argument that society should providefundamental natural needs,such as food and shelter, if it expected all its citizens to follow its civil laws, that the king was no more than the "first magistrate" of his people, that there should be a common death penalty regardless of class, and that each town should have a dedicated "avocatdespauvres "and set up independent criminal tribunals with twelve-man juries to ensure a fair trial.

In the early French Revolution

Estates General and Fall of the Bastille

Marat byJean-François Garneray

In 1788, theAssembly of NotablesadvisedLouis XVIto assemble theEstates-Generalfor the first time in 175 years. According to Marat, in the latter half of 1788 he had been deathly ill. Upon hearing of the King's decision to call together theEstates General,however, he explains that the "news had a powerful effect on me; my illness suddenly broke and my spirits revived".He strongly desired to contribute his ideas to the coming events and subsequently abandoned his career as a scientist and doctor, taking up his pen on behalf of theThird Estate.

Marat anonymously published his first contribution to the revolution in February 1789, titledOffrande à la Patrie(Offering to the Nation), which touched on some of the same points as theAbbé Sieyès' famous "Qu'est-ce que le Tiers État?"("What is the Third Estate?").Marat claimed that this work caused a sensation throughout France, though he likely exaggerated its effect as the pamphlet mostly echoed ideas similar to many other pamphlets and cahiers circulating at the time.This was followed by a "Supplément de l'Offrande" in March, where he was less optimistic, expressing displeasure with the King'sLettres Royalesof 24 January. In August 1789, he publishedLa Constitution, ou Projet de déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen,intended to influence the drafting of France's new constitution, then being debated in theNational Assembly.In this work, he builds his theories upon ideas taken fromMontesquieuand Rousseau, claiming that the sovereignty of the nation rests with the people and emphasizing the need for aseparation of powers.He argues for aconstitutional monarchy,believing that arepublicis ineffective in large nations.Marat's work elicited no response from the National Assembly.

On 14 July, three days after Louis XVI dismissedJacques Neckeras his financial advisor, enraged Parisians attacked theHotel des Invalidesand the Bastille, marking the first insurrection of the French Revolution. Marat was not directly involved in theFall of the Bastillebut sought to glorify his role that day by claiming that he had intercepted a group of German soldiers onPont Neuf.He claims that these soldiers were seeking to crush the revolution in its infancy, and that he had successfully convinced a crowd to force the soldiers to surrender their weapons.Whether or not this event actually occurred is questionable as there are no other known accounts that confirm Marat's story.

L'Ami du peuple

On 12 September 1789, Marat began his own newspaper, entitledPubliciste parisien,before changing its name four days later toL'Ami du peuple( "The People's friend" ).From this position, he often attacked the most influential and powerful groups in Paris as conspirators against the Revolution, including the Commune, theConstituent Assembly,the ministers, and theChâtelet.In January 1790, he moved to the radicalCordelierssection, then under the leadership of the lawyerDanton,was nearly arrested for his attacks against Jacques Necker,Louis XVI'spopular Finance Minister, and was forced to flee to London.In May, he returned to Paris to continue publication ofL'Ami du peupleand briefly ran a second newspaper in June 1790 calledLeJuniusfrançaisnamed after the notorious English polemicistJunius.Marat faced the problem of counterfeiters distributing falsified versions ofL'Ami du peuple.This led him to call for police intervention, which resulted in the suppression of the fraudulent issues, leaving Marat the continuing sole author ofL'Ami du peuple.

During this period, Marat made regular attacks on the more conservative revolutionary leaders. In a pamphlet from 26 July 1790, entitled "C'en est fait de nous"(" We're done for! "), he warned against counter-revolutionaries, advising," five or six hundred heads cut off would have assured your repose, freedom and happiness. "

Between 1789 and 1792, Marat was often forced into hiding, sometimes in theParis sewers,where he almost certainly aggravated his debilitating chronic skin disease (possiblydermatitis herpetiformis).In January 1792, he married the 26-year-oldSimonne Évrardin a common-law ceremony on his return from exile in London, having previously expressed his love for her. She was the sister-in-law of his typographer, Jean-Antoine Corne, and had lent him money and sheltered him on several occasions.

