Charlotte Corday

Horrified and unconvinced that the Reign of Terror Jean-Paul Marat helped to launch in France in the early 1790’s was a good thing for either the French people or the revolution, Charlotte Corday talked her way into his private quarters on July 13, 1793, where she stabbed to death the man she once called a monster. Four days later, Corday, described as “exceptionally beautiful” and “so calm one would have said she was a statue,” went to her death under the guillotine, having testified that she “killed one man to save 100,000,” and complaining only that “There are so few patriots who know how to die for their country. Everything is egoism. What a sorry people to found a Republic!”