The Indianapolis journal., 1896-06-14
SKULL OF CHARLOTTE CORDAY.
Many Conflicting Accounts Throw
Doubt Upon the Popular Belief.
New York Journal

Although more than a hundred years
have elapsed since the dulled blade Of the
terrorists guillotine severed the head OF
Charlotte Corday, the murderess of Marat
no shadow of doubt has rested until now
upon the authenticity of the skull which
Prince Roland Bonaparte possesses, and
which has been believed TO be that Of the
great French heroine. Recently, however
DR.. Cabanes, French savant. has been
making a careful scrutiny of the few mus
ty records which remain concerning Char
lotte Corday's execution and the subsequent
disposition of her body. and now claims
that the skull about which so much has
been written by craniologists is quite prob
ably that of some nameless and unknown
woman instead of once having been the
covering OF the fery brain that directed
the dagger to Marat's heart.
DIR. Cabaness argument that the real
mead has long ago turned TO dust rests
largely upon document that he states he
found among the papers of Vatel. a French
biographer of Charlotte Corday which says
that after the execution her body was de-
livered for dissection to several savants,
and that her head fell into the hands OF one
of them named Demon, who. after taking
out the brain. caused the skull to be in
tered with the rest of the remains.
Some say Ii was the executioner who
sold her head to q curious spectator in the
crowd about the scaffold but this is denied
by no less a person than Samson, the heads
man himself, who says that her head fell
into the basket with many others. and
that if it was taken out afterward by the
physicians and carried away with the body
it was done without his knowledge. San
son. however. made this statement long
afterward when he. well as ali others
actively concerned in the doings of those
bloody days. trying his best to rid
himself of the infamy which he had in
Cured
yet more grewsome picture is the next
link in the chain of this heads history
1t is said that one hot July evening, the
|! day after Charlotte. Corday's execution: a
woman of the people was noticed stealing
along in the shadow of buildings in the
Rue ST. F1orentin The air was hot and
sitting and few people were abroad.
though darkness had not yet set In. Sew
eral persons sitting in their doorways no.
ticed the woman as she passed and sick
ened as they caught Whit Of horrible
odor, which seemed 10 come from a bundle
she was carrying wrapped up in her ap-
ron. Curiosity was a dangerous thing in
those days of the terror, no one thought
of stopping and questioning her.
But beforeSshe had disappeared from
view those who We're watching her saw
her steps grow slower and feebler. She
stood still for a moment and then with
a groan sunk fainting to the pavement. A
score of people hurried up and, used as
they were to ghastiy sights. were Mortified
to see. lying IN the dust at the. woman's
feet. the object that she had carried
wrapped in her apron. II was a severed
female head. the long hair still matted
with blood the eyes wide open and star
ing and the awful stains upon the swollen
cheeks and lips betokening that decompo-
sition had already made much headway.
Despite all this there was no mistaking
the identity of this CHASTITY bit of human
debris, and the spectators recognized II AT
once as having belonged TO the murderess
of Marat. whom they had seen die upon
the guillotine the day before.
The woman quickly recovered her senses
and 1t was then learned that she had come
from the Madeleine Cemetery. where a
grave digger had made her present or the
horrible relic, with which she disappeared.