nfortunate
man or woman fell beneath his hellish ferocity. Should a fiend be
allowed to personate liberty longer? Should a wretch whose very touch
scorched and blistered, whose breath was that of the lake of fire, any
longer be allowed to pollute France with his presence? These were the
questions which presented themselves to the mind of a young
country-girl. Who would have thought that the young and beautiful
Charlotte Corday would have taken it upon herself to answer these
questions and avenge the murdered innocents?

She had learned to love, to adore liberty, among the forests and hills
of her native country. She saw Marat perpetrating murders of the
blackest die in the name of liberty. He went further still, he
sacrificed her friends--the friends of liberty. She resolved that _the
wretch should die_. No one could suspect the dark-haired girl.
Enthusiastic to madness, she flew to Paris with but one thought filling
her breast--that she was amid the terrors of that time, in the absence
of all just law, commanded by God to finish the course of Marat.
Everything bent to this idea. She cared nothing for her own
life--nothing for her own happiness. She came to the threshold of the
house many a time and was turned away--she could not gain admittance.
Marat's mistress was jealous of him, and Charlotte Corday had heard of
this and feared that it would be impossible to see him alone. She
therefore wrote to the monster, and with great eloquence demanded a
private interview. The request was granted.

On the morning of the 13th of July she came in person, and Marat ordered
that she be shown into his room. He lay in his bath, with his arms out
of water, writing. He looked up at her as she entered, and asked her
business. She used deception with him, declaring that some of his
bitterest enemies were concealed in the neighborhood of her country
home. She named, with truth, some of her dearest friends as these
enemies. "They shall die within forty-eight hours," said Marat. This was
enough--in an instant she plunged a dagger, which she had concealed
about her person, to the center of his heart.

She was executed for this deed upon the _Place de la Concorde_. They
tell the story in France, to show how modest she was, that after her
head had fallen from the body a rough man pushed it one side with his
foot, _and her cheeks blushed scarlet_. Marat was interred with great
pomp in the Pantheon, but a succeeding generation did better jus