The Death of Marat, the Painting & the Event

On July 13, 1793, Charlotte Corday talked her way into the apartment of writer Jean-Paul Marat and plunged a knife into his chest while he soaked in the bath, killing the Voice of the People within seconds.  

It was a pivotal moment in the French Revolution and was made famous by the painting by Jacques-Louis David.

A painting that is as much propaganda as it is historical and has become the very definition of the event. If you say “The Death of Marat” to anyone, they don’t think of the event itself; they think of this painting, but few know the actual details of the crime. 

In this week's episode, we explore the event, what led to it, the event and the aftermath, and how it's been depicted in art of the last 233 years. 

Visit ClaudineHemingway.com for more info and photos 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Bonjour, bonjour, and juyeau 14 juillet. It is the 14th of July here in France, and it's a very exciting day. It is the Fête Nationale. And I this morning, it's one, I love it when it's a holiday morning because the streets are empty. And so I went out this morning and walked around. It is lovely with a little breeze. I think we're on our last day of heat for the third heat wave. And I just walked around without anybody in the city, and it was fantastic. But they were also getting ready to do the parade. So they have a huge military parade that comes down to Champs-Élysées and it's very cool. But my favorite part is the planes, the flyover. And so the fighter jets that put out the smoke that's in the blue, white, and red color, the blue, blanc, rouge, were going off at 10:21 a.m. And so I had to be there to see it. And I had some friends that met me there so they could see it for the first time. I just love it. It makes me so happy to see it. So it is big, big holiday here in Paris. And I came back so I could get this recorded and send out to you, but I could still hear some of the air show parade going on. It's the helicopter part, so I could actually hear them outside the window. And if you listen closely, you might be able to hear them too. But I today wanted to share the story with you. And this is actually one that I have wanted to do for a very, very long time. And when I realized that the anniversary of this event was yesterday, it was the perfect time for me to do it. And so I'm really excited about this one because not only is it tied to something in the Louvre, it's of course a historic event that happened here in Paris. And I think that it's one that people might not know all of the details of it. But it is the Death of Marah. And it it that is a painting that's in the Louvre, as I said, and they had an exhibit here dedicated to Jacques-Louis David back in October. It opened in October, the week before the theft of the jewels from the Louvre. And so I think it opened, it was like the 13th or so. It was that Wednesday, and the theft was at Sunday. So this exhibit literally just like fell off the face of the earth. It just completely got no attention after everything that happened. And then, of course, there were strikes and all the other fun things that were going on in the Louvre. So it was a fantastic exhibit. But what was great if you were there to see it, there wasn't a lot of people in the exhibit, but it was so good. I I went so many times. But they had the painting, the actual original painting that Jacques-Louis David did of Morat, and they had two of the copies. So I'm going to tell you all about it and where you could see the other copies as well. But it was on July 13th, 1793, that Charlotte Corday talked her way into the apartment of the writer Jean-Paul Morat and plunged a knife into his chest while he soaked in the bath, killing the voice of the people within seconds. It was a pivotal moment in the French Revolution, was made famous by the painting by Jacques-Louis David. A copy by Zatelier hangs in the Musee de Louvre, steps from the coronation of Napoleon, while the original resides at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Belgium. A few copies created under his watchful eye are scattered around France, and in the fall of 2025, all three came together in the Louvre. A painting that is just as much propaganda as it is historical and has become the very definition of the event. If you say the death of Morat to anyone, they don't think of the event itself, they think of this painting. But few know of the actual details of the crime. You could say that 1793 saw some of the most notable deaths in France. The year began with the death of Louis XVI on January 21st, an event in which Morat was directly involved. On October 16th, the blade fell on Marie Antoinette, ending the once ruling monarchy. Jean-Paul Morat, the voice of the people, was born on May 24, 1743, in Boudry, Switzerland, and moved through Paris and England as a doctor and writer and eventually treated the future King Charles X. In the 1780s, his attention began to turn to politics and speaking out. By the end of the decade, on September 12, 1789, he published his first issue of L'A Mie de Publa, The Friends of the People, from his office in Odillon. Less than a month later, the royal family would be forced to leave Versailles and settle into the