Background
Charlotte Corday was born at St Saturnin des Lignerets, near Seez in Normandy, was descended from a noble but poor family, and numbered among her ancestors the dramatist Corneille.
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d'Armont Corday
Edit ProfileEducation
Charlotte Corday was educated in the convent of the Holy Trinity at Caen, and then sent to live with an aunt.
Career
In Caen Charlotte Corday saw hardly any one but her relative, and passed her lonely hours in reading the works of the philosophes, especially Voltaire and the Abbe Raynal.
On the downfall of this party, on May 31, 1793, many of the leaders took refuge in Normandy, and proposed to make Caen the headquarters of an army of volunteers, at the head of whom Felix de Wimpffen, wao commanded the army assembled for the defence of the coasts at Cherbourg, was to have marched upon Paris.
She saw that their efforts in Normandy were doomed to fail.
It contained the usual description of the bearer, and ran thus: Laissez passer la citoyenne Marie, &c. , Corday, dgSe de 24 ans, tattle de 5 pieds 1 pouce, ckeveux et sourcils chdtains, yeux gris, front dlevd, nez long, bouche moyenne, menton rond fourchu, visage ovale.
Arrived in Paris she first attended to some business for a friend at Caen, and then she wrote to Marat: " Citizen, I have just arrived from Caen.
Your love for your native place doubtless makes you desirous of learning the events which have occurred in that part of the republic.
I shall call at your residence in about an hour; have the goodness to receive me and to give me a brief interview.
On calling she was refused admittance, and wrote again, promising to reveal important secrets, and appealing to Marat's sympathy on the ground that she herself was persecuted by the enemies of the republic.
She spoke to Marat of what was passing at Caen, and his only comment on her narrative was that all the men she had mentioned should be guillotined in a few days.
As he spoke she drew from her bosom a dinner-knife (which she had bought the day before for two francs) and plunged it into his left side.
It pierced the lung and the aorta.
He cried out, "A moi, та chere amief" and expired.
Two women rushed in, and prevented Charlotte from escaping.
A crowd collected round the house, and it was with difficulty that she was escorted to the prison of the Abbaye.
Her advocate, Claude Frangois Chauveau Lagarde, put forward in vain the plea of insanity.
She was then conducted to the Coijciergerie, where at her own desire her portrait (now in the museum of Versailles) was painted by the artist Jean Jacques Hauer.
She preserved her perfect calmness to the last.
When she saw the guillotine, she placed herself in position under the fatal blade without assistance from any one.
Many believed they saw the dead face blush, -probably an effect of the red stormy sunset.
It was the 17th of July 1793.
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Born
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Died
July 17, 1793 (aged 24) -
Nationality
France -
Ethnicity