So had she grown up at Caen, dreaming much of her country's welfare, filled with a romantic ambition to do something for France, something grand, something noble. And then came all the horrors of the Revolution. Terrible tales of bloodshed and injustice reached the little sun-kissed village of Caen. The name of Marat was on every tongue--Marat, who made the streets run with blood; Marat, the murderer of thousands whose only crime was loyalty; Marat, through whose wanton ferocity the blood-stained Loire was discolored for miles, to whose rage for extermination the gloomy solitude of the towns and the desolation of the country bore ghastly testimony. The very crimson of the autumn woods seemed to reflect the bloodshed of those cruel September massacres. It was then, no doubt, that the thought first entered the mind of this young girl; the idea that perhaps she, though only a woman, with no knowledge of the world, without experience, might achieve what men seemed frightened to attempt, something that should help to retrieve the lost honor of France. It was ambitious, surely; but then, was not Joan of Arc a girl? Marat, the murderer of peace, if only he were dead, thought Charlotte Corday, peace would be restored. "It is expedient for one man to die for all." The shadow of Marat darkened the whole picture, and in the background stood the scaffold, which liberty was mounting in company with the victims of this murderer, at whose name one shuddered, as at the mention of death. Marat, without Danton's courage or the integrity of Robespierre, seemed but a wild beast bent on devouring France. Charlotte saw her beloved country in its death agony, she saw the victims and the tyrant. She sought to avenge the one, to punish the other, to save all. Many a long summer night did she lie awake in her little attic room at Caen, wondering what she should do. Suddenly all seemed to clear before her. Her mind was made up. After a sad parting with her family, who believed that she was going to England with the many other refugees who found a haven there at this time, she started for Paris, arriving there with no friend save a battered copy of her beloved Plutarch. During the two days and nights that she spent at the little Hotel de la Providence in the Rue des Vieux Augustins, but one thought was uppermost in her mind; to seek out Marat and do what she had to do.