Marat only emerged publicly on the10 August insurrection,when theTuileries Palacewas invaded and the royal family forced to shelter within theLegislative Assembly.The spark for this uprising was theBrunswick Manifesto,which called for the crushing of the Revolution and helped to inflame popular outrage in Paris.

Committee on Surveillance

Anonymous portrait of Marat,c.1793 (Musée Carnavalet)

As the Paris Commune of Marat's allies achieved more influence, it formed a Committee on Surveillance which included Marat,Jacque-Nicolas Billaud-Varennes,Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois,Georges Danton,Jean-Lambert Tallien,Panis(fr)and David. Marat was said byStanley Loomisto have claimed the position of its head.Ernest Belfort Baxdisputed this claim, saying that on appearing once again in the upper daylight of Paris, Marat was almost immediately invited to assist the new governing body with his advice, and had a special tribune assigned to him. Marat was thus assiduous in his attendance at the Commune, although never formally a member. The Commune and the Sections of Paris, between them, had established aComité de Surveillance,with power to add to its numbers. Into this committee Marat was, according to Bax, co-opted. They quickly decided to round up those they believed were "suspect"; the Committee voted to do so and four thousand were sent into the prisons by late August 1792.Actually the Committee, of which Marat was one of the most influential members, took the step of withdrawing from the prisons those of whose guilt, in its opinion, there was any reasonable doubt. Marat and the rest saw what was coming; the last straw to break the patience of Paris was the acquittal on Friday 31 August of Montmarin, the late Governor ofFontainebleau.Montmarin was notoriously and openly a courtier, who wished to see the allies in Paris, and his royal master reinstated, and who was proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, to have been actively engaged in plotting to this end; yet, on being brought to trial, he was acquitted, and, as if to lend emphasis to the acquittal, the judge himself, descending from the bench, gave him his arm as he walked out of court.An unsuccessful attempt was even made to deprive the Commune of its powers. Forty-eight hours later, the notorious September massacres began.

Those arrangements would include a collection of mercenaries grouped as "Marsellais" though they were "foreign vagabonds, dregs of all nations, Genosee, Corsicans and Greeks led by a Pole named Lazowski"Added to these were convicted murderers and those imprisoned for other violent crimes, released in time to join the "Marsellais" at the center of the bloodlettings. At times those enacting violence were joined by mobs of locals, some of who had armed themselves in preparation for a defense of the cityNational Guardsmenand somefédérés.In some cases makeshift "courts" were set-up, prisoners were pronounced "free" or "guilty" then all were led to a central courtyard where they were bludgeoned, hacked, speared, and decapitated. In other prisons, small bands of mercenaries entered cells which had held murderers days before, who turned their craft on the innocents brought in by the Committee, some as young as 10.

On 3 September, the second day of the massacres, the Committee of Surveillance of the Commune published a circular that called on provincial Patriots to defend Paris and asked that, before leaving their homes, they eliminate counter-revolutionaries. Authored by Marat as head of the Committee, signed by him and circulated to the provinces, it hailed the rounding up and killing of political enemies going on in Paris as a model for the provinces. WhileGeorges Lefebvremaintained collective mentality was sufficient explanation for the mass killing,Stanley Loomis says this "is their excuse or justification".

TheGirondinsthen made a number of copies of this circular, but there is no evidence that it had any effect. Marat himself did not participate in the violence of the massacres, but rather the Sections of Paris had begun to act of themselves. Marat and his Committee of Supervision at most took the control of the movement which had already begun spontaneously. Whether Marat played a part in the cause of the massacres is still continually debated. It can be said that there was a continuous goading on of the tribunals to definite and decided action. In No. 679 ofL'Ami du Peuplewe have the following advice:

Guard the King from view, put a price on the heads of the fugitiveCapets,arm all the citizens, form a camp near Paris, press forward the sale of the goods of the ‘emigrants,’ and recompense the unfortunates who have taken part in the conquest of theTuileries,invite the troops of the line to name their officers, guard the provisions, do not miss a word of this last advice, press the judgment of the traitors imprisoned in the Abbaye;... if the sword of justice do at last but strike conspirators and prevaricators, we shall no longer hear popular executions spoken of, cruel resource which the law of necessity can alone commend to a people reduced to despair, but which the voluntary sleep of the laws always justifies.

