1
00:00:00,680 --> 00:00:05,040
Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, A production of iHeartRadio and Grimm

2
00:00:05,080 --> 00:00:20,160
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Mankie Listener Discretion advised July seventeenth,

3
00:00:20,400 --> 00:00:24,919
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety three. A young woman only twenty four years

4
00:00:24,960 --> 00:00:30,000
Speaker 1: old gets ready to don the red overblouse worn by

5
00:00:30,160 --> 00:00:34,680
Speaker 1: condemned traitors of the French people. The woman has been

6
00:00:34,760 --> 00:00:38,600
Speaker 1: found guilty and she will be executed, but in the

7
00:00:38,680 --> 00:00:42,360
Speaker 1: hours before she's led to the guillotine, she has one

8
00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:47,600
Speaker 1: final request. Since I still have a few moments to live,

9
00:00:48,120 --> 00:00:51,760
Speaker 1: might I hope citizens, that you will allow me to

10
00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:56,880
Speaker 1: have my portrait painted. The President of the Revolutionary Tribunal

11
00:00:56,960 --> 00:01:00,760
Speaker 1: apparently had a soft spot for this woman, and so

12
00:01:01,120 --> 00:01:05,319
Speaker 1: at the last moment her request was granted. Her artist

13
00:01:05,480 --> 00:01:09,080
Speaker 1: was to be a National guardsman, Jean Jacques Hower, who

14
00:01:09,160 --> 00:01:13,679
Speaker 1: had already begun sketching the woman during her trial. His

15
00:01:13,800 --> 00:01:18,160
Speaker 1: studio was her prison cell. He was given the extremely

16
00:01:18,360 --> 00:01:22,800
Speaker 1: brief time to work between her sentencing and her ride

17
00:01:22,840 --> 00:01:28,320
Speaker 1: in the Tumbril to her death. The infamous executioner Charles

18
00:01:28,319 --> 00:01:32,199
Speaker 1: Henri Sensen reflected in his memoirs that when he came

19
00:01:32,319 --> 00:01:35,520
Speaker 1: to cut the prisoner's hair while the portrait was still

20
00:01:35,560 --> 00:01:39,400
Speaker 1: being painted. The woman first cut off a lock herself

21
00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:43,680
Speaker 1: and gave it to the painter. The small gesture sparks

22
00:01:43,720 --> 00:01:47,720
Speaker 1: a lot of questions. Was it a token of appreciation,

23
00:01:48,480 --> 00:01:51,600
Speaker 1: a reference material to ensure that he got her hair

24
00:01:51,680 --> 00:01:56,080
Speaker 1: color right? And then there are the larger questions, why

25
00:01:56,080 --> 00:01:58,840
Speaker 1: did this woman ask for a portrait to be painted

26
00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:02,000
Speaker 1: in the first place? And perhaps the question you were

27
00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:05,760
Speaker 1: wondering at this very moment listening to this podcast, who

28
00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:10,440
Speaker 1: is this woman? That question I can answer right now.

29
00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:14,840
Speaker 1: Her name was Charlotte Corday. She was a minor noble

30
00:02:14,960 --> 00:02:19,520
Speaker 1: and by all accounts, a fairly ordinary young woman until

31
00:02:19,680 --> 00:02:24,079
Speaker 1: she became the murderer of the revolutionary and unofficial Jacobin

32
00:02:24,200 --> 00:02:30,200
Speaker 1: leader Jean Paul Murran. On July thirteenth, just four days

33
00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:33,920
Speaker 1: before she would be executed for it. Corday had gained

34
00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:38,440
Speaker 1: entrance to Murat's home and stabbed the famous journalist to

35
00:02:38,560 --> 00:02:42,640
Speaker 1: death with a kitchen knife while he soaked in his bathtub.

36
00:02:43,600 --> 00:02:46,839
Speaker 1: Charlotte was not a trained killer, and she wasn't an

37
00:02:46,919 --> 00:02:51,960
Speaker 1: anti revolutionary royalist. Instead, she was a simple follower of

38
00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:57,280
Speaker 1: the more moderate Girondin faction of the revolution. Throughout her trial,

39
00:02:57,520 --> 00:03:02,600
Speaker 1: Charlotte maintained that she acted alone, formulating and executing the

40
00:03:02,720 --> 00:03:06,560
Speaker 1: murder entirely on her own and of her own volition.

