Jean Paul Marat“The people’s friend”

(1743-1793)

Jean-Paul Marat (24 May 1743 – 13 July 1793) was a Prussian-born physician, political theorist and scientist better known as a radical journalist and politician from the French Revolution. His journalism was renowned for its fiery character and uncompromising stance towards the new government, "enemies of the revolution" and basic reforms for the poorest members of society. Marat was one of the more extreme voices of the French Revolution and he became a vigorous defender of the Parisian sans-culottes; he broadcast his views through impassioned public speaking, essay writing, and newspaper journalism, which carried his message throughout France. Marat's radical denunciations of counter-revolutionaries supported much of the violence that occurred during the wartime phases of the French Revolution. His constant persecution of "enemies of the people," consistent condemnatory message, and uncanny prophetic powers brought him the trust of the populace and made him their unofficial link to the radical Jacobin group that came to power in June 1793. For the two months leading up to the downfall of the Girondin faction in June, he was one of the three most important men in France, alongside Georges Danton and Maximilien Robespierre. He was murdered in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin sympathizer

Brief Summary of Marat

Pre Revolutionary Background-Jean-Paul Marat was born in Boudry in the Prussian principality of Neuchátel, now part of Switzerland, on 24 May 1743. He was the second of nine children born to Jean Mara and Louise Cabrol.

-Jean-Paul Marat left the paternal roof soon after the completion of his sixteenth year. His object was probably to find a school or university where he might pursue the studies preparatory to the practice of medicine, attaining his medical degree and a high reputation of a physician.

-Marat left Paris in 1765 and moved to London, where he created the foundation of his works. This works included his commentary on political, religious and social issues formulated during this century.

- Marat had a skin disease which caused irritations to the skin. This resulted in the majority of his time spent in his bathtub.

“Born with an impressionable nature, a fiery imagination, a hot, frank, and tenacious temperament, an upright mind, a heart open to every lofty passion, and above all to the love of fame, I have never done anything to pervert or destroy these gifts of nature, but have done everything to cultivate them. By an exceptional good fortune I have had the advantage of receiving a careful education in my father’s house, of escaping all the vicious habits of childhood that enervate and degrade a man, of avoiding all the excesses of youth, and of arriving at manhood without having abandoned myself to the whirlwind of the passions. I was pure at the age of twenty-one, and had already for a long time past been given to the meditation of the study.The only passion that devoured my mind was the love of fame; but as yet it was only a fire smouldering under the ashes.The stamp of my mind has been impressed upon me by nature, but it is to my mother that I owe the development of my character. This good woman, whose loss I still deplore, trained my early years; she alone caused benevolence to expand in my heart. It was through my hands that she caused the succour that she gave to the indigent to pass, and the tone of interest she displayed in speaking with them inspired me with her own feelings. Upon the love of humanity is based the love of justice, for the notion of what is just comes from sentiment as much as from reason. My moral sense was already developed at the age of eight. Even then, I could not bear to behold ill-treatment practised upon another; the sight of cruelty filled me with indignation, and an injustice always made my blood boil with a feeling as of a personal outrage. During my early years, my constitution was very delicate; moreover, I never knew either petulance or obstinacy or the games of childhood. Docile and diligent, my masters obtained everything from me by gentleness. I was only chastised once, and the resentment at an unjust humiliation made such an impression upon me that it was found impossible to bring me again under my instructor’s authority. I remained two whole days without taking nourishment. I was then eleven years old, and the strength of my character may be estimated from this single trait. My parents not having been able to bend me, and the paternal authority believing itself compromised, I was locked up in a room; unable to resist the indignation that choked me, I opened the casement and flung myself into the street; happily the casement was not high, but I did not fail to hurt myself seriously in the fall, and I bear the mark on my forehead to this day.The shallow men who reproach me with being a tête (obstinate fellow) will see from this that I was such at an early age; but they will refuse perhaps to believe that at this time of life I was devoured by the love of fame; a passion that has often changed its object at different periods of my life, but which has never quitted me for a moment. At five years of age, I wanted to be a schoolmaster; at fifteen a professor; at eighteen an author; and at twenty a creative genius.This is what nature and the lessons of my childhood have made me. Circumstances and reflection have done the rest.I was reflective at fifteen, an observer at eighteen, a thinker at twenty-one. At the age of ten I contracted the habit of a studious life; mental work has become a veritable necessity for me, even in illness, and my greatest pleasures I have found in meditation .”

