disconcerted the pride of the deputy, "I have never The interrogatory terminated, Chabot disconseen him. I did not esteem the life or the death tented with the result, devoured with his eye, the of such a man so important to the safety of the re-hair, the visage, the stature, the whole person of public." the young girl bound before him. He believed They searched her. They only found at this that he perceived a paper folded and attached by a moment in her pockets the key of her trunk, her pin upon her bosom; he stretched out his hand to silver thimble, some instruments of needle-work seize it. Charlotte had forgotten the paper of just now so near the poniard of Brutus; a ball of which Chabot obtained a glimpse and which conthread, two hundred francs in " assignats" and in tained an address to the French people, prepared money, a gold watch made by a watchmaker of by herself, to invite the citizens to the punishment Caen and her passport. Under her neckerchief of tyrants and to concord. She thought she saw she still concealed the sheath of the poniard with in the gesture and in the eye of Chabot an outrage which she had struck Marat. to her modesty. Deprived of her two hands, by "Do you recognize this poniard ?" they asked of her cords, she was not able to oppose them to the her.

"Yes."

insult. The horror and indignation which she had experienced, caused her to make a movement in "Who has induced you to this crime?" the rear of the body and shoulders, so sudden and "I have seen," she responded, "civil war pre-so convulsive, that the cord of her robe broke and pared to rend France in pieces; persuaded that the robe itself, being detached, left uncovered her Marat was the principle cause of the calamities bosom. Confused, she bent herself as quickly as and perils of the country, I have made the sacri- thought and folded herself in two to hide her nufice of my life against his to save my country." dity from her judges. It was too late, her purity "Name to us the persons who have counselled had to blush at the eye of man. you to this execrable crime, which you would not have conceived of yourself?"

64

"No one has known my design. I have deceived, as to the object of my journey, the aunt with whom I lived. I have deceived my father. Few persons frequent the house of my relation. No one has been able even to suspect in me my thought."

Have you not quitted the town of Caen with the projet formed of assassinating Marat?"

"I have not departed but for that purpose." "Where have you procured the instrument? What persons have you seen at Paris? What have you done since Thursday, the day that you arrived ?"

To these questions she recounted, with a literal sincerity, all the circumstances already known of her sojourn at Paris and of her action.

Have you not sought to fly after the murder ?" "I should have escaped by the door, if they had not opposed it."

"Are you a girl, and have you never loved a

man ?"

"Never!"

XXVII.

Patriotism did not render these men cynics nor insensible. They appeared to suffer as much as Charlotte at that involuntary punishment of her innocence. She supplicated that they would loose her hands that she might fasten her robe. One of them detached the cords. Respect for nature closed the eyes of these men. Her hands loosed, Charlotte turned herself to the wall and readjusted her neckerchief.

They profited by the moment when she had her hands free, to make her sign the responses. The cords had left their prints and their blue furrows upon the skin of her arms. When they were going to tie them anew, she prayed the jailers to permit her to lower her sleeves and put her gloves under her chains to spare her an useless punishment before the last punishment. The accent and the gesture of the poor girl were such in addressing this prayer to her judges and in showing her bruised hands, that Harmand could not restrain his tears and withdrew to conceal them.

Here are the principle passages in the text o this address, which have been withdrawn, up to this time, from the curious researches of history, and which have been communicated to us since the commencement of the publication of this book, by an obliging zeal for the truth of the individual who possesses it, M. Paillet. It is written in the hand

These answers, precise, proud, disdainful by of Charlotte Corday, in large characters, mascuturns, made in a voice whose sound recalled child-line, firm, strongly traced and as if intended to hood, while announcing masculine thoughts, indu- strike the eye from a distance. The sheet of paper ced the interrogators often to reflect upon the power is folded eight times to occupy less space under the of a fanaticism which borrowed and strengthened garment. It is pierced with eight holes still visi so feeble a hand. They hoped always to discover ble by the pin which fastened it on the bosom of an instigator behind that candor and that beauty. Charlotte.

They only found the inspiration of an intrepid

heart.

"Address to the French, the friends of law and of "My relations and friends ought not to be dis

peace:

"How long, oh! miserable Frenchmen, will you be pleased with disorder and divisions? Long enough and too long have some factious men, some wicked men placed the interest of their ambition in the place of the general interest. Why, victims of their fury, do you destroy yourselves to establish their desire of tyranny over the ruins of France ?