41
00:03:07,639 --> 00:03:11,720
Speaker 1: The act of violence and loss of a leader shook

42
00:03:11,919 --> 00:03:16,080
Speaker 1: France at one of its most volatile moments, not only

43
00:03:16,120 --> 00:03:21,440
Speaker 1: sparking further tension among the revolutionary factions, but invoking a

44
00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:25,800
Speaker 1: reckoning regarding the role of women in the revolution and

45
00:03:26,080 --> 00:03:31,440
Speaker 1: in French society at large. Charlotte herself is a controversial

46
00:03:31,440 --> 00:03:36,680
Speaker 1: figure within the revolution and history. That controversy, plus the

47
00:03:36,720 --> 00:03:41,280
Speaker 1: fact that she was a young, beautiful female assassin, has

48
00:03:41,320 --> 00:03:45,840
Speaker 1: only fueled a sense of cultural iconography. Her name and

49
00:03:46,080 --> 00:03:50,600
Speaker 1: image showed up in and within Percy Shelley poems, the

50
00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:54,280
Speaker 1: pages of Les mis rob, a number of works of arts,

51
00:03:54,360 --> 00:03:59,000
Speaker 1: even video games. It seems that Charlotte knew that she

52
00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:03,040
Speaker 1: was destined for infamy, but she may have even shrewdly

53
00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:08,160
Speaker 1: understood before her death that revolutionary leaders would try to

54
00:04:08,280 --> 00:04:13,080
Speaker 1: erase her, and thus she asked to be memorialized before

55
00:04:13,120 --> 00:04:18,320
Speaker 1: her death, immortalized in Pate before Charlotte Corday, the woman

56
00:04:18,400 --> 00:04:24,440
Speaker 1: would dissolve forever into Charlotte Corday, the legend. To understand

57
00:04:24,640 --> 00:04:28,039
Speaker 1: her legacy and her power in death. I think it's

58
00:04:28,080 --> 00:04:32,640
Speaker 1: worth going back and trying to make sense of her life.

59
00:04:32,839 --> 00:04:36,440
Speaker 1: So listeners, allow me to be another Jean Jacques Hower

60
00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:41,360
Speaker 1: and attempt to paint you a portrait. I'm Danish Schwartz,

61
00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:52,520
Speaker 1: and this is noble blood, as is the case for

62
00:04:52,680 --> 00:04:56,760
Speaker 1: most minor country nobles in eighteenth century France. There is

63
00:04:56,839 --> 00:05:02,279
Speaker 1: not an extensive wealth of information surround Charlotte's childhood. We

64
00:05:02,400 --> 00:05:04,960
Speaker 1: know that she was born in Normandy as Marie Anne

65
00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:08,800
Speaker 1: Charlotte de Corde d'Armont, the second of four children, and

66
00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:13,360
Speaker 1: her family was aristocratic but poor. She was a descendant

67
00:05:13,520 --> 00:05:17,360
Speaker 1: of the dramatist Pierre Corne, considered one of the great

68
00:05:17,520 --> 00:05:22,880
Speaker 1: French playwrights of the seventeenth century. Perhaps Charlotte's destiny was

69
00:05:22,920 --> 00:05:28,000
Speaker 1: shaped by her ancestor's love of tragedies. When Charlotte was eight,

70
00:05:28,520 --> 00:05:31,640
Speaker 1: possibly because of the death of her mother, she was

71
00:05:31,680 --> 00:05:34,400
Speaker 1: sent to live with an uncle, an abbot, and she

72
00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:37,760
Speaker 1: became a student at a girls boarding school in a

73
00:05:37,839 --> 00:05:42,080
Speaker 1: port city in northern Normandy. There she received not only

74
00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:46,320
Speaker 1: a religious education but also a secular one, reading the