In No. 98 of his Journal de la Republique française, Marat has left the following account of his youth

Marat was described during his time as a man "short in stature, deformed in person, and hideous in face.” Marat has long been noted for physical irregularities. The nature of Marat's debilitating skin disease, in particular, has been an object of ongoing medical interest. Dr. Josef E. Jelinek noted that his skin disease was intensely itchy, blistering, began in the perianal region, and was associated with weight loss leading to emaciation. He was sick with it for the three years prior to his assassination, and spent most of this time in his bathtub. There were various minerals and medicines that were present in his bath while he soaked to help ease the pain caused by his debilitating skin disease. The bandana that is seen wrapped around his head was soaked in vinegar to reduce the severity of his discomfort. Jelinek's diagnosis is dermatitis herpetiformis

Marat’s success as a doctorA published essay on curing a friend of gleets (gonorrhoea)probably helped him to secure his referees for an honorary medical degree from the St. Andrews University in June 1775. On his return to London, he further enhanced his reputation with the publication of an Enquiry into the Nature, Cause, and Cure of a Singular Disease of the Eyes.In 1776, Marat moved to Paris following a brief stopover in Geneva to visit his family. Here his growing reputation as a highly effective doctor, along with the patronage of the marquis de l'Aubespine, the husband of one of his patients, secured his appointment, in 1777, as physician to the bodyguard of the comte d'Artois, Louis XVI’s youngest brother. The position paid 2,000 livres a year plus allowances.Marat was soon in great demand as a court doctor among the aristocracy and he used his new-found wealth to set up a laboratory in the marquise de l'Aubespine‘s house. Soon he was publishing works on fire & heat, electricity and light. In his Mémoires, his later enemy Brissot admitted Marat's growing influence in Parisian scientific circles. However, when Marat presented his scientific researches to the Académie des Sciences, they were not approved and he was rejected as a member several times.In April 1786, he resigned his court appointment and devoted his energies full-time to scientific research. He published a well-received translation of Newton's Opticks (1787), and later a collection of experimental essays including a study on the effect of light on soap bubbles in his Mémoires académiques, ou nouvelles découvertes sur la lumière ("Academic memoirs, or new discoveries on light", 1788).

Marat’s writings (early years)“A philosophical Essay on Man", published 1773 –

As a philosopher, Marat was a pronounced dualist, believing firmly in the two Cartesian substances. In perfect consistency with this theory was his eighteenth-century Deism. Like his precursor, Rousseau, though with more logic and less sentiment but greater philosophical knowledge, he believed in a God “out of the machine”, the eighteenth-century God of Nature, who regulated Nature in the same way as the soul was supposed to regulate the body. At the same time, Marat starts his researches from the point of view of Cartesian mechanism, and does not pretend to pronounce on the absolute nature of the soul. In true Cartesian fashion he treats the human body as the machine serving as the organ of the soul. The work is divided into four sections. The first is purely anatomical. The second treats of the human soul. “The body vegetates left to itself; it is the soul alone that gives true life to its marvellous mechanism; an invisible spring, rendering our members active, producing all their harmonious movements, all those rapid and prodigious movements that make the body so adroit and admirable a machine.” And again, “It is the soul that renders man intelligent and free.”

Chains of Slavery in 1774, from the preface to the French translation of which, issued eighteen years later in 1792, we get the following facts. “At a time,” writes Marat, “when the French had no country, I was anxious to contribute to the triumph of liberty in a country which seemed its last asylum. A Parliament notorious for its venality was reaching its close, and upon the new one about to be elected all my hopes rested.” The Parliament referred to was the first Parliament of Lord North. Marat, in accordance with the view above expressed, determined to throw himself into the struggle, selecting the polemical essay as his weapon. The object was “to paint the inestimable advantages of liberty, the frightful evils of despotism.”