، The factions explode on all sides; the Moontain triumphs by crime and oppression; some monsters drenched with our blood, conduct their detestable conspiracies. We labor

for our own ruin with more zeal and energy than we have shown in conquering liberty! Oh, Frenchmen, yet a little time and there will not remain of you but the souvenir of your existence !

quieted; no person knew of my intentions. I annex my extract of baptism to show what the feeblest hand can do, led by a thorough devotion. If I do not succeed in my enterprise, Frenchmen, I have shown you the road, you know your enemies, arise! march, strike!"

Whether to the astonished Universe,

This grand empire should prove to be the object
Of horror, or admiring approbation-
My spirit, (with small care for future fame,)
Does not enquire ;-be it reproach or glory,
My duty that suffices:-all the rest
Is nothing. Onward! and deliberate

No more, but how to escape from slavery.'"

In reading the verses, inserted by the hand of the grand-daughter of Corneille, at the end of this address, as an antique seal upon a page of time, one believes at the first glance that these verses are her ancestor's and that she has thus invoked the Roman patriotism of the great tragedian of her race. One is deceived; the verses are from Voltaire in the tragedy of the death of Cæsar.

"Already the indignant departments march on Paris; already the fire of discord and civil war inflame the half of this vast empire; there is still a means of extinguishing it, but the means must be prompt. Already the vilest of the wicked, Marat, The authenticity of this address is attested by a whose name alone presents the image of all crime, letter of Fouquier Tinville, annexed to the same in falling under the avenging steel, shakes the packet of papers. This letter of the public accuMountain and makes Danton grow pale. Robes-ser is addressed to the Committee of general sepierre, those other brigands seated upon the bloody curity of the Convention. Here it is: throne, are enveloped in the lightning which the Citizens, I send you here included the interavenging gods of humanity only suspend, without rogatory undergone by the girl, Charlotte Corday, doubt, to render their fall more glittering and to and two letters written by her in the house where affright all those who would be tempted to estab- she stopped, of which one is for Barbaroux. These lish their fortunes on the ruins of an abused people! letters are circulated in the streets in a manner so "Frenchmen! you know your enemies, arise! mutilated, that it might be perhaps necessary to As to the rest, Citimarch! Let the Mountain annihilated leave only print them such as they are. brothers and friends! I do not know if Heaven zens, when you shall have read them, if you judge reserve to us a republican government, but it can that there is no impropriety in printing them, you not give us a leader of the Mountain for master will oblige me by giving your opinion. unless in the excess of vengeance. 0, France! thy repose depends on the execution of the laws; I do not give a blow to them in killing Marat. Condemned by the universe, he is without the law. What tribunal will judge me? If I am guilty, Alcides was, when he destroyed the

monsters !

I observe to you that I have just been informed that this female assassin was the friend of Belzunce, a Colonel killed at Caen in an insurrection, and that since that epoch, she has conceived an implacable hate against Marat, and this hate appears to have been reanimated in her at the moment in which Marat denounced Rison, who was a relation of Belzunce, and that Barbaroux appears to have profited by the criminal disposition of this girl against Marat, to lead her to execute this horrible assassination.

FOUQUIER TINVILLE."

O, my country! thy misfortunes tear my heart; I can not offer thee but my life! and I return thanks to Heaven for the liberty which I enjoy of disposing of it; no person will lose by my death; I will not imitate Paris, (the murderer of Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau,) in killing myself. I desire that my last sigh may be useful to my fellow-citizens. that my head borne in Paris, may be a sign of rallying for all friends of the laws! that the tottering Mountain may see its ruin written with my blood! that I may be their last victim, and the universe avenged may declare that I have deserved well of humanity! As to the rest, if my conduct should be looked at with another eye, I am little" gendarmes," she complained in vain against this profanation of her sex. The Committee of gen

disturbed at it.

It is seen by these hesitations and these conjectures, that the opinion wandered from hypothesis to hypothesis at the first moment, seeking the motive of the crime sometimes in love-sometimes in resentment on refusing to see where it was in the wanderings of patriotism.