75
00:05:46,360 --> 00:05:50,640
Speaker 1: Bible and Plutarch alongside each other as well as having

76
00:05:50,680 --> 00:05:55,480
Speaker 1: access to the works of Voltaire, Rousseau and dramatists, including

77
00:05:55,560 --> 00:06:00,479
Speaker 1: her great great grandfather. Charlotte's reading made her, she would

78
00:06:00,520 --> 00:06:05,600
Speaker 1: later claim quote a Republican before the revolution. During her

79
00:06:05,640 --> 00:06:08,960
Speaker 1: eventual trial, she would claim to have read over five

80
00:06:09,080 --> 00:06:15,200
Speaker 1: hundred political texts with both revolutionary and counter revolutionary viewpoints.

81
00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:20,599
Speaker 1: It seems that whatever religious education she got resonated with

82
00:06:20,680 --> 00:06:23,960
Speaker 1: her less than her political education, as there is no

83
00:06:24,120 --> 00:06:28,040
Speaker 1: mention of God in any of her writings. Anyway, In

84
00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:33,400
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety one, the school was closed due to revolutionary pressures,

85
00:06:33,839 --> 00:06:37,359
Speaker 1: and Charlotte moved in with a cousin. It was during

86
00:06:37,480 --> 00:06:41,360
Speaker 1: this time that she began to go to political meetings

87
00:06:41,720 --> 00:06:46,520
Speaker 1: and was particularly inspired by the ideas of the Girondin faction.

88
00:06:47,560 --> 00:06:51,200
Speaker 1: The Girondin were a more moderate political offshoot of the

89
00:06:51,279 --> 00:06:55,919
Speaker 1: more extreme Jacobins. The Girondin were the leading voice in

90
00:06:55,960 --> 00:07:00,719
Speaker 1: the revolution up until an insurrection in May seven ninety

91
00:07:00,760 --> 00:07:05,760
Speaker 1: three headed by one Jean Paul Murran. What had happened

92
00:07:05,880 --> 00:07:09,920
Speaker 1: was a number of Girondin representatives had voted against the

93
00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:14,040
Speaker 1: execution of the king, which was seen as inherently anti

94
00:07:14,160 --> 00:07:19,720
Speaker 1: revolutionary because of a number of economic and political Girondin failures.

95
00:07:20,120 --> 00:07:23,160
Speaker 1: Murrah was able to rally the support of the people,

96
00:07:23,600 --> 00:07:28,360
Speaker 1: and forty thousand men showed up to demand the arrests

97
00:07:28,400 --> 00:07:33,040
Speaker 1: of the representatives. Twenty two Girondin ended up under the

98
00:07:33,080 --> 00:07:36,640
Speaker 1: blade of the guillotine, and that event is considered by

99
00:07:36,720 --> 00:07:40,080
Speaker 1: many historians to be the starting point of a violent

100
00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:44,680
Speaker 1: period referred to as the Reign of Terror. Many of

101
00:07:44,720 --> 00:07:48,400
Speaker 1: the Girondin who escaped the fate of their colleagues fled

102
00:07:48,560 --> 00:07:52,480
Speaker 1: to Normandy, where they attempted to gather enough support to

103
00:07:52,600 --> 00:07:57,880
Speaker 1: challenge Mirah and his followers. The Girondin found perhaps more

104
00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:03,440
Speaker 1: support than they had envisioned, in Charlotte Corday. Charlotte believed

105
00:08:03,480 --> 00:08:07,360
Speaker 1: that the Girondin would save France and decided that she

106
00:08:07,960 --> 00:08:12,120
Speaker 1: could save the Girondin. It was simple, really, all she

107
00:08:12,160 --> 00:08:15,720
Speaker 1: would have to do is kill their most prominent enemy.

108
00:08:17,320 --> 00:08:21,480
Speaker 1: In the spring of seventeen ninety three, Charlotte procured a passport,

109
00:08:21,680 --> 00:08:26,720
Speaker 1: as required by all travelers by the Revolutionary Authority. From

110
00:08:26,800 --> 00:08:30,880
Speaker 1: this passport we know a number of small details about Charlotte.