In 1780, Marat published his "favourite work", a Plan de législation criminelle. Inspired by Rousseau and Beccaria, his polemic for judicial reform argued for a common death penalty for all regardless of social class and the necessity for a twelve-man jury to ensure fair trials

Marat as a revolutionary influence“Fifty years of anarchy await you, and you will emerge from it only by the power of some dictator who will arise- a true statesman and patriot. O prating people, if you did but know how to act”

The first writing of Marat’s with a direct bearing on the Revolution is his Offrande à la Patrie, a pamphlet of sixty-two pages, in which he addresses his fellow-citizens on the approaching elections for the States-General. This body, which had not been called together since 1614, was now about to be summoned as a last resort, to stave off the impending bankruptcy of the country The miseries of the people are the subject of the first discourse of the Offrande. These miseries the author traces to the wickedness of finance-ministers: “Traitors to their master, traitors to their country, they have by their crimes compromised authority and brought the State to the verge of the abyss.” Citizens are cautioned to beware of their subterfuges and to have the courage to shake off the evils so heavily weighing upon them. The second discourse appeals for union and foresight. The third warns the people against credulity in the choice of representatives. “Banish from the arena imprudent and fiery youth ... Enlightenment and virtue are the indispensable qualities for a representative of the people.” And farther on we read: “The care of your fortunes, your liberty, your honour, the love of your families, your country, and your king, religion and the glory of the State, unite at this moment to solicit your prudence, to arm your virtue.” In the fourth discourse Marat returns to the delinquencies of the finance-ministers, who have ruined France. In the last discourse, the fifth, suggestions are made for the basis of a constitution. The author declares it a necessity that the nation assembled in its estates should assure without delay its sovereignty and its independence of all other human authority. It was necessary that they should choose a place of sitting and decide to meet at least once every three years. The nation through its representatives was alone the legitimate sovereign, the supreme legislator, and it was to it that the ministers ought to be responsible. It was indispensable that the States-General should elect a permanent committee to sit during the time they were not in session themselves

Offrande á la Patrie

The next act in the revolutionary drama was the taking of the Bastille. What part did Marat play in this act? His enemies have sought to accuse him of cowardice, because, he was not the first in the breach or at the drawbridge. His own account of his conduct on the day in question is given in No.36 of the Ami du Peuple, “At nightfall on the 14th of July, I circumvented the project of surprising Paris by introducing into the city by a ruse several regiments of dragoons and of German cavalry, of which a large detachment had been already received with acclamation. It had just reconnoitred the quartier St. Honore and was about to reconnoitre the quartier St. Germain, when I encountered it on the Pont Neuf, where it was halting to allow the officer in charge to harangue the multitude. The orator’s tone appeared to me suspicious. He announced as a piece of good news the speedy arrival of all the dragoons, all the hussars, and the royal German cavalry, who were about to unite themselves with the citizens in order to fight by their side. Such an obvious trap was not calculated to succeed. Although the speaker obtained for himself the applause of a large crowd in all the quarters where he had announced his information, I did not hesitate for an instant to regard him as a traitor. I sprang from the pavement and dashed through the crowd up to the horses’ heads. I stopped his triumphal progress by summoning him to dismount his troop and to surrender their arms, to be received again later on at the country’s hands. His silence left no doubt in my mind. I pressed the commandant of the city guard, who was conducting these horsemen, to assure himself of them. He called me a visionary; I called him a fool, and seeing no other means of circumventing their project, I denounced them to the public as traitors who had come to strangle us in the night. The alarm I caused by my lusty cries had its effect on the commandant, and my threatening him with denunciation decided him. He made the horsemen turn back and took them to the municipality, where they were requested to lay down their arms. On their refusing, they were sent back to their camp with a strong escort.

