Yahoo News On this day in 1743: The birth of Jean-Paul Marat, the French revolutionary killed in his bath
Jean-Paul Marat was born on 24 May 1743 in Boudry, Switzerland. He qualified as a doctor, and travelled Europe. By the 1770s, he was a well-known physician, resident in London. He was already politically active, and in 1774 published The Chains of Slavery, attacking despotism.
In 1777, he was back in France, and physician to the Comte d’Artois, brother of King Louis XVI, later to be crowned as King Charles X. Marat did well out of the appointment with a profitable medical practice among the aristocracy, but he gave it up in 1783 to become a scientist. However, he failed to gain admission to the Academy of Sciences, leaving a deep grievance against the nobles of the scientific establishment.
He became one of the most prominent members of the National Convention, where he continued to expound his radical agenda
When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, he took up editing a newspaper, L’Ami du Peuple (The People’s Friend), which took an extreme radical line against the moderate forces in the Revolution and against the aristocracy, whom he saw as dangerously subversive. His views forced him to shelter in England on one occasion, but his outspoken infamy eventually gained him a measure of protection.
From September 1792, he became one of the most prominent members of the National Convention, where he continued to expound his radical agenda as one of the Montagnard group, who were the extreme wing of the Jacobins that eventually unleashed La Terreur. The conservative Girondin faction had him brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal accused of inciting violence against them, but he was acquitted, leaving the Girondins fatally weakened.
Marat had a skin condition for which he took medicinal baths. On 13 July, a Girondin noble from Normandy named Charlotte Corday entered his bathroom, where he often held audiences. The pretext of the meeting was to pass him intelligence about a northern Girondin uprising. Corday gave Marat a list of names, and he assured her they would all be guillotined. She then pulled a six-inch blade from under her dress, and assassinated him.
Marat became an instant martyr. Twenty-one French towns were named after him, and so was a Russian battleship. Corday was guillotined immediately.
The French artist Jacques-Louis David was a Montagnard at the time. He was a prominent propagandist and member of the National Convention, and had voted in favour of the execution of King Louis XVI earlier in the year. Within days of Marat’s murder, he started work on his masterpiece, The Death of Marat. With its compositional similarity to Michelangelo’s dead Christ in Mary's arms, it was quickly hailed and celebrated as the Pietà of the Revolution.