111
00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:34,240
Speaker 1: She was five foot six, her hair was brown, and

112
00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:38,160
Speaker 1: her eyes were gray. The lack of a pandy photo

113
00:08:38,200 --> 00:08:42,520
Speaker 1: ID also meant that her passport had a detailed description

114
00:08:42,720 --> 00:08:48,000
Speaker 1: of her appearance quote fourhead, high nose, long mouth, medium

115
00:08:48,120 --> 00:08:54,239
Speaker 1: size chin, round, with her forehead held high. Apparently, Charlotte

116
00:08:54,280 --> 00:08:58,440
Speaker 1: first used this passport on July ninth to board a

117
00:08:58,600 --> 00:09:02,480
Speaker 1: carriage to Paris. It would be a two day ride,

118
00:09:02,600 --> 00:09:06,840
Speaker 1: and three days after she arrived would be July fourteenth,

119
00:09:07,080 --> 00:09:10,840
Speaker 1: the four year anniversary of the storming of the Bastille.

120
00:09:11,640 --> 00:09:14,920
Speaker 1: It would be on that day Charlotte decided that she

121
00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:19,120
Speaker 1: would execute Jean Palmurra in an act of spectacle as

122
00:09:19,120 --> 00:09:22,320
Speaker 1: he spoke to the public during the festivities. It was

123
00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:26,400
Speaker 1: to be bold and symbolic, snuffing out what she saw

124
00:09:26,480 --> 00:09:29,360
Speaker 1: as the evil at the heart of the current revolution

125
00:09:29,880 --> 00:09:34,319
Speaker 1: in order to usher in a new era of revolutionary prosperity,

126
00:09:34,840 --> 00:09:37,360
Speaker 1: and it would happen on the anniversary of a day

127
00:09:37,720 --> 00:09:42,079
Speaker 1: that represented it all. It was only when Charlotte arrived

128
00:09:42,160 --> 00:09:46,400
Speaker 1: in Paris on July eleventh, however, that she learned Morale

129
00:09:46,520 --> 00:09:50,800
Speaker 1: would not be attending the festivities. In fact, he wouldn't

130
00:09:50,800 --> 00:09:55,440
Speaker 1: be leaving his house at all. Jean Palmarrat came from

131
00:09:55,480 --> 00:09:59,440
Speaker 1: a modest background but as a teenager he was inspired

132
00:09:59,480 --> 00:10:03,720
Speaker 1: by his highly educated father to pursue his own education.

133
00:10:04,640 --> 00:10:08,559
Speaker 1: His Wikipedia and Tree contained the puzzling a sentence. He

134
00:10:08,640 --> 00:10:14,040
Speaker 1: worked informally as a doctor, which more precisely means that

135
00:10:14,080 --> 00:10:19,160
Speaker 1: he received a medical education, but he had no formal qualifications.

136
00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:23,880
Speaker 1: When he wasn't busy being a casually practicing doctor, he

137
00:10:23,960 --> 00:10:28,080
Speaker 1: became more interested in politics, and he began to publish

138
00:10:28,160 --> 00:10:32,040
Speaker 1: both political and medical papers during his time he spent

139
00:10:32,200 --> 00:10:36,120
Speaker 1: living in England. Following the fall of the Bastille, he

140
00:10:36,240 --> 00:10:40,559
Speaker 1: founded his newspaper The Friend of the People, which published

141
00:10:40,600 --> 00:10:45,440
Speaker 1: attacks on authoritative groups and figures from Louis the sixteenth

142
00:10:45,600 --> 00:10:50,800
Speaker 1: ministers to leaders within the Revolution that Mara considered too conservative.

143
00:10:51,720 --> 00:10:56,160
Speaker 1: The paper's main focus was investigating those that Marah believed

144
00:10:56,440 --> 00:11:01,080
Speaker 1: to be quote counter revolutionary. Did not make Mara a

145
00:11:01,200 --> 00:11:05,840
Speaker 1: popular figure among those in power, and he was often persecuted,

146
00:11:06,280 --> 00:11:10,080
Speaker 1: having to spend time hiding out in the Paris sewers.

