Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d’Armont (27 July 1768 – 17 July 1793), known to history as Charlotte Corday, was a figure of the French Revolution.
In 1793, not yet 25 years old, she was executed under the guillotine for the assassination of Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat, who was partly responsible for the Reign of Terror. His murder was memorialized in a celebrated painting by Jacques-Louis David (see image below) which shows Marat after
Corday stabbed him to death in his bathtub. In 1847, writer Alphonse de Lamartine gave Corday the posthumous nickname l’ange de l’assassinat
(The Angel of Assassination).
THE PAINTING ABOVE IS DATED OCT 9TH, 1889, AND IS SIGNED BY RENOWNED FRENCH ARTISTS CHARLES LOUIS LUCIEN MULLER AND ALFRED DE RICHMONT. BOTH ARTISTS WERE ALIVE DURING THE SAME ERA AND IT APPEARS THERE WAS SOME FORM OF COLLABORATION BETWEEN THEM IN THE CREATION OF THIS PAINTING.
CHARLOTTE CORDAY WAS AN OUTSPOKEN WOMAN FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. NOTE THAT SHE HOLDS A WRITING QUILL IN HER HAND WHILE AWAITING DEATH.