They consigned Charlotte Corday to a dungeon. Guarded in sight, even during the night by two

XXVIII.

eral security pressed her judgment and her punish- I did not know them, in order to ward off from ment. She heard from her little bed, the public them the disagreeable necessity of giving explacriers who hawked about the narrative of the mur- nations. I followed in that my oracle, Raynal, who der in the streets, and the howlings of the multi- says that one does not own the truth to his tyrants. tude, who imprecated a thousand deaths on the as- It is, by means of the female who was my fellowsassin. Charlotte did not take that voice for the traveller, that they have learned that I know you, decision of posterity. Through the horror which and that I had seen Duperret. You know the deshe inspired, she had a presentiment of apotheosis.termined soul of Duperret. He has answered In that thought she wrote to the Committee of gen- them the exact truth. There is nothing against eral security: "Since I have still some instants him, but his firmness is a crime. I repented too to live, I would hope, Citizens, that you will per- late of having spoken to him. I wished to repair mit me to have my portrait painted. I would wish my wrong in supplicating him to fly and rejoin to leave this souvenir of myself to my friends. you. He is too determined to permit himself to Besides, as the likeness of good citizens is cher- be influenced. Would you believe it? Fauchet ished, curiosity sometimes induces a search for that is imprisoned as my accomplice; he, who was igof great criminals to perpetuate horror of their norant of my existence. But they are not content crime. If you deign to acquiesce in my demand, with having only a woman, without consequence, pray you to send me to-morrow a painter in min- to offer to the manes of that great man! Pardon ! iature. I renew to you the prayer to permit me to O men! that name of Marat dishonors your race. sleep alone. I hear, without ceasing, the cry in He was a ferocious beast, who was going to devour the streets," she added, " of the arrest of Fauchet, the rest of France by the fire of civil war. Thanks my accomplice. I have never seen him except to Heaven, he was not born a Frenchman. . . At through a window, two years ago. I neither re- my first examination, Chabot had the air of a fool. gard him nor esteem him. He is the last man in Legendre was anxious to have seen me in the the world to whom I would willingly have confi- morning at his house, I, who have never given a ded my intention. If this declaration can serve thought to that man. I do not believe him to be him, I certify the truth of it." of a stature to be the tyrant of his country, and I do not pretend to punish all the world. . . . I believe they have printed the last words of Marat. I doubt if he ever uttered them. But here are the last he ever said to me: After having received all The president of the revolutionary tribunal, Mon- your names and those of the administrators of the tané, came the next day, the 16th, to interrogate department of Calvados, who are at Evreux, he the accused. Touched with so much beauty and said to me, to console me, that in a few days, he youth, and convinced of the sincerity of a fanati- would have them all sent to the guillotine at Paris. cism which rendered almost innocent the assassin These last words decided his fate. I avow, that in the eyes of human justice, he wished to save that which finally decided me in this enterprise, the life of the accused. He directed questions was the courage with which our volunteers enrolland insinuated tacitly the answers to induce the ed themselves on Sunday, the 7th of July. You judges to conclude on madness rather than crime. recollect that I promised to make Pethion repent Charlotte obstinately deceived the merciful inten- of the suspicions which he manifested as to my tion of the president. She claimed her act as sentiments. I considered that so many brave men, her glory. They transported her to the Concier- marching to have the head of a single man, of gerie. Madame Richard, the wife of the door- which they might have failed, or which would have keeper of that prison, received her there with the drawn down in its loss many good citizens, that compassion which this approximation of youth and man did not merit so much honor and that the hand the scaffold inspired. Thanks to the indulgence of a woman was sufficient for him. I avow that of her jailer, Charlotte obtained ink, paper and suli- I have employed a perfidious artifice to induce him tode. She profited by them to write to Barbaroux to receive me. a letter in scraps. That letter recounted all the circumstances of her sojourn at Paris, in a style At my departure, I counted on sacrificing him in which patriotism, death and enjoyment are min- upon the summit of the Mountain, but he went no gled as bitterness and sweetness in the last cup of more to the Convention. They are such good citia bougnet of adieu. After having described the zens at Paris, that they do not conceive how a usealmost facetious details of her voyage in company less woman, of whom the longest life would be with the Montaguards and the love with which a good for nothing, can sacrifice herself in cold blood young traveller was suddenly inflamed at the sight for her country! .. As I was truly "de of her, “I was ignorant," she pursued, "that the sang froid" in coming out of the house of Marat, Committee of public safety had interrogated my to be conducted to the Abbaye, I suffered from the fellow-travellers. I sustained in the beginning that cries of some women. But who ever saves his

