Books: Bathtub Killer

THE ANGEL OF THE ASSASSINATION— Joseph Shearing—Smith & Haas ($2.75). The French Revolution had already passed through its stages of exaltation, flowery speeches and grandiose proposals, when in the hot summer of 1793, Charlotte de Corday sat in a dim house in Caen, embroidering on a piece of silk the question: “Shall I, shall I not?” A cool, gracious, studious maiden of 24, she was asking herself if she should assassinate Jean-Paul Marat, President of the Jacobins, diseased, crippled, doomed fanatic who called himself “the rage of the people.” The mood of ecstasy that Charlotte de Corday, as a follower of Rousseau, had experienced when the Declaration of the Rights of Man was published had long since given way to disillusion, foreboding and a desire to act. To her, Jean-Paul Marat was as responsible as one man could be for the plight of France, for the dishonoring of the Revolution.

After his death she was variously pictured as a monster, a depraved, ugly, unscrupulous plotter, a madwoman. In Joseph Shearing’s short biography this daughter of an impoverished provincial noble is presented, with unqualified admiration, as pure, eloquent, composed, inspired by the noblest of human motives, facing both her crime and its consequences with unearthly serenity. Seven years of seclusion in a convent had deepened her knowledge of and admiration for the noble heroes of antiquity, without giving her an understanding of her own time. On July 10, after giving some of her cherished possessions to her friends, she put on a dress of pinstriped brown pique, a high-crowned black hat, picked up her gloves and a fan and set out for Paris to kill the man she considered a tyrant.

Born near Geneva, Marat was the son of a poor chemist. He studied medicine in Scotland, became expert in several languages, took up science. Fearless, bitter, he possessed a quick, vivid pen, turned it to account, after the overthrow of the French monarchy, with violent and inflammatory pamphlets. He gradually became powerful as a spokesman for the extreme Left, the “true type,” according to Joseph Shearing, “of the low agitator of the Paris gutters.” Terribly ugly, 5 ft. tall but with anenormous head, he suffered with eczema so badly that it was commonly believed he had leprosy. Charlotte de Corday arrived in Paris, bought a kitchen knife for 40 sous, took a fiacre to Marat’s residence where she was refused admittance. She then wrote two letters, flattering him, pretending that she had important information, dressed herself seductively in a gown of loose white Indian muslin, put green instead of black ribbons on her hat, had her golden curls fashionably powdered and rearranged, returned to try again. This time Marat admitted her despite the attempts of his wife and sister to keep her out.

She was taken to Marat, found him sitting in his bath, correcting proof on a plank laid across the tub. Seriously ill, Marat spent his days in a slipper tub, nude to the waist, a dressing-gown thrown across his shoulders, his head bound in vinegar-soaked muslin, fighting arthritis, eczema and the great heat. His flesh corrupting, his blood poisoned, death was only a matter of weeks. His lead-colored features were swollen and disfigured with sores; his eyes, bloodshot arid yellow-grey, were nevertheless serene. He spoke to her gently. Awaiting her opportunity, she gave him details of an uprising in Caen. When he pushed aside his proof to note the information, she approached him, drew the knife from her pocket and “with one passionate movement she drove it home, straight downwards through the naked breast, up to the hilt, then drew it out and cast it down on the plank. . . . With a raucous cry Marat fell backwards . . . stiffened in agony, his eyes staring, his tongue protruding and blood gushing from the gash” to stain the water of his bath. Death was instantaneous, for the blow, clean and skillful, traversed the lung and opened the heart.

She never lost her composure during her arrest, questioning, imprisonment, trial, or execution. When a bystander lifted her bloody head and slapped the face, a murmur of rage swept through the crowd. A summer storm that had roared over the scene suddenly passed, the skies grew light and the thunder & lightning ceased.