Danton at the same moment was urging from the tribune the necessity of the prompt appointment of a court to try traitors, as the only alternative to the popular justice of the streets.Maximilien Robespierre,Danton and Marat all stressed the necessity of a tribunal that would judge these crimes. Robespierre intervened on 15 August, as a delegate of the Commune, and proclaimed: "Since 10 August, the just vengeance of the people has not yet been satisfied."According to Bax, the September massacres were the result of the efforts of the Moderate party to screen men who were openly plotting the overthrow of the Revolution.The Moderatist and Girondist Assembly hesitated at making a few examples of even the most notorious of these plotters. The crisis in the war, long foreseen by Marat and others, was now becoming more acute every day. On 6 September, Mlle de Mareuil, daughter of a member of the Commune's general council, wrote to her brother:

I have to make the following remark: since the journée of 10 August, there have only been three people guillotined, and this has revolted the people. Finally people gathered from all sides... Oh my dear friend, we are all in a state of dreadful consternation.

There is an exculpatory article in No.12 of Marat'sJournal de la République,occasioned by the virulent attacks of the Girondins in the Convention on the Commune, the Committee of Supervision, and above all on Marat himself, with reference to the massacres:

The disastrous events of the 2nd and 3rd of September, which perfidious and venal persons attribute to the Municipality, has been solely promoted by the denial of justice on the part of the Criminal tribunal which whitewashed the conspirator Montmarin, by the protection thus proclaimed to all others conspirators, and by the indignation of the people, fearing to find itself the slave of all the traitors who have for so long abused its misfortunes and its disasters. They call those brigands who massacred the traitors and scoundrels confined in the prisons. If that were so, Pétion would be criminal for having peaceably left brigands to perpetrate their crimes during two consecutive days in all the prisons of Paris. His culpable inaction would be the most serious crime, and he would merit the loss of his head for not having mobilised his whole armed force to oppose them. He will doubtless tell you, in order to exculpate himself, that the armed force would not have obeyed him, and that all Paris was involved, which is indeed a fact. Let us agree, then, that it is an imposture to make brigands responsible for an operation unhappily only too necessary. It is then because the conspirators have escaped the sword of justice that they have fallen under the axe of the people. Is it necessary to say more to refute the dishonest insinuation, which would make the Committee of Supervision of the Commune responsible for these popular executions? But its justification does not end there. We shall see what the principal members of this Committee have done to prevent any innocent person, any debtor, any one culpable of a trivial offence, being involved in the dangers which threatened great criminals. I was at the Committee of Supervision, when the announcement was made that the people had just seized from the hands of the Guard, and put to death, several refractory priests, accused of plotting, destined by the Committee for La Force, and that the people threatened to enter the prisons. At this news, Panis and myself exclaimed together, as if by inspiration, "Save the small delinquents, the poor debtors, those accused of trivial assaults!" The Committee immediately ordered the different jailers to separate these from the serious malefactors and the counter-revolutionary traitors, lest the people should be exposed to the risk of sacrificing some innocent persons. The separation was already made when the prisons were forced, but the precaution was unnecessary, owing to the care taken by the judges appointed by the people, who exercised the functions of tribunes during the expedition, to inquire into each case and to release all those whom the Committee of Supervision had separated. This is a discrimination the despot would certainly not have exercised had he triumphed on the 10th of August. Such are the facts which oppose themselves to the calumny that has distorted the narrative of the events of the 2nd and 3rd of September.