country, does not see what it may cost him. May at having been delivered from a tyrant. If I have peace be established as quickly as I desire it! Here sought to persuade you that I was going to Engis a grand preliminary. I enjoy a delicious peace land, it is because I hoped to remain unknown. I for two days past. The happiness of my country have found that impossible. I hope that you will makes mine. There is no devotion from which not be harrassed; in any case, you have defenders one does not draw the more of enjoyment, the more at Caen. I have taken for defender Gustavus it has cost to decide on it. A vivid imagination, a Doulcet de Pontecoulant. Such an attack admits sensitive heart, promised a stormy life. I pray of no defence. It is merely for the form. Adiea, those, who should regret me, to consider it and to my dear papa; I pray you to forget me, or rather rejoice. Among the moderns there are few patri- to rejoice at my lot. The cause is beautiful. I ots who know how to sacrifice themselves for their embrace my sister whom I love with all my heart. country. Almost all is egotism. What a sad peo Do not forget that verse of Corneille, ple to form a republic !"

XXIX.

This letter was interrupted at these words by her transfer to the Conciergerie. She continued it in these terms in her new prison: "I continue. I had had yesterday the idea of making a compliment of my portrait to the department of the Calvados. The Committee of public safety has not answered me, and now it is too late! It is necessary to have a defender ; that is the rule. I have taken mine on the Mountain. I have thought of asking Robespierre or Chabot.

'The crime makes the shame, not the scaffold!'

"To-morrow at eight o'clock they judge me."

That allusion to a verse of her ancestor, in recalling to her father the pride of name and heroism of blood, seemed to place her action under the safeguard of the genius of her family. She warded off feebleness or reproach from the heart of her father, in pointing to him the painter of Roman sentiments, applauding in advance her devotion.

XXXI.

The next day, at eight in the morning, the gendarmes came to conduct her to the revolutionary tribunal. The hall was situated above the vaults

Tomorrow at eight o'clock my trial takes place. Probably at midday, I shall have lived, to make use of the Roman language. I do not know how of the Conciergerie. A dark, narrow funereal the last moments will pass. It is the end which crowns the work. I have no need to affect insensibility, for up to this moment I have not the least fear of death. I have never valued life but for its utility. Marat will not go to the Pantheon. Yet he well merited it.

staircase, creeping in the hollow of thick walls from the base of the Palais de Justice, conducted the accused to the tribunal, and led back the condemned into their dungeon. Before ascending she arranged her hair and her costume to appear with decency before death; then said smiling to the door keeper, who was present at these preparations: "Monsieur Richard have a care, I pray you, that my breakfast may be ready when I shall come down fron above. My judges are, without doubt, in a hurry. I wish to make my last report with Madame Richard and you."

Remember the affair of Mademoiselle de Forbin. Here is her address in Switzerland. Say to her. that I love her with all my heart. I am going to write to my father. I do not say any thing to my other friends. I do not ask of them but a prompt forgetfulness their affliction would dishonor my memory. Say to General Wimpfen, that I believe I have aided him in gaining more than one battle, in facilitating peace. Adieu, Citizen. The prisoners of the Conciergerie, far from abusing me, as the people in the streets, have the air of pitying | halls through which it is entered. When the accusMisery renders one sympathetic. This is ed approached, a low murmur arose as a maledicmy last reflection."

me.

XXX.

The hour of the trial of Charlotte Corday was known the evening before in Paris. Curiosity, horror, interest, pity, had attracted an immense multitude into the enclosure of the tribunal and the

tion on her name, from the bosom of that multitude. But scarcely had she cut her way through the crowd, and her supernatural beauty had radiated in all her looks, than this murmur of wrath changed into a trembling interest and admiration. All the counHer letter to her father, the last written, was tenances passed from horror to tenderness; her short and of a tone in which nature softened, instead features, exalted by the solemnity of the moment, of smiling, as in that to Barbaroux. Pardon me colored by emotion, troubled by the confusion of for having disposed of my life without your per- the young girl under so many eyes, strengthened mission," she said. "I have avenged many inno- and ennobled by the grandeur even of a crime cent victims. I have prevented many other disas-which she bore in her soul and on her face as a ters. The people, one day disabused, will rejoice' virtue; finally pride and modesty united and con

66

founded in her attitude, gave to her aspect a charm | mingled with alarm, which troubled all spirits and all eyes. Her judges even appeared as so many accused before her. They believed they saw divine justice or ancient Nemesis, substituting conscience for law and coming to ask of human justice not to absolve her but to recognize and tremble!

