Charlotte Corday, Her Biography (translated from Lamartine), Chapters I-XXVII [pp. 142-162]

156
"Address to the French, the friends of law and of
peace:
"How long, oh! miserable Frenchmen, will you
be pleased with disorder and divisions. Long
enough and too long have some factious men, some
wicked men placed the interest of their ambition
in the place of the general interest. Why, victims of their fiury, do you destroy yourselves to
establish their desire of tyranny over the ruins of
France?
"The factions explode on all sides; the Mountain triumphs by crime and oppression; some monsters drenched with our blood, conduct their detestable conspiracies..... We labor
for our own ruin with more zeal and energy than
we have shown in conquering liberty! Oh, Frenchmen, yet a little time and there will not remain of
you but the souvenir of your existence!
"Already the indignant departments march on
Paris; already the fire of discord and civil war inflame the half of this vast empire; there is still a
means of extincguishing it, but the means must be
prompt. Already the vilest of the wicked, Marat,
whose name alone presents the image of all crime,
in falling under the avenging steel, shakes the
Mountain and malkes Danton grow pale. Robespierre, those other brigands seated upon the bloody
throne, are enveloped in the lightning which the
avenging gods of humanity only suspend, without
doubt, to render their fall more glittering and to
affright all those who would be tempted to establish their fortunes on the ruins of an abused people!
"Frenchmen! you know your enemies, arise
march! Let the Mountain annihilated leave only
brothers and friends! I do not know if Heaven
reserve to us a republican government, but it can
not give us a leader of the Mountain for master
unless in the excess of vengeance.... 0,
France! thy repose depends on the execution of
the laws; I do not give a blow to them in killing
Marat. Condemned by the universe, he is without the law. What tribunal will judge me? If I
am guilty, Aleides was, when he destroyed the
monsters!....
"0, my country! thy misfortunes tear my heart;
I can not offer thee but my life! and I return thanks
to Heaven for the liberty which I enjoy of disposing of it; no person will lose by my death; I will
not imitate Paris (the murderer of Lepelletier de
Saint-Fargean,) in killing myself. I desire that
my last sigh may be useful to my fellow-citizens?
that my head borne in Paris, may be a sign of rallying for all friends of the laws! that the tottering Mountain may see its ruin written with my
blood! that I may be their last victim, and the
universe avenged may declare that I have deserved
well of humanity! As to the rest, if my conduct
should be looked at with another eye, I am little
disturbed at it.
"My relations and friends ought not to be disquieted; no person knew of my intentions. I annex my extract of baptism to show what the feeblest
hand can do, led by a thorough devotion. If I do
not succeed in my enterprise, Frenchmen, I have
shown you the road, you know your enemies, arise!
march, strike!"
' Whether to the astonished Universe,
This gland empire should prove to be the otject
Of horror, or admiring approbation My spirit, (with small care for fiture fame,)
Does not enquire;-be it reproach or glory,
My duty! that sutffices:-all the rest
Is nothing. Onward! and( deliberate
No more, but how to escape from slavery."'
In reading the verses, inserted by the hand of
the,rand-daugihter of Corneille, at the end of this
address, as an antique seal upon a page of time,
one believes at the first glance that these verses are
her ancestor's and that she has thus invoked the Romarn patriotism of the great tragedian of her race.
One is deceived; the verses are from Voltaire in
the tragedy of the death of Cwesar.
IThe authenticity of this address is attested by a
letter of Fouqutiier Tinville, annexed to the same
packet of papers. This letter of the public accuser is addressed to the Committee of general security of tite Convention. Here it is:
" Citizens, I send you here included the interrogatory undergone by the girl, Charlotte Corday,
and two letters written by her in the house where
she stopped. of which one is for Barbaroux. These
letters are circulated in the streets i-'a manner so
mutilated, that it might bP'erhaps necessary to
print them such as they are. As to the rest, Citizens, when you shall have read them, if you judge
that there is no impropriety in printing them, youti
will oblige me by giving your opinion.
I observe to you that I have just been informed
that this femnale assassin was the friend of Belzunce, a Colonel killed at Caen in an insurrection,
and that since that epoch, she has conceived an
implacable hate against Marat, and this hate appears to have been reanimated in her at the moment in which Marat denounced Rison, who was a
relation of Belzunce, and that Barbaroux appears
to have profited by the criminal disposition of this
girl against Marat, to lead her to execute this horrible assassination.
FOUQUIER TINVILLE."
It is seen by these hesitations and these conjectures, that the opinion wandered from hypothesis
to hypothesis at the first moment, seeking the motive of the crime sometimes in love-sometimes in
resentment on refusing to see where it was in the
wanderings of patriotism.
They consigned Charlotte Corday to a dungeon.
Guarded in sight, even during the night by two
"gendarmes," she complained in vain against this
profanation of her sex. The Committee of gert
[MARCH,
Charlotte Cot-day.