The September massacres were not the work of one party, much less of one man, but an ebullition of popular fury, acquiesced in as a necessity by all parties and by all the leading men of the Revolution. This perspective of affairs is summed up in the passages of Mr. Bowen-Graves quoted by Ernest Belfort Bax:

Marat's part in these last terrible events has been constantly and grossly misrepresented. He had long foreseen and foretold what would happen if foreign invasion found Paris in a state of chaos. The predicted crisis had now arrived. On the east the Germans are at the Thermopylae of France. A step more, the Revolution sinks beneath them. On the west the standard of the Vendean insurrection is already raised. Between the two lies Paris, in hardly dormant civil war. Royalty is overthrown, but royalism is rampant. The Swiss guards, the rank and file have fallen, sacrificed to their fidelity to a master who had deserted and forgotten them; but officers, courtiers,chevaliers de poignard,are lively as ever, intriguing, plotting, vapouring in street and café, openly rejoicing in the triumph which German armies will give them measuring, compasses in hand, the distance between Verdun and Paris. The newly-formed tribunal is inefficient, acquitting men, notorious for their part in the intrigues, which were the cause of all the evil. Lafayette, with his army, is believed to be marching on Paris to restore the monarchy. Republicans knew well enough what such restoration would mean. The horrors of Montauban, Arles, and Avignon are written in history, to show how well-founded were their fears. And in the midst of all this came the tidings that the one strong place between Paris and the enemy is besieged; that its resistance is a question hardly even of days. Then, while the tocsin was clanging, and the alarm cannon roaring, and the Girondin minister could find nothing better to suggest, with his unseasonable classicism, than carrying into the South the statue of liberty, Paris answered with one instinct to Danton's thundering defiance, and perpetrated that tremendous act of self-defence at which we shudder to this day. The reaction hid its head and cowered; and within the month the ragged volunteers of the Republic were hurling back from the passes of the Argonne the finest soldiery which Europe could produce.

On 2 September, news arrived in Paris that the army of the Duke ofBraunschweighad invaded France and the fortress of Verdun had quickly fallen, and that the Prussians were rapidly advancing towards the capital. This information ignited anger and fear among the population. Parisians knew that an illumination had been staged at the Abbay prison on the day of the capture ofLongwy,where behind bars the prisoners insulted passers-by and assured them that the Prussians would occupy Paris and destroy it. That the Parisians' hatred of the Royalists was founded can be deduced from an article published in a Girondist newspaper on 2 September stating that the Royalists decided to burn the city on all sides after the Prussian army entered Paris, starved the city population and punished the revolutionaries. And the Manifesto of the Duke of Braunschweig (25 July 1792), written in large part by Louis XVI's cousinLouis Joseph de Bourbon,Prince of Condé, leader of a large contingent of immigrants in the Allied army, threatened the French people with instant punishment if the people resists the imperial and Prussian armies and the re-establishment of a monarchy. The days of September in Paris were seen by someas the act of self-defense of a people who knew how brutal the counter-revolutionaries were, a people who feared a coup in Paris while fighting on the front lines. After the capture of Verdun, the Prussian army was only a hundred miles from Paris. Many Europeans had no doubt about the victory of the Duke of Braunschweig. A fall of Paris was not expected later than 10 September.

In theCréole patriotefor 2 September, the account began by evoking 10 August: 'The people, justly indignant at the crimes committed during the journée of 10 August, made for the prisons. They still feared plots and traitors... The news that Verdun had been taken... provoked their resentment and vengeance.’

It was enough for the Legislative Assembly, at the vigorous request of the Commune, to issue a statement to the French people on 4 September in which it promised "that it would fight with all its powers against the king and the royal government" so that the slaughter would end the same day and Parisians would go to the front. TheBattle of Valmy(20 September 1792) was the first victory over their enemy since the beginning of the war.Johann Wolfgang van Goethe,an admirer of the scientific work of Dr. Marat, said, "At that place, on that day, a new era in world history began. It is the first victory of the people over the kings."No one was prosecuted for the killings.

National Convention

Main article:National Convention

"Marat's Triumph": a popular engraving of Marat borne away by a joyous crowd following his acquittal.

Marat was elected to the National Convention in September 1792 as one of 26 Paris deputies, although he belonged to no party. When France wasdeclared a Republicon 22 September, Marat renamed hisL'Ami du peupleasLe Journal de la République française( "Journal of the French Republic" ). His stance during the trial of the deposed king Louis XVI was unique. He declared it unfair to accuse Louis of anything before his acceptance of theFrench Constitution of 1791,and although implacably, he said, believing that the monarch's death would be good for the people, defendedGuillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes,the King's counsel, as a "sage et respectable vieillard"(" wise and respected old man ").