From Marat’s proposition, following on the events of the 14th of July, originated his career as the journalist of the Revolution

“It is true,” says he, “that on the night of the 4th of August the following points were decided in principle: the abolition of seigneurial justice and of the right of perquisites; the renewal of the prohibition of the possession of more than one benefice at a time; the repurchase of seigneurial rights, of the rights of the clergy; the abolition of the rights of hunting and fishing; the permission to every citizen to kill game that injures his property; the suppression of rabbit warrens; the repurchase of banalités; the abolition of wardenships, of seigneurial titles, of the dove-cot, of the mortmain of Mont Jura and Franche-Comté, of all pensions not declared to be for proved services; the proportional assessment of all the taxes on land to six months retrospective; the exemption from all taxation of artisans who have no journeymen under them; the suppression of venality and of hereditary judicial offices; the admission of all classes of citizens to all posts, ecclesiastical, civil, and military; the suspension of all lawsuits concerning seigneurial rights, until the constitution is established; the abolition of all the privileges of the provinces, and their absolute submission to the laws and to the taxes decreed by the representatives of the nation.”Marat, whilst acknowledging the claim of generosity and public spirit to popular admiration, continues:-"Let us indeed beware of outraging virtue; but let us not be dupes of any one. If beneficence dictated these sacrifices, it must be admitted that it has waited rather late to raise its voice. What! at the reflection of the flames of their burnt chateaux they have the magnanimity to renounce the privilege of holding in chains men who have recovered their liberty with arms in their hands! At the sight of the tortures of plunderers, of peculators, of the satellites of despotism, they have the generosity to renounce seigneurial tithes, and to exact nothing more from unfortunate men who have hardly enough to live upon! Hearing the names of the proscribed and seeing the fate that awaits them, they accord us the benefit of abolishing hunting-preserves, and thus permit us not to allow ourselves to be devoured by wild animals! Let us admit that they have done that from virtue which might so easily have been attributed to fear; but let us agree that the importance of these sacrifices, so much extolled in the first moment of enthusiasm, has been exaggerated!”

Marat’s expression of his opinion regarding the August Decrees and the nobility

After he had suggested that the nobles had been actuated more by fear than virtue, he specially excepts from his suspicions the abandonment of certain rights, particularly of double benefices, “of which some virtuous curé’s had given the example.” He also excepts the consent of the Third Estate deputies to the abolition of the privileges of the towns and of the provinces. There is little doubt that in singling out the liberal nobles of the Assembly as the object of his strictures, Marat was on this occasion unfair. We may take it for granted that the nobles, no less than the other classes, on the memorable night of the 4th of August, were really carried away by a sudden epidemic of enthusiasm, and that their sacrifices were not all the result of calculating motives. The fact was, however, that Marat saw that the aristocratic element had been perpetually imposing its will on the Assembly, and was about to do so again, by forcing into the new Constitution that was being elaborated the clause giving the King absolute right of veto. “It is evident,” he writes, “that this odious faction has formed the project of opposing itself to the Constitution and of restoring to the King absolute power, luring the nation by the vain display of some illusory sacrifices, whilst scoring over the fundamental laws of the State which have to be confirmed.” Marat undoubtedly went too far in calling the sweeping changes made on this occasion “for the most part illusory.

Ami du Peuple, a name that has ever since been a synonym for Marat himself. The paper became the most important organ of the thoroughgoing side of the Revolution, until the opening of the Convention. for in this issue we find Marat defending himself not against the avowed enemies of the Revolution, but against its milk-and-water friends, who wished to temper his zeal. “They admit,” he says, “that I am right in attacking the corrupt faction that is dominant in the National Assembly, but they wish me to do so with moderation. It is like arraigning a soldier who is fighting against perfidious enemies.” Shortly after this, Marat received his first summons to appear before the police tribunal. Two months had not elapsed from the founding of the paper before a second arrived. In consequence, the words that had appeared originally under the paper’s title, “by a society of patriots,” were struck out, Marat not wishing to risk implicating others in the further prosecutions which he knew awaited the journal.The modern “newspaper” with its leading articles was not as yet fully evolved out of the “pamphlet”. The eight small octavo pages which usually composed it were made up almost exclusively of criticisms and remarks on current events written by Marat himself. It was, in fact, rather a daily pamphlet than a journal in the modern acceptation of the word. The only portion of the Ami du Peuple not written by Marat himself was devoted to letters he was constantly receiving from the victims of official tyranny in some form or shape. His zeal for the righting of private wrongs was only equalled by his enthusiasm in dealing with public abuses. These letters, of which there are between three and four thousand in all in the files of the journal, are in many cases of considerable interest.