XXXII.

"Very few; I saw Larve, the officer of the Municipality, and the Curé of Saint Jean."

"Did you confess to a priest who had taken the oath, or to one who had not, at Caen ?" "I did not go to one or the other." "For how long a time had you formed this design?"

"Since the 31st of May, when they arrested here the deputies of the people. I have killed one man to save a hundred thousand. I was a republican long before the revolution."

Fauchet is confronted with her. "I do not know, Fauchet, but by sight," she said with disdain, "I regard him as a man without manners and without principles, and I despise him.”

When she was seated on the bench of the accused, they asked her if she had a defender. She replied that she had charged a friend with that role; but that not seeing him in the enclosure she The accuser reproaching her with having driven presumed he had failed in courage. The presi- the blow from above, downwards that it might be dent then pointed out to her an official defender. more sure, said to her that she must be well exerThis was the young Chauveau Lagorde, illustrious cised in crime without doubt. At this supposition, since by his defence of the Queen, and already which overthrew all her thoughts, in assimilating known for his eloquence and his courage in causes her to murderers by profession, she raised an exand on occasions in which the lawyer participated clamation of shame; "Oh, the monster!" she the perils of the accused. This choice of the cried, "he takes me for an assassin." president indicated a secret thought for her safety. Chauveau Lagorde came to place himself at the bar. Charlotte regarded him with a scrutinizing and anxious eye, as if she had feared that to save her life, her defender might abandon something of his own honor.

Fouquier Tinville recapitulated the incidents of the cause and concluded for death.

The defender arose. "The accused," he said, avows the crime, she avows a long premeditation, and she avows the circumstances the most overwhelming. Citizens, here is her defence all The widow of Marat deposed with sobs. Char- entire. That imperturbable calm and complete ablotte, moved by the grief of this woman, cut short negation of self, which does not reveal any remorse her deposition, crying out "yes, yes, it is myself in the presence of death, that calm and that abnewho killed him. She recounted then the premed-gation, sublime under one aspect, are not in nature; itation of the act conceived for three months, the they cannot be explained but by the exaltation of intention to strike the tyrant in the midst of the political fanaticism, which has put the poinard in Convention, the stratagem employed to approach her hand. It is for you to judge what weight a him. "I agree," she said with humility," that fanaticism, so unshaken, should have in the balthese means were little worthy of me but it was ances of justice. I refer myself in this cause to necessary to appear to esteem this man to arrive your conscience." at him. "Who has inspired you with so much hatred against Marat ?" they asked of her.

"I had no need of the hate of others," she replied, "I had enough of my own; besides, perBODS execute badly that which they do not conceive themselves."

"What did you hate in him?"

"His crimes !"

"In killing him what did you expect?" "To restore peace to my country."

"Do you believe then that you have assassinated all the Marats?"

The jury brought in with unanimity the penalty of death. She heard the verdict without changing color. The president having asked her if she had anything to say on the nature of the penalty which was inflicted on her, she disdained to respond, and approaching her defender: "Monsieur," she said to him, with a penetrating and soft voice, "you have defended me as I wished to be, I thank you for it. I owe you some testimonial of my gratitude and of my esteem, I offer one worthy of you. These messieurs have just declared my goods confiscated; I owe something at the prison, I leave as a legacy

"He being dead the others will tremble per- to you the debt to pay for me. haps."

They presented to her the knife that she might recognize it. She repulsed it with a gesture of disgust.

“Yes,” she said, “I recognize it.”

The crime having grown cold, she suffered horror in seeing the instrument which consummated it. "What persons did you visit at Caen ?"

Whilst they interrogated her, and the jury gathered her answers, she perceived in the auditory a painter who sketched her features. Without being interrupted, she turned herself with complaisance, and smiling, on the side of the artist that he might better trace her image. She thought on immortality. She took her position already before posterity.