On 21 January 1793, Louis XVI wasguillotined,which caused political turmoil. From January to May, Marat fought bitterly against theGirondins,whom he believed to be covert enemies ofrepublicanism.Marat's hatred and suspicion of the Girondins became increasingly heated which led him to call for the use of violent tactics against them. He cried that France needed a chief, "a military Tribune".The Girondins fought back and demanded that Marat be tried before theRevolutionary Tribunal.After trying to avoid arrest for several days, Marat was finally imprisoned. On 24 April, he was brought before the Tribunal on the charges that he had printed in his paper statements calling for widespread murder as well as the suspension of the Convention. Marat decisively defended his actions, stating that he had no evil intentions directed against the Convention. Marat was acquitted of all charges to the celebration of his supporters.

Murder and aftermath

Bloodstained copy ofL'Ami du peupleheld by Marat at his assassination, now in theBibliothèque nationale de France

The fall of the Girondins on 2 June, helped by the actions ofFrançois Hanriot,the new leader of theNational Guard,was one of Marat's last achievements. Forced to retire from the Convention due to his worsening skin disease, he continued to work from home, where he soaked in a medicinal bath. Now that theMontagnardsno longer needed his support in the struggle against the Girondins,Robespierreand other leading Montagnards began to separate themselves from him, while theConventionlargely ignored his letters.

The assassination of Marat byCharlotte Cordayon 13 July 1793

Marat was in his bathtub on 13 July, when a young woman fromCaen,Charlotte Corday,appeared at his flat, claiming to have vital information on the activities of the escapedGirondinswho had fled toNormandy.Despite his wife Simone's protests, Marat asked for her to enterand gave her an audience by his bath,over which a board had been laid to serve as a writing desk. Their interview lasted around fifteen minutes. He asked her what was happening in Caen and she explained, reciting a list of the offending deputies. After he had finished writing out the list, Corday claimed that he told her, "Their heads will fall within a fortnight," a statement she later changed at her trial to, "Soon I shall have them all guillotined in Paris." This was unlikely since Marat did not have the power to have anyone guillotined.At that moment, Corday rose from her chair, drawing out from her corset a five-inch kitchen knife, which she had bought earlier that day, and brought it down into Marat's chest, where it pierced just under his right clavicle, opening thebrachiocephalic artery,close to the heart. The massive bleeding was fatal within seconds. Slumping backwards, Marat cried out his last words to Simone, "Aidez-moi, ma chère amie!" ( "Help me, my beloved!" ) and died.

Corday was a Girondin sympathizerwho came from an impoverished royalist family; her brothers wereémigréswho had left to join the exiled royal princes. From her own account, and those of witnesses, it is clear that she had been inspired by Girondin speeches to a hatred of the Montagnards and their excesses, symbolised most powerfully in the character of Marat.TheBook of Daysclaims the motive was to "avenge the death of her friend Barboroux". Marat's assassination contributed to the mounting suspicion which fed the Terror during which thousands of the Jacobins' adversaries – both royalists and Girondins – were executed on charges of treason. Charlotte Corday was guillotinedon 17 July 1793for the murder. During her four-day trial, she testified that she had carried out the assassination alone, saying "I killed one man to save 100,000."

Memory in the Revolution

The Death of MaratbyJacques-Louis David(1793)

Marat's assassination led to hisapotheosis.The painterJacques-Louis David,a member of one of the two "Great Committees" (the Committee of General Security), was asked to organise a grand funeral.David was also asked to paint Marat's death, and took up the task of immortalising him in the paintingThe Death of Marat.The extreme decomposition of Marat's body made any realistic depiction impossible, and David's work beautified the skin that was discoloured and scabbed from his chronic skin disease in an attempt to create antique virtue. The resulting painting is thus not an accurate representation of Marat's death.As a result of this work, David was later criticised as glorifying the Jacobin's death.

