born July 27, 1768, Saint-Saturnin, near Séez, Normandy, France
died July 17, 1793, Paris
French political activist.
A noblewoman from Caen, she moved to Paris to work for the Girondin cause in the French Revolution . Horrified at the excesses of the Reign of Terror , she sought an interview with Jean-Paul Marat , one of its leaders. On July 13, 1793, she stabbed him through the heart while he was in his bath. Arrested on the spot, she was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal and guillotined.
Charlotte Corday, engraving by É.-L. Baudran after a portrait by J.-J. Hauer.
Courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris