The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic: A Tale of The French RevolutionSue, Eugène
History
The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic: A Tale of The French Revolution
Sue, Eugène
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Fiction
JULY 19, 1793.--Last Saturday, July 13, Marat was assassinated, between
seven and eight in the evening. His assailant was Marie Anne Charlotte
Corday D'Armans, the daughter of an ex-nobleman, whose usual abode was
Caen, one of those hot-beds of federal insurrection fomented by the
Girondins. Simulating the role of a victim who besought assistance and
protection from the Friend of the People, Charlotte Corday solicited an
interview with him. Worn out and unwell, Marat was taking a bath, but
yielding to compassion for the young girl who implored his aid, he
consented to receive her. Introduced into his presence, Charlotte Corday
struck him with a knife. He died almost instantly. I record this new
assassination as an abominable crime! The beauty, the youth, the
resolute character of Charlotte Corday in no wise lessen her guilt. It
is vain to compare her with Brutus. He struck down Caesar, the undoubted
tyrant of his country, whereas the patriotism of Marat, the Friend of
the People, had never been called into question. Taken to-day before the
revolutionary court presided over by Fouquier-Tinville, the accused
woman confessed her connection with the Girondin party, of which she
plainly was the instrument. She prided herself on having dealt Marat his
death blow, the condign punishment, she said, for his crimes.
Unanimously condemned by the jury to death, Charlotte Corday suffered on
the scaffold the penalty for homicide.
The universal consternation of the patriots as they learned of the
murder of the Friend of the People was an additional proof of the
immense influence exercised by this extraordinary man over their heads
and hearts. All over Paris these verses were placarded:
People, Marat is dead, the lover of the land;
Your friend, your aid, the hope of all who would be free
Is fallen 'neath the blow of an accursed band;
Weep--but remember, avenged must he be!
This morning I received a letter from Victoria. She informs me that
Oliver's health is being restored, and that he soon will prove to me
that my affection for him was not misplaced. In a few lines in his own
hand at the end of Victoria's letter, Oliver himself repeated the same
pledges. What is her project? I know not. She has at least saved the
unhappy boy from suicide.
JULY 30, 1793.--The royalist and "federalist" insurrection of Lyons,
Marseilles, Toulon and Bordeaux against the Republic and the Convention
has assumed a more threatening aspect through the war that broke out in
the Vendee, and which is spreading amid scenes of ungovernable ferocity.
Read, sons of Joel, and shudder at the atrocious reprisals, the nameless
horrors, committed by the Vendeans under the leadership of their priests
and the ex-nobles. If the law of retaliation, that savage and barbarous
law, is ever applied to the Chouans and Vendeans by the avengers of the
patriots, let the responsibility fall upon the heads of these madmen
themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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