Palais des Tuileries, and the French Revolution, as we know it, picked up speed. Through it, Mara became increasingly outspoken and poured all his feelings into his writing, often calling for the death of officials and the king and gaining the support of all the people to stand against them. He became one of the most feared men in Paris. Thinking of pamphlets as the 18th century newspaper, and more than 6,000 of each issue are printed, handed out on the streets, and pasted to the walls. He was frequently threatened, brought before the court, hid in the sewers, and even fled France on one occasion, but that had more to do with the affair he was having with the printer's wife. Serving in the National Assembly, he voted for the death of Louis XVI on January 20th, 1793, and aligned himself with Robespierre and the artist Jacques-Louis David. The last issue, number 685 of The Friends of the People, was published on September 21, 1792, but had already riled up a young lady living in Normandy. You could find most of the issues in French online at the National Library website, and I'll put a link on my website, ClaudineHemingway.com. Mary Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont was born on July 27, 1768, in Normandy to a noble but broke family. Educated under the nuns of the Abbey au Dom and Cannes, she was introduced to the French philosophers in an entirely new view of the world that differed from her families. Her brothers had fought for the king, and her parents and grandparents were anti-revolutionist. She believed Murat was inciting violence and must be stopped. The September massacres of 1792, which Morat's writing fanned the flames of violence, calling for the death of thousands. While tensions escalated in Paris, many Girodins members fled to Calvados and Cannes, falling into the lap of Charlotte. Just a few doors down from her home, the outspoken members held meetings that she attended, and she was able to learn even more about what was happening in Paris. Murat became enemy number one and the reason for all the strife and must die. Charlotte left Cannes on July 9, 1793, and traveled to Paris. She was told that Murat would be at the National Convention on the 11th and would be easy to approach. Just before noon on Thursday, July 11th, she arrived in Paris at number 28 Rue Notre Dame des Victoires and stayed at the Hotel de la Providence, a few blocks away at 19 Rue des Vieux Agustin. The next day she takes care of a few things her new Girardon friends asked her to do, and then writes a bit of a manifesto to the French Friends of Law and Peace. Waking up early on Saturday, July 13th, she walked the very quiet streets of Paris to the Palais Royal, just blocks from the hotel. Then known as the Palais Egalité, she found the bed and cutlery store open at 8 a.m. at number 177 in the Gallerie des Valois, a few doors down from another event tied to the artist David that I'll tell you about. For 40 souls, she purchased a six-inch black handled kitchen knife and sheath and slid it into her bodice. After she buys a newspaper and sits down for a coffee and reads the paper. The headlines of the paper called for the execution of the leaders of the Girodins. It was all she needed to erase any doubts that she might have had. At 9 a.m. it was time, but she wasn't sure where Morat lived. Asking a carriage driver, he offered to take her there to the Rue des Cordilles, through the Right Bank, past the Louvre, and over the Pont Neuf to Morat's building, but she hadn't quite planned on how she was going to get inside. She knocked on the door, she met the concierge Marie Barpin, who acknowledged that Murat lives on the first floor but refused to let her in. A few hours later, she was able to return and reach the first floor. She gets as far as Simon, Morat's wife, who turns her away. Frustrated, Charlotte travels back across the river to the right bank in her hotel, where she writes and sends a letter to Mat. The letter states that she came to his home earlier in the day and was refused, and she has important information for him regarding those who stand against the convention and begs for his help. Waiting at the hotel for the answer, she had a little me time and had her hair curled in style. A girl's got to take care of herself, after all. She put on a brown and pink dress and a black hat with a green ribbon, then slides a knife back into her bodice once again. Mara didn't answer her letter, and now she must finish her mission. She also takes her baptismal papers with her in case her body needs to be identified later. It is now just after 7 PM on a hot July 13th, 1793, and Charlotte is not taking no for an answer this time. She arrives at the door and Simone tries to turn her away. Charlotte raises her voice and from the bathtub, Marat calls to let her in. She gives him her second letter and they speak for 15 minutes when suddenly Charlotte lunges forward with the knife and stabs Marat in the chest on his right side, and the blade cuts through his aorta, his heart, and pierces his lung. He dies within minutes. Simone lunges and attacks Charlotte and forces her to the ground with the help of Laurent Bras, who works for Murat. The neighbor across the way saw a chair being held in the air and attacking a woman and rushed