Ami du People – “The friend of the people” 1789

Marat often attacked the most influential and powerful groups in Paris, including the , the Constituent Assembly, the ministers, and the Cour du Châtelet. In January 1790, he moved to the radical Cordeliers section, the Club des Cordeliers, then under the leadership of the lawyer Danton, was nearly arrested for his aggressive campaign against the marquis de La Fayette, and was forced to flee to London, where he wrote his Dénonciation contre Necker ("Denunciation of Jacques Necker"), an attack on Louis XVI's popular Finance Minister. In May, he returned to Paris to continue the publication of L'Ami du peuple, and attacked many of France's most powerful citizens. Fearing reprisal, Marat went into hiding in the Paris sewers, where he almost certainly aggravated a debilitating chronic skin disease (dermatitis herpetiformis)During this period, Marat made regular attacks on the more conservative revolutionary leaders. In a pamphlet from 26 July 1790, entitled "C'en est fait de nous" ("We're done for!"), he wrote:

“Five or six hundred heads would have guaranteed your freedom and happiness but a false humanity has restrained your arms and stopped your blows. If you don’t strike now, millions of your brothers will die, your enemies will triumph and your blood will flood the streets. They'll slit your throats without mercy and disembowel your wives. And their bloody hands will rip out your children’s entrails to erase your love of liberty forever”

Marat was elected to the National Convention in September 1792 as one of 26 Paris deputies although he belonged to no party. Ironically, Marat rejected the notion of war with Austria and Prussia. He did however, lead the attack on the traitors, accusing the Court of sabotaging war and the King of plotting with Austria. Rich members of society came under attack for hoarding food and their wealth. Mob violence was equated with patriotism, the sans cullotes now seeing themselves as defenders of the nation, from traitors within. Through his support of the Cordeliers faction, his paper incited violence which led to the September Massacres of 1792. The invasion of France intensified the fear within Paris. Revolutionary leaders encouraged the crowds to take action. Marat declaring that, “Let the blood of the traitors flow. That is the only way to save the country!” This in turn influenced the sans culottes, who attacked the prisons and slaughtered all those held there without mercy. Marat was blamed by the Girondin deputies for inciting these bloody actions.

Marat and the Convention

“I believe in the cutting off of heads”

The conflict between the factions of the convention were reverberated through the trial of Marat. In Marat’s journal, he called on the people to attack the deputies of the Convention, especially the Girondin leaders. The Girondins fought back, demanding that Marat be brought to trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal for accusing the deputies who had voted for a public referendum on the King’s execution of being the accomplices of Dumouriez. This was a poor tactic, as Marat was a leader of the sans culottes and his revolutionary loyalty was unchallengeable in their eyes. On April 24, Marat was acquitted and his supporters turned this into a personal triumph, proclaiming him the “father of the people.”Simon Schama has described the failed impeachment of Marat as a “collective disaster for the Girondins.” In ignoring the immunity to prosecution of a deputy of the National Convention, the Girondins had destroyed a principle and created a precedent that, in only a few weeks time, would be used by the enemies against them. Moreover, the Girondin leaders misread the public mood, which saw Marat as a hero and themselves as traitors. In the event, Marat was acquitted and the sans cullotes were determined to exact their revenge, which in turn led to their expulsion from the convention in June 1793.

The Trial of Marat

“I propose that the Convention shall decree complete freedom in the expression of opinion, so that I may send to the scaffold the faction [Gironde] that voted for my impeachment”

"Marat's Triumph": a popular engraving of Marat borne away by a joyous crowd following his acquittal.His stance during the trial of the deposed king Louis XVI was unique. He declared it unfair to accuse Louis for anything before his acceptance of the French Constitution of 1791, and, although implacably believing that the monarch's death would be good for the people, defended Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, the King's counsel, as a "sage et respectable vieillard" ("wise and respected old man").On 21 January 1793, Louis XVI was guillotined, which caused political turmoil. From January to May, Marat fought bitterly with the Girondins, whom he believed to be covert enemies of republicanism. The Girondins won the first round when the Convention ordered that Marat should be tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal. However, their plans were scuppered when Marat was acquitted with much popular support and carried back to the Convention in triumph with a greatly enhanced public profile.

