than the hands and the
hearts of armed men. The Girondins were in the power of assassins, of
men against whom there was no protection in France but the dagger. To
take a life was the one way of saving many lives. Not a doubt ever
touched her that it is right to kill a murderer, an actual and
intending murderer, on condition of accepting the penalty. She told no
one of the resolution in her mind, and said nothing that was pathetic,
and nothing that was boastful. She only replied to Petion's clumsy
pleasantries: "Citizen, you speak like that because you do not
understand me. One day, you will know." Under a harmless pretext she
went to Paris, and saw one of the Girondin deputies. In return for
some civility, she advised him to leave at once for Caen. His friends
were arrested, and his papers were already seized, but he told her
that he could not desert the post of duty. Once more, she cried,
"Believe me, fly before to-morrow night!" He did not understand, and
he was one of the famous company that mounted the scaffold with
Vergniaud. Next morning, Saturday July 13, Charlotte purchased her
dagger, and called on Marat. Although he was in the bath where he
spent most of his time, she made her way in, and explained her
importunity by telling him about the conspirators she had seen in
Normandy. Marat took down their names, and assured her that in a few
days he would have them guillotined. At that signal she drove her
knife into his heart. When the idiotic accuser-general intimated that
so sure a thrust could only have been acquired by practice, she
exclaimed, "The monster! He takes me for a murderess." All that she
felt was that she had taken one life to preserve thousands. She was
knocked down and carried through a furious crowd to prison. At first
she was astonished to be still alive. She had expected to be torn in
pieces, and had hoped that the respectable inhabitants, when they saw
her head displayed on a pike, would remember it was for them that her
young life was given. Of all murderers, and of all victims, Charlotte
Corday was the most composed. When the executioner came for the
toilette, she borrowed his shears to cut off a lock of her hair. As
the cart moved slowly through the raging streets, he said to her, "You
must find the way long." "No," she answered, "I am not afraid of
being late." They say that Vergniaud pronounced this epitaph: "She has
killed us, but she has taught us all how to die."

After the failure in