over to hold Charlotte down as Simon tried to tend to Mat, but it was too late. Word of his death spread quickly on the streets below. The police arrived and interviewed everyone in the apartment. The two were alone at the time of the killing, unlike many depictions and drawings and paintings, but Charlotte truthfully tells the facts and exactly why she did it. Quickly removed from the scene and taken to the police station, and by the end of the day, she sat in the Abbey prison down the street where Boulevard Saint Germain and Rue de Four crossed today. Two days later, on July 15th, Charlotte Corday was moved to the Conciergerie, better known as the Antechamber of Death. In a few weeks, Marie Antoinette would also arrive. Charlotte's trial was held on July 16th. Earlier that morning, she wrote a letter to her father admitting to the entire crime, and with this one death, she would save hundreds of thousands of citizens. It was intercepted and used against her at trial. Court cases of this kind back then were a bit of a joke. They all ended the same way, at the guillotine. On Wednesday, July 17th at 8 a.m., Corday was sentenced to death, and the execution would happen in a matter of hours. Around 5 p.m., executioner Henri Nicolas Charles Saint Saint entered her cell to take her on the same walk he would do with Marie Antoinette almost exactly three months later. At 5 30 p.m., she was led up the stairs and into the Court de May beside the courthouse, wearing the red shirt of a murderer. The streets are filled with angry people who want to see the killer for themselves. The less than two mile route took almost two hours. It's basically a test run for the path the Queen would take to the Place de la Revolution, Place de la Concour today. At 7 30 p.m., the blade dropped, and the life of Charlotte Corday was over. Immediately following her death, an autopsy was ordered on her body, but not for the reasons you might think. The same officials who tried her in court couldn't believe that a woman would pull off such a crime on her own and had not been spurred on by a man or at least been driven mad by one, right? So they called for a doctor to see if she was still a virgin or not, and she was. On July 18th, Charlotte's body and head were laid to rest at the Madeleine Cemetery in Pit No. 5. Today, this is the Chapelle Expertoire, noted as the final resting place of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, following their own beheading and built after they were moved to the Basilique Saint-Denis. The location of Charlotte's pit is essentially where the chapel stairs are today. Charlotte's bones are now mixed in with the thousands of other Parisians in the catacombs, but her school has had another life in many different versions of who may have it and where it is. In the hours after the death of Mara, Jacques-Louis David was contacted to create a portrait to elevate the writer to that of a martyr. David has successfully done this at the start of the year for another man who had become the image of the revolutionists. Louis-Micel Lepartier de Saint-Fargo was a lawyer and served in the National Assembly. On January 20th, he voted for the death of Louis XVI, and his own would come the same day. Later that evening, after the vote, while dining at the Fevrier restaurant in the northeastern corner of the Palais Royal, Philippe Nicolas Marie du Paris, a former guard of the king, walked in and stabbed and killed Le Peltier for his vote against Louis XVI. David had talked with Le Peltier the day before his death and was shaken by it and also worried for his own life. David wasn't just an artist, he became a politician and an event planner as well. Not only was he crafting the image of the revolution, but he was also had to design the events that surrounded it. On January 24th, three days after his death, Le Peltier was placed high on a pedestal in the center of the Place des Piques, today's Place Vendome, and draped with his bloody shirt. David created a portrait of the newest martyr of the revolution shortly after his death, titled The Last Moments of Michel Le Peltier. Using the same general pose as Hector in the 1783 painting, The Sorrow of Androche, which hangs in the Louvre, following the viewing and the funeral, he was interred into the pantheon. David had visited Murat the day before his death, just as he had Le Peltier. And I would imagine from that fact nobody invited David over for dinner ever again. The reaction to his death brought out high emotions, resulting in protests and marches throughout France. Fearing for their own lives, the members of the National Assembly called for a quick funeral and burial. Due to the heat and his skin condition, Marah's body was rapidly decomposing, making the need for a speedy burial even more important. His funeral was planned for July 16th and designed by David. On July 15th, his body was placed in the convent of the Cordelaer, steps from his front door. His body was in such a state that they covered it with a cloth, exposing only the knife wound. On the evening of the 16th, his body was surrounded by incense burners. It was still very hot in Paris, and they tried to mass the aroma from his body. Thousands of people lined the streets to see the body of the friend of the