147
00:11:10,559 --> 00:11:15,360
Speaker 1: On more than one occasion, Charlotte blamed Marah and The

148
00:11:15,440 --> 00:11:19,200
Speaker 1: Friend of the People for the September massacres of seventeen

149
00:11:19,320 --> 00:11:23,679
Speaker 1: ninety two, a mass killing of prisoners by armed civilians

150
00:11:24,040 --> 00:11:26,960
Speaker 1: based on the idea that the prisoners were planning to

151
00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:30,600
Speaker 1: rise up in their jail as a counter revolutionary plot.

152
00:11:31,320 --> 00:11:35,280
Speaker 1: The aftermath of the massacre found Mara elected to the

153
00:11:35,400 --> 00:11:39,920
Speaker 1: National Convention, and, following the fall of the Girandin, Mara

154
00:11:40,280 --> 00:11:43,600
Speaker 1: was one of the most prominent leaders of the revolution.

155
00:11:44,400 --> 00:11:49,280
Speaker 1: His zealotry was growing so intense, however, that even some

156
00:11:49,360 --> 00:11:53,679
Speaker 1: of his colleagues and supporters were beginning to grow tense.

157
00:11:54,559 --> 00:12:00,360
Speaker 1: As Mara's influence grew, his health declined. At fifty years old,

158
00:12:00,480 --> 00:12:05,160
Speaker 1: he had been sick for many years with a skin disorder. Perhaps,

159
00:12:05,480 --> 00:12:09,439
Speaker 1: and this is my informal medical guess, not helped by

160
00:12:09,480 --> 00:12:12,760
Speaker 1: all the time he spent in the sewers, Morale was

161
00:12:12,800 --> 00:12:18,680
Speaker 1: not bedridden, but rather bath ridden. His painful dermatitis was

162
00:12:18,720 --> 00:12:23,000
Speaker 1: only soothed by a vinegar concoction that he bathed in,

163
00:12:23,559 --> 00:12:27,760
Speaker 1: so he resigned to conducting his business from his tub,

164
00:12:28,440 --> 00:12:33,400
Speaker 1: answering letters and conducting meetings while soaking for hours at

165
00:12:33,440 --> 00:12:38,320
Speaker 1: a time. With this knowledge, Charlotte Corday spent the day

166
00:12:38,480 --> 00:12:43,000
Speaker 1: of July twelfth formulating a new plan for her assassination.

167
00:12:43,920 --> 00:12:47,079
Speaker 1: Early the next morning, she walked to the Palais Royal

168
00:12:47,200 --> 00:12:51,800
Speaker 1: and purchased an ebony handled kitchen knife in a cardboard

169
00:12:51,880 --> 00:12:56,440
Speaker 1: sheath from a cutlery shop. She paid forty sous, which

170
00:12:56,480 --> 00:13:00,520
Speaker 1: were small coins worth one twentieth of the leaf. She

171
00:13:00,640 --> 00:13:04,240
Speaker 1: first attempted to ask to see Marit in person, but

172
00:13:04,360 --> 00:13:06,760
Speaker 1: she was turned away at the door with the insistence

173
00:13:06,800 --> 00:13:10,600
Speaker 1: that he was too sick for visitors. She tried again

174
00:13:10,840 --> 00:13:16,600
Speaker 1: later and received the same response. Pivoting strategy, she decided

175
00:13:16,640 --> 00:13:20,319
Speaker 1: to send a note instead, claiming that she had information

176
00:13:20,559 --> 00:13:24,640
Speaker 1: regarding the counter revolutionary activity in the city of ken

177
00:13:24,679 --> 00:13:28,880
Speaker 1: in Normandy. Quote. My great unhappiness is enough for me

178
00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:31,680
Speaker 1: to have a right to your good will, she wrote.