The entire National Convention attended Marat's funeral, and he was buried under aweeping willowin the garden of the formerClub des Cordeliers(formerCouvent des Cordeliers).After Marat's death, he was viewed by many as a martyr for the revolution, and was immortalized in various ways to preserve the values he stood for. His heart was embalmed separately and placed in an urn in an altar erected to his memory at theCordeliersto inspire speeches that were similar in style to Marat's journalism.On his tomb, the inscription on a plaque read, "Unité, Indivisibilité de la République, Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité ou la mort." His remains were transferred to thePanthéonon 21 September 1794and his near messianic role in the Revolution was confirmed with the elegy:Like Jesus, Marat loved ardently the people, and only them. Like Jesus, Marat hated kings, nobles, priests, rogues and, like Jesus, he never stopped fighting against these plagues of the people.The eulogy was given by theMarquis de Sade,delegate of the Section Piques and an ally of Marat's faction in the National Convention.

Statue of Marat in front of theMusée de la Révolution française

On 19 November, the port city of Le Havre-de-Grâce changed its name to Le Havre-de-Marat and then Le Havre-Marat.When the Jacobins started theirdechristianisationcampaign to set up theCult of ReasonofHébertandChaumetteand later theCult of the Supreme Beingof the Committee of Public Safety, Marat was made a quasi-saint,and his bust often replacedcrucifixesin the former churches of Paris.

After theThermidorian Reaction,Marat's reputation decreased. On 13 January 1795, Le Havre-Marat became simplyLe Havre,the name it bears today. In February, his coffin was removed from thePanthéonand his busts and sculptures were destroyed. The 4 February 1795 (16 Pluviôse) issue ofLe Moniteur Universelreported how, two days earlier, "his busts had been knocked off their pedestals in several theatres and that some children had carried one of these busts about the streets, insulting it [before] dumping it in the rueMontmartresewer to shouts of 'Marat, voilà tonPanthéon!' [Marat, here is your Panthéon]His final resting place is the cemetery of the church ofSaint-Étienne-du-Mont.

A bronze sculpture of Marat was removed fromParc des Buttes Chaumontand was melted down during theNazioccupation of Paris.Another was created in 2013 for theMusée de la Révolution française.

He continued to be held in high regard in theSoviet Union.Maratbecame a common name, andMarat FjordinSevernaya Zemlyawas named after him. Russian battleshipPetropavlovsk(Russian:Петропавловск) was renamedMaratin 1921.A street in the centre ofSevastopolwas named after Marat (Russian:Улица Марата) on 3 January 1921, shortly after theBolshevikstook over the city.

Skin disease

Described during his time as a man "short in stature, deformed in person, and hideous in face,"Marat has long been noted for physical irregularities. The nature of Marat's debilitating skin disease, in particular, has been an object of ongoing medical interest. In the 19th centuryThomas Carlylealleged that the cause wassyphilis,though this is very unlikely as syphilitic rashes are generally neitheritchynor aslong-lastingas Marat's skin condition was. Josef E. Jelinek noted that his skin disease was intensely itchy,blistering,began in theperianalregion, and was associated with weight loss leading toemaciation.He was sick with it for the three years prior to his assassination, and spent most of this time in his bathtub. There were various minerals and medicines that were present in his bath while he soaked to help ease the pain caused by the disease. A bandana wrapped around his head was soaked invinegarto reduce the severity of his discomfort.Jelinek's diagnosis isdermatitis herpetiformis.

Tub

After Marat's death, his wife may have sold his bathtub to her journalist neighbour, as it was included in an inventory of his possessions. The royalist de Saint-Hilaire bought the tub, taking it toSarzeau,MorbihaninBrittany.His daughter, Capriole de Saint-Hilaire, inherited it when he died in 1805 and she passed it on to theSarzeaucuréwhen she died in 1862. A journalist forLe Figarotracked down the tub in 1885. The curé then discovered that selling the tub could earn money for the parish, yet theMusée Carnavaletturned it down because of its lack of provenance as well as its high price. The curé approachedMadame Tussaud's waxworks, who agreed to purchase Marat's bathtub for 100,000 francs, but the curé's acceptance was lost in the mail. After rejecting other offers, including one fromPhineas Barnum,the curé sold the tub for 5,000 francs to theMusée Grévin,where it remains today.The tub was in the shape of an old-fashioned high-buttoned shoe and had a copper lining.