people one last time. Just before the funeral parade was to start, the skies turned dark and a lightning and thunderstorm raged overhead without a drop of rain. On September 21st, 1794, Morat was given the honor of the pantheonization and interred into his final resting place of the great men of France. But it wouldn't last long. After the fall of Rospierre and the end of the terror, the convention wanted to erase any of the reminders of this period and the men who were elevated in death to its glory. On February 26, 1795, his body and that of Le Peltier were removed and in the dark of night placed in the cemetery of Saint Etienne de Mont. While David began painting Le Peltier immediately, he waited two months before he even started Morat. This also allowed the gravity of the event and the painting's eventual meeting to settle, which can be seen as both good and bad. The political climate was so charged at the time, with the people on one side fearing for their lives and the political careers, and the others wanting to elevate Morat to sainthood. The first depiction of the murder was done by Jean-Jacques Audier and is held today in the Musee Lambenet in the city of Versailles. It was presented on August 10, 1793, in the newly opened museum that would come to be known as the Louvre. Although the victim and the assailant were in the room alone at the time of the murder, Charlotte is depicted as capturing the moment just after she strikes and kills. In the months after his death, many artists depicted the murderer, but only one artist had been in the home of Murat and saw his body in the hours after his death. Taking his time, he finally completed the painting on October 14, 1793. A painting that is just as much propaganda as it is historical and has become the very definition of the event. David chose a simple scene, one that may seem unfinished, but was also his way of letting the few elements speak for themselves. Mirah is placed in his tub, soaking in his sulfur water to help alleviate the pain of his skin condition. Once thought to be syphilis, in recent years they have been able to test the blood left on the letter that he had at his desk when he was killed. Mirah suffered from a combination of atopic dermatitis, severe acne form, and dandruff, but together left horrible lesions and flaking skin. A desk was created with a flatboard onto his tub and a small box to hold his inkwell and extra quills alongside. He would spend the majority of his days since the start of June in this bath and wrapped his head in a cloth soaked in vinegar to help with migraine headaches. David drew on religious imagery to depict the fallen martyr. The white turban becomes a halo, the white sheet on which he rests a shroud, and his arm dangling from the tub, a version of the piet of Christ. The wound even resembles the one Christ bore, which was touched by St. Thomas. Also gnaws to something that then aligns this theme with something greater than just a political message. David was cutting his teeth for what would come in a few short years with Napoleon. The artist left Charlotte out of the painting, but she is still there in a way. The knife rests on the floor, although David painted it with a white pearl handle rather than the black one it had. The green fabric was the color of the counter-revolutionist, the same color she wore in her hat, and the letter he clutches in his left hand, based on the one she presented to him that morning, or at least represents it and bears her name. The painting was unveiled for the first time on October 16, 1793, and placed in the courtyard of the Louvre. In the center, a wooden pyramid was erected. On either side, the painting Emirat and Le Pelletier was displayed for everyone in Paris to see. That same day, a block away, Marie Antoinette would pass by, sitting on a box upon a flat board placed on wheels and pulled by horses. A symbolic choice of days to display the paintings, although these two men would later be seen as villains, not heroes. A month later, on November 14, 1793, it was presented for the first time to the convention and would remain in the presidential gallery until July 1794. With this painting, David captures a moment that would be carved in stone in the history of France. The painting was turned into an engraving, and thousands of copies were made and sent to every corner in France to hang in government buildings. Four copies within the workshop of David were created under his watchful eye to be used as cartons for the Gobelins to be turned into tapestries. I've yet to find any of these tapestries online or in museums, and none exist in the Gobelins collection. In 1795, both paintings were returned to David and he kept them until his death. The painting of Le Peltier was purchased by Le Peltier's daughter, Suzanne, who had become the first orphan of the state in 1793. In 1826, she destroyed the painting and any other versions of it. All that remains today is a sketch by Anatole Devasage, created when he saw the original painting in David's Atelier. After David's death in 1825, his friend and artist Antoine Jean Gros kept that death emerat and covered it with a layer of canvas, then sealed it behind white lead to hide it. It wasn't seen again until 1846. In 1886, after the death of