179
00:13:31,800 --> 00:13:35,360
Speaker 1: In her note, she would apologize for her deceit in

180
00:13:35,440 --> 00:13:39,560
Speaker 1: gaining entry during her trial, but counteract that apology with

181
00:13:39,640 --> 00:13:44,560
Speaker 1: her claim that tyrants do not deserve the truth. While

182
00:13:44,720 --> 00:13:48,600
Speaker 1: Charlotte waited for a response, the story goes that she

183
00:13:48,679 --> 00:13:52,520
Speaker 1: had her hair curled and powdered by the neighborhood coiffure.

184
00:13:53,200 --> 00:13:56,600
Speaker 1: She got dressed for the meeting, putting on a fancy dress,

185
00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:00,360
Speaker 1: a black hat with green ribbons, a pink so garf,

186
00:14:00,760 --> 00:14:05,200
Speaker 1: and long gloves into her bodice. She stuffed a written

187
00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:08,880
Speaker 1: address she had composed the night before, in which she

188
00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:12,600
Speaker 1: calls upon the people of France to kill Mara in

189
00:14:12,640 --> 00:14:15,760
Speaker 1: the case that she failed. In the note, she quoted

190
00:14:15,840 --> 00:14:21,000
Speaker 1: Voltaire's LaMonte to Caesar, citing Brutus's belief that killing Caesar

191
00:14:21,320 --> 00:14:25,080
Speaker 1: was his duty. Charlotte also wrote that if she did succeed,

192
00:14:25,520 --> 00:14:28,320
Speaker 1: she believed that you would die nearly instantly at the

193
00:14:28,360 --> 00:14:32,360
Speaker 1: hands of Mara's supporters. Is that why she had her

194
00:14:32,400 --> 00:14:36,000
Speaker 1: hair done and dressed in her best clothes, or was

195
00:14:36,040 --> 00:14:39,680
Speaker 1: it an attempt to present herself favorably as she sought

196
00:14:39,760 --> 00:14:44,120
Speaker 1: an audience. Maybe she was simply anxious and killing time.

197
00:14:45,040 --> 00:14:49,360
Speaker 1: Or maybe, as is theorized in the article The Blonding

198
00:14:49,520 --> 00:14:53,800
Speaker 1: of Charlotte Corday, the story of the hairdresser is a

199
00:14:53,880 --> 00:14:58,600
Speaker 1: complete fabrication on the part of Mara's supporters that emerged

200
00:14:58,760 --> 00:15:03,960
Speaker 1: after Charlotte's death. Powdering one's hair was seen by many

201
00:15:04,080 --> 00:15:09,000
Speaker 1: as an indulgent practice, and a pompous aristocrat would be

202
00:15:09,040 --> 00:15:13,320
Speaker 1: an easy villain to rally against. No matter what Charlotte

203
00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:16,560
Speaker 1: was wearing or the true state of her hair, we

204
00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:19,280
Speaker 1: know that, in addition to the letter for the people,

205
00:15:19,680 --> 00:15:23,280
Speaker 1: she also carried on her person copies of articles from

206
00:15:23,280 --> 00:15:27,560
Speaker 1: her hometown newspaper and another note for Mara in case

207
00:15:27,600 --> 00:15:30,920
Speaker 1: her first flattering letter to him hadn't gotten his attention.

208
00:15:31,840 --> 00:15:36,840
Speaker 1: There was, also, of course, the kitchen knife. That evening,

209
00:15:37,000 --> 00:15:40,680
Speaker 1: still having heard no news, she once again appeared on

210
00:15:40,760 --> 00:15:44,440
Speaker 1: Mara's doorstep. This time she was turned away by his

211
00:15:44,560 --> 00:15:49,280
Speaker 1: common law wife, Simone, but when Charlotte loudly asked if

212
00:15:49,320 --> 00:15:54,520
Speaker 1: Mara had received her patriotic note, he overheard and permitted

213
00:15:54,560 --> 00:15:58,800
Speaker 1: her entrance. He was apparently planning to focus the next

214
00:15:58,880 --> 00:16:02,240
Speaker 1: issue of his newspaper paper on the Girondin in Kin

215
00:16:02,680 --> 00:16:07,479
Speaker 1: and wanted Charlotte first hand account of the situation in Normandy.

