Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1872-12-28
CHARLOTTE CORDAY.

CHARLOTTE CORDAY.
In 1898, when the new Republic Of
France, whose horizon had dawned so
auapiciously beneath the conservative
influence of the Girondists, was rent by
ambitious factions, whose rulers were
ragged liberty, beneath the hideous guise
of the monster Marat, was sinking into
absolutism, there arose in Trance
lovely, beautiful, innocent young girl,
who, like Joan of Arc, believed herself
country.
This was Charlotte Corday, of Caep,
the capital of Normandy, the grand
daughter of Pierre Corneille, the great
dramatist and author. She had in
herited poetry, heroism, patriotism and
poverty, and, though of noble family,
was only distinguished from the poor of
her surroundings by an air of polished
refinement and noble beauty which
no adyerse pecuniary circumstances
could extinguish. Lamartine says that
poets and heroes are of the me race,
the only difference being that between
idea and fact, what Corneille conceived,
Charlotte Corday executed.
Being of aristocratic lineage, and in
extremely impoverished circumstances,
she lived iE solitude with widowed
aunt, and her father, having become
motherless in early youth. Amid ply.
sical toll and penury, she. dreamed anew
the glorious dreams of liberty, and
equal human rights of which her grand
father had written. In the fall Of the
Bastile, and the first dawn of the revo-
luton, she believed she beheld the
eventual emancipation of her beloved
country from tyranny, oppression and
superstition. Bnt when the power of
the bloodthirsty Jacobins, beneath the
brutal rule of Marat, had reached its
zenith, she saw those fond hopes dis,
PEELED, and fancied that with his death
order and peace would emerge from the
dreadful chaos which threatened to an
nihilate the social and political life Of
France.
The desire to free her country from
bloody anarchy became her all absorb.
ing thought, and while she thought and
dreamed of the method, all hopes of its
eventual liberty were dying as the head
of patriot after patriot fell beneath the
sanguinary ak of the guillotine. She
had attained her twenty fourth year
when the crisis of her life eliminated.
She is described at this time as being
tall, exceedingly well propol toned, and
OF native grace and dignity like the
musical rythm of a poem. Her eyes
were large and variable as the ocean
wave, her hair black and lustrous, while
a Grecian mouth, and well cut, firmly
set lips depicted the tenderness and
severity of character, equally formed to
breathe love or patriotism. TO the
voice of the former, however, she turned
deaf ear; the sweet charmer love,
which ever comes with maidenhood,
found no resting place in her heart, and
sadly but firmly she banished all natural
ties of wi'ehood and motherhood and
becsm" welded to patriotism and love.
of her native land.
Like the Hebrew Judith she believed
the death of the tyrant Marat would
llberate her country, being too ignorant
to fully comprehend its situation, or the
ignorance, tanaticism and brutality of
the Jacobin faction whose hidra head
could not be vanquished by the death
ot one leader. Silently, alone and un.
aided, this motherless girl formed her
plans Tor the accomplishment of her
designs. From her scanty pittance sh.
had contrlved to hoard sufficient money
to make the journey from Normandy to
Paris, and to procure lodgings and food
Tor few days arriving ; at the capital
IN the midst OF great excitement, caused
by the rnmors that the lists of those
prescribed by the Marat government
and doomed to the guillotine were
swelled to the enormous number of
twenty-eight thousand in Paris. two
thousand five hundred in Lyons, three
thousand in Marseilles, and three hun
dred thousand in the Provinces of
Brittany and Calvados. AS she shud.
dered at the horrible rumors, which
from the sanguinary events which had
preceded them were most likely to be
true, she more than ever felt that her
mission had the sanctity of Heaven and
that she was the instrument chosen by
God to rid her country of the bloody
monster who was the cause of so much
misery, suffering and death.
Though in strong sympathy with the
Girondist party, she carefully concealed
her plans from them, fearful to COM
promise their lives, we'll knowing that
her own would pay the forfeit for the
act she contemplated, and desiring to
make of the murder of Marat a solemn
lmmolation, which would strike terror
into the minds of his imitators. With
the greatest cafe she selected and pur.
chased poignard, and then formed
several plans for obtaining an interview
with Marat, all of which she abandoned
for the one which proved successful,
which was to write him several notes,