Works

• A Philosophical Essay on Man(1773)(in English)
• The Chains of Slavery(1774)(in English)
• An Essay on Gleets &c. (1775)(in English)
• Enquiry into the Nature, Cause, and Cure of a Singular Disease of the Eyes(1776)(in English)
• De l'Homme(1776)(translation of his 1773 English work)
• Découvertes de M. Marat sur le feu, l'électricité et la lumière(1779)
• Plan de Législation Criminelle(1780)
• Recherches physiques sur le feu(1780)
• Découvertes de M. Marat sur la lumière, constatées par une suite d'expériences nouvelles(1780)
• Recherches physiques sur l'électricité, &c(1782)
• Mémoire sur l'électricité médicale(1783)
• Notions élémentaires d'optique(1784)
• Lettres de l'observateur Bon Sens à M. de M sur la fatale catastrophe des infortunés Pilatre de Rozier et Ronzain, les aéronautes et l'aérostation(1785)
• Observations de M. l'amateur Avec à M. l'abbé Sans... &c.,(1785)
• Éloge de Montesquieu: présenté à l'Académie de Bordeaux, le 28 mars 1785 / par J.-P. Maratz; publié avec une introduction, par Arthur de Brézetz,...Éloge de Montesquieu(1785) (provincial Academy competition entry first published 1883 by M. de Bresetz)
• Optique de Newton(1787)
• Mémoires académiques(1788)
• Offrande à la Patrie(1789)(pamphlet)
• Constitution, ou projet de déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen (1789)(pamphlet)
• Les Charlatans modernes, ou lettres sur le charlatanisme académique(L'Ami du Peuple,1791) (pamphlet)
• Les chaînes de l'Esclavage(1792)(translation of his 1774 English work)
• Les Aventures du jeune comte Potowski(unpublished manuscript first published in 1847 by Paul Lacroix)
• Lettres polonaises(unpublished manuscript first printed in English in 1905; recently translated into French but authenticity disputed)
• La Correspondance de Marat(published in 1908 by Charles Vellay)

Cited sources

• Andress, David (2005).The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France.New York: SFG Books.ISBN978-0374530730.
• Belfort Bax, Ernest (1901).Jean-Paul Marat; The People's Friend, A Biographical Sketch.Vogt Press; Read Books (2008).ISBN978-1-4437-2362-6.
• Conner, Clifford D. (1999).Jean Paul Marat: scientist and revolutionary.Amherst, New York: Humanity Books.ISBN978-1573926072.
• Conner, Clifford D. (2012).Jean-Paul Marat: Tribune of the French Revolution.Pluto Press.ISBN978-1849646802.
• Gottschalk, Louis Reichenthal (1927).Jean Paul Marat: a study in radicalism.University of Chicago Press.ISBN978-0226305325.
• Lefebvre, Georges (2001).The French Revolution: From its Origins to 1793.Routledge.ISBN978-0415253932.
• Loomis, Stanley (1990).Paris in the Terror.Dorset House Publishing Co Inc.ISBN978-0880294010.

Further reading

• Conner, Clifford D.Jean Paul Marat: Scientist and Revolutionary(2nd ed. 2012)online review from H-France 2013;excerpt and text search
• Fishman, W. J. "Jean-Paul Marat",History Today(1971) 21#5, pp. 329–337; his life before 1789
• Palmer, R.R.Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution(1941)excerpt and text search
• 1989–1995: Jean-Paul Marat, Œuvres Politiques (ten volumes 1789–1793 – Text: 6.600 p. – Guide: 2.200 p.)
• 2001:Marat en famille – La saga des Mara(t)(2 volumes) – New approach of Marat's family.
• 2006:Plume de Marat – Plumes sur Marat(2 volumes): Bibliography (3.000 references of books and articles of and on Marat)
• TheCorrespondance de Marathas been edited with notes byCharles Vellay(1908)

External links

• Works by Jean-Paul MaratatProject Gutenberg
• Jean-Paul MaratinGerman,FrenchandItalianin the onlineHistorical Dictionary of Switzerland.
• Marat's (1784)Notions élémentaires d'optiqueArchived17 July 2015 at theWayback Machine– digital facsimile from theLinda Hall Library
• reviewof Conner's biography