216
00:16:08,440 --> 00:16:11,840
Speaker 1: He received her in the bathtub, soaking in vinegar, and

217
00:16:12,080 --> 00:16:17,120
Speaker 1: I assume naked. It was almost too easy, but Charlotte

218
00:16:17,160 --> 00:16:20,640
Speaker 1: didn't make her move right away. She instead sat with

219
00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:25,160
Speaker 1: him for fifteen minutes, providing him information on the fugitives

220
00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:29,680
Speaker 1: in Ken while he took notes. Mara's wife and her

221
00:16:29,720 --> 00:16:34,320
Speaker 1: sister were both apparently suspicious of Corday, and they listened

222
00:16:34,360 --> 00:16:37,800
Speaker 1: at the door as the pair spoke, sometimes making an

223
00:16:37,840 --> 00:16:42,080
Speaker 1: excuse to quickly pop into the room. When Charlotte finished

224
00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:45,880
Speaker 1: her story, Mara vowed that the Girondin would be guillotined.

225
00:16:46,560 --> 00:16:50,680
Speaker 1: With that, Charlotte stood up and with one sudden move,

226
00:16:51,160 --> 00:16:55,480
Speaker 1: plunged her knife into his torso, penetrating a lung in

227
00:16:55,560 --> 00:16:59,880
Speaker 1: the corroded artery. Mara called out to his wife standing

228
00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:03,600
Speaker 1: in the hallway, help me, my love, but it was

229
00:17:03,640 --> 00:17:08,440
Speaker 1: too late. He died almost instantly, and Charlotte was arrested

230
00:17:08,600 --> 00:17:12,359
Speaker 1: almost as quickly after. She was seized by Simone and

231
00:17:12,480 --> 00:17:17,080
Speaker 1: a collection of neighbors. She didn't resist, There was no debate.

232
00:17:17,600 --> 00:17:21,400
Speaker 1: It was Corday in the bathroom with the kitchen knife.

233
00:17:21,560 --> 00:17:25,359
Speaker 1: Charlotte would be imprisoned for four days, during which time

234
00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:30,000
Speaker 1: an elaborate funeral was held for Mara, and investigators sought

235
00:17:30,040 --> 00:17:35,360
Speaker 1: to uncover a larger Girondin plot. Charlotte spent her remaining

236
00:17:35,440 --> 00:17:39,360
Speaker 1: days writing letters, which were addressed to friends and family,

237
00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:43,399
Speaker 1: but seemed to speak as well to the public at large.

238
00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:46,720
Speaker 1: Her trial was held on the seventeenth of July and

239
00:17:46,880 --> 00:17:51,320
Speaker 1: was dominated by attempts to find her supposed co conspirators.

240
00:17:52,200 --> 00:17:56,800
Speaker 1: The problem there just weren't any, but the men of

241
00:17:56,840 --> 00:18:01,159
Speaker 1: the Revolutionary Tribunal just didn't believe that a young woman

242
00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:05,680
Speaker 1: would be capable of formulating and executing such an important

243
00:18:05,800 --> 00:18:10,879
Speaker 1: act alone. When the prosecutor insisted that Charlotte must have

244
00:18:11,040 --> 00:18:15,240
Speaker 1: practiced in order to kill with one blow, Charlotte exclaimed,

245
00:18:15,640 --> 00:18:19,199
Speaker 1: oh the monster. He takes me for an assassin. She

246
00:18:19,359 --> 00:18:24,280
Speaker 1: owed the precise strike only to luck. She similarly maintained

247
00:18:24,359 --> 00:18:27,679
Speaker 1: that she alone conceived of and acted on her plan,

248
00:18:28,600 --> 00:18:32,240
Speaker 1: despite the fact that they found no evidence to contradict

249
00:18:32,280 --> 00:18:36,000
Speaker 1: her statement. A number of Girondin who moved in similar

250
00:18:36,040 --> 00:18:40,919
Speaker 1: circles as Charlotte were arrested. One letter that Charlotte had

251
00:18:40,920 --> 00:18:43,760
Speaker 1: written to her father during her brief stay in prison

