The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-03-24

from behind her prison .bars, has done
much to hold popular judgment in equi-
librium. Was this Sad-eyed, pure
faced young girl who deliberately took
the life Of Marat murderer or a hero
inc? She would undoubtedly have fig
ured as classic, feminine Brutus in
'the glory that was Greece,
The grandeur that was Rome"
But in, this unimpassioned twentieth
century looking coldly back upon the
fever heat which burned itself out in
France 100 years ago, who shall say
whether Charlotte Corday was sent by
God to aVenge her country? In other
words, should the heroes Of history be
judged by the standards of the day in
which they lived or gagged by modern
criteria?
The youth of Charlotte Corday, like
that Of Joan Of Arc, was of the kind
that fosters introspection, feeds mag
lination and prolongs childhood indefi
nitely. 1t was not amid her fiOcks on
the hillsides, but in the clustered Sc
clusion of the abbaye-AuX Danes
founded at Caen for the daughters of
the poor nobility by Matilda, wife of
William the Conqueror, that Charlotte
Cordays mystic self-communings took
her to her doom. Here she devoured
sorbing greedily whatever savored Of
patriotism and equality Of rights.
While her mind was in this vortex OF
! ill-choSen reading, news reached her
Of the increasing infamy Of Marat.
Marat, the head of the Mountain. the
editor of the revolutionary press upon
which so many republican hopes had
been founded, the incarnation of all
that was evil in the French revolution,
L. Y-.s11a M II afr Nof-
| ties raised himself to the highest power
| in his party. Danton and RobeSpiere,
the other members of this terrible tri-
umvirate, were unable to satisfy Ma
| rats unQuenchable thurst for blood. In
corruptible in money matters, he was
nevertheless one of the vilest of man
kind. No lie was too monStrouS, no
atrocity to sanguinary, to debar his
hideous progress. His brain was turned
by hiS immense power. Even ms al
herents abhorred his leprouS body and
| livid leer. refusing TO sit near the
blod-crazed demoniac whom they had
raised to power He it was who urged
| the immediate execution OF Louis XVI,
and called upon his constituency to kill
| 200, 600 adherents Of the old regime. He
even wished to reduce the convention,
the republican organ OF the govern
ment, one-fourth by this same cruel
measure. The Girondists, who had
! forced Louis XVI to become a constitu-
tional king. had been entirely super
saded by Marat's ultra-revolutionary
party, known as the Jacobins. And now
Marat's venom was turned against the
J Girondists and he announced in his
| journal that 800 O00 Of their heads were
necessary TO consolidate the Liberties OF
| France. Surely IL it ever were rlght Tor
men to usurp Gods prerogative of sum-
moning a soul to the other world, such
2, asourge upon mankind as Marat
would seem TO justify the deed!
! Upon the suppression or the con-
vents by the national convention Char
| lotte COrday returned 10 her home at
Caen. Well read in ancient history and
versed in the more modern principles
of political economy, she had expected
/ the Girondists to bring about an ideal
pure republic When Marat expelled
them from the convention Charlotte
Corday, at the head Of the young girls
of the city, went out to meet those re-
! turning TO Caen, and presented them
! with crowns and flowers With her
father she attended their indignation
meetings, but VAS disguised at their
pusilanimity. Volunteers were called
upon the field Of Caen TO lead an in
surrectionary movement against Marat,
but so intirnidated were they by Ma
rats linitless power for evil that but
thirty responded to the roll of the drum.
Then Charlotte Corday realized for the
first time the terrorizing power OF the
head OF the French government. II he
could make so neryeless these men
whom he had wronged, he must rule
/ by right of terror alone, and she, Char
lOtte Corday. who knew no fear, would
rid her country OF this law-murderer,