Jacques-Louis David's grandson, Jules David Chasignal, the original was donated to the Royal Museum in Belgium, where it remains today. However, luckily you could see the copies made in his atelier by his students to be used as those tapestries in multiple museums of France, including the Musee de Louvre. Virgins stay very faithful to the original, with only a few slight changes noticeable when they're together. At the Musee de Beaux in Reims, the box is inscribed with unable to corrupt me, they killed me. At the Musee de Beaux in Dijon, the box is blank, as is the one held at Versailles, but rarely on view. While the original in Belgium is simply marked with a Mira David, and at the bottom, Len Deux, and 1793 that has been smudged away. Since then, Charlotte has been viewed more as a heroine and Murat as the villain. She is often depicted as a beautiful and strong woman, a 19th century gendarme. It's a subject that still captures artists today. I recently saw a version by Bernard Buffet done in 1977. In 1907, Edvar Monk depicts the two as lovers with Marat laying in the bed and a nude Charlotte standing in front holding a knife. And even Picasso gave it his own reimagined existence. History is interesting and art plays such a huge role in how it's told. It is exactly why I love the Louvre so much in discovering all these stories held inside a painting. It is also interesting how time can alter the view of these events. At the time this was painted, Murat was raised to the highest realm of a saintly martyr and only to come crashing down within two years. Time gives us an opportunity to see these things from many sides and gain a better understanding of it. Today it's more important than ever to really look into these things the old-fashioned way with reading and research and not AI. In Paris, you can find more on Marah and Charlotte Corday in the Musee Cornevallet, which also holds a copy of his death mask and even part of his jaw. There are many reminders in the streets of Paris, especially in Saint Germain. You can book a walking tour with me and cover all of these and relive the history on the very streets where. Happened. Now, the bathtub the Maraud died in was later sold by his wife and remained missing until 1804, when it was purchased by a gentleman named André Augustin Capriot de Saint-Hilaire in Paris from a scrap metal dealer. Caprielle took it with him when he moved to Taverny, north of Paris. After his death, his daughter Marie Adelaide left it to the Abbe Joseph Rio upon his death in 1861. It was passed to Abbe Lacosse, the bishop of Vins, and eventually made its way to the tiny island of Isle aux Mains. Lacosse liked to show it off to people, and word eventually spread, reaching the pages of Le Figaro on July 15, 1885. A year later it was auctioned off and purchased by the Musée Gravin in Paris, where it's on display today. I really want to go in there and see it someday, but I haven't visited because those wax figures give me the creeps, and I don't want to go in there. But it's quite a story, isn't it? It's pretty amazing. And it when you I'll put a bunch of pictures on my website and also from some of the locations, and I'm going to do a video of many of these places walking around. There is also on the Rue Ancient de Comédie, which is just right, goes right into Boulevard Saint-Germain, is where his uh workshop used to be. And then he his printer was there too. And then he had a few different places that he had an office that he would use before he needed to, you know, retire to his tub. And on the back side, which is just the the little alley, the commons, he there is a bell up there on the window, and it's still there to this day. And so he would write up there, and when he was done and was ready for the printer to come get it to put it together, he just open up the window and ring the bell, and then they knew to come up and get it. And that bell is still there. And I love to show it to people. And I just always wonder like, do the people that live there know what that bell is? I hope so. And then maybe they could, you know, I think that's just really cool. But that is not where he was killed. Where he was killed is actually just about a block away. It's where the medical school is now, and that building where he lived has since been destroyed. But I am going to do a little video walking around to see all those places, and we'll get that posted up on my YouTube this week. So make sure you check that out or subscribe to my newsletter because I'll put it in my newsletter as well. And you can find all that at ClaudineHemingway.com. So I hope everybody is having a wonderful week and it's a little cooler wherever you are. But since it is the 14th of July, hopefully if you're hearing this today, and even if you're not, still do it, have something French today. Maybe some champagne, maybe a croissant, maybe some cheese. Do something that's French and think of how wonderful it is here. But anyway, I will see you next week with another fantastic story. I already know what it's going to be, and I can't wait to share it with you. So make sure you check it out, subscribe, and share this podcast with anybody that you know that loves French history. And I will see you shortly and talk to you all soon. A biento.