Marat’s Triumph

The Death of MaratOn the 13th of July, at 7 o’clock, Girondin supporter Charlotte Corday gained entry to Marat’s home by promising to identify traitors to the republic. Finding him in the bath, where he often worked in order to relieve the itch caused by his skin disease, she sat on a chair next to him. She then took out a knife she had purchased and leant over and stabbed him on the right side of his bare chest. After she killed Marat she made no effort to escape, instead gave herself up calmly to the authorities. She was tried on the 17th of July and executed later that afternoon, showing no repentance.

Marat’s death created the most powerful symbol of the revolution, created by Jacques Louis David. In this oil painting, Marat lies in his bath, bathed in golden sunlight, his wound bleeding onto the white sheet. He is caught in the moment of death, his right hand still grasping his pen and, in his left hand, the letter from Charlotte Corday that gave her access to him. The painting deliberately portrays Marat as a benevolent and charitable man, his last moments spent in ministering to the needs of the people. Marat was buried in the Pantheon and David’s portrait hung in the Assembly above the Declaration of Rights of man and Citizen

Marat’s martyrdom

Between July and December of 1793, David painted this iconic image to feed the legend of revolutionary martyrdom which the Jacobins were creating. His image commemorates one whom many considered to be the “incarnation of the Revolution.” Marat’s composition echoes that of Michelangelo's famous sculpted Pieta of Christ’s dead body, held in his mother’s lap after his crucifixion. As Christ gave his life on the cross to save mankind from sin, so had Marat, who gave his life for the menu people and the sans culottes to save them from the greedy and evil intentions of the rich.

Marat’s bathtubAfter Marat's death, Simonne Evrard, Marat's wife, may have sold his bathtub to her journalist neighbour, as it was included in an inventory of his possessions after his own death. The royalist de Saint-Hilaire bought the tub, taking it to Sarzeau, Morbihan in Brittany. His daughter, Capriole de Saint-Hilaire inherited it when he died in 1805 and she passed it on to the Sarzeau curé when she died in 1862.A journalist for Le Figaro tracked down the tub in 1885. The curé then discovered that selling the tub could earn money for the parish, yet the Musée Carnavalet turned it down due to its lack of provenance as well as the high price. The curé approached Madame Tussaud's waxworks, who agreed to purchase Marat's bathtub for 100,000 francs; however, the curé's acceptance was lost in the mail. After rejecting other offers, including one from Phineas Barnum, the curé sold the tub for 5,000 francs to the Musée Grévin, where it remains today. The tub was in the shape of an old-fashioned high-buttoned shoe and had a copper lining.

Jean-Paul Marat, the “People’s Friend”, was neither a “demagogue” nor a “madman”, but a statesman, who differed, however, from most statesmen in that he possessed definite principles to which he remained steadfastly loyal, and which he logically sought to carry into practice. The slanderous portrait of Marat as a person of “shady life”, or still worse as an “inhuman monster”, has already fallen to pieces at the first touch of criticism and honest investigation. But there are still writers on the French Revolution who, while not attacking Marat’s moral character, but on the contrary giving him full credit for his good intentions, still affect to regard the “People’s Friend”, especially in the later portion of his political career, as “frenzied”, or at best “unhinged”, by the events of the time and the trouble he had passed through. The basis of Marat’s political practice is the Plan de Constitution and the Plan de Législation criminelle, and then follow the application of the principles therein laid down in the files of the Ami du Peuple, the Journal de la République and the Publiciste de la République, and if he be in way unbiased he cannot fail to become convinced that he has before him the work of a consistent Rousseauite indeed, and therefore bearing on its face up to a certain point, the obsoleteness of standpoint of the Contrat Social, but also the work of a clear political thinker, no less than of a noble-hearted man and a single-minded friend of the disinherited and the oppressed.As stated by E.Belfort Bax in 1900, “Marat, though not a Socialist, was a precursor of Socialism. The ideals of Marat’s life, Justice and Social Equality, clothed as they were by him in eighteenth-century Rousseauite garb, have not perished because that garb is outworn, but, will assuredly realise themselves sooner or later under the forms of that true economic freedom through collective ownership in the material bases of social life which is the primary aim of the international Socialist party of modem times.”

Effect/Impact of Marat

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