252
00:18:44,280 --> 00:18:49,000
Speaker 1: was intercepted and read during the trial. Quote, forgive me,

253
00:18:49,200 --> 00:18:53,080
Speaker 1: my dear Papa, for having disposed of my existence without

254
00:18:53,080 --> 00:18:57,520
Speaker 1: your permission. I have avenged many innocent victims. I have

255
00:18:57,640 --> 00:19:02,840
Speaker 1: prevented many other disasters. The people one day disillusioned will

256
00:19:02,880 --> 00:19:06,639
Speaker 1: rejoice in being delivered from a tyrant. If I tried

257
00:19:06,640 --> 00:19:09,760
Speaker 1: to persuade you that I was passing through England, it

258
00:19:09,840 --> 00:19:13,199
Speaker 1: was because I hoped to keep it incognito, but I

259
00:19:13,280 --> 00:19:17,280
Speaker 1: recognized the impossibility. I hope you will not be tormented

260
00:19:17,760 --> 00:19:20,600
Speaker 1: in any case. I believe that you would have defenders

261
00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:24,399
Speaker 1: in ken. Good Bye, my dear Papa. Please forgive me,

262
00:19:24,640 --> 00:19:28,159
Speaker 1: or rather rejoice in my fate. The cause is good.

263
00:19:28,720 --> 00:19:31,480
Speaker 1: I kiss my sister, whom I love with all my heart,

264
00:19:31,880 --> 00:19:34,919
Speaker 1: as well as all my parents. Do not forget this

265
00:19:35,080 --> 00:19:39,840
Speaker 1: verse by Cornille. Crime brings shame, not the scaffold. It

266
00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:42,840
Speaker 1: is tomorrow at eight o'clock that I am judged. This

267
00:19:43,280 --> 00:19:48,000
Speaker 1: is sixteen July. She was in fact judged the next

268
00:19:48,080 --> 00:19:51,840
Speaker 1: morning and found guilty. Bringing us back to the opening

269
00:19:51,960 --> 00:19:55,639
Speaker 1: of our story, Charlotte was calm as her portrait was

270
00:19:55,680 --> 00:20:00,960
Speaker 1: painted and dignified as she approached the guillotine. Despite Charlotte's

271
00:20:00,960 --> 00:20:05,359
Speaker 1: hopes the people had rallied against the Girondin, it seemed

272
00:20:05,359 --> 00:20:09,080
Speaker 1: as though Charlotte Corday had doomed their cause by giving

273
00:20:09,119 --> 00:20:12,880
Speaker 1: their enemies a martyr. A fellow Girondin was present at

274
00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:16,960
Speaker 1: the execution. He remarked, she is killing us, but she

275
00:20:17,040 --> 00:20:21,879
Speaker 1: is teaching us how to die. The guillotine blade came down,

276
00:20:22,040 --> 00:20:25,960
Speaker 1: and a man often identified as an assistant of the executioner,

277
00:20:26,520 --> 00:20:31,320
Speaker 1: lifted Charlotte's head and slapped its cheek. According to Albert

278
00:20:31,400 --> 00:20:36,040
Speaker 1: Camu in Reflections on the Guillotine, quote, Charlotte Corday's severed

279
00:20:36,080 --> 00:20:41,199
Speaker 1: head blushed, it is said under the executioner's slap. It

280
00:20:41,280 --> 00:20:45,040
Speaker 1: seems Charlotte was conscious of her image even after the end.

281
00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:48,439
Speaker 1: In one of her last letters to a friend, she

282
00:20:48,560 --> 00:20:52,320
Speaker 1: had written, it is the last act that crowned the

283
00:20:52,400 --> 00:20:57,280
Speaker 1: work the executioner. Samson, distancing himself from an act that

284
00:20:57,560 --> 00:21:00,760
Speaker 1: even he believed to be too vulgar, claimed that the

285
00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:03,679
Speaker 1: man who had slapped Charlotte's face was not one of

286
00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:06,800
Speaker 1: his assistants, but just a carpenter who had been hired

287
00:21:06,960 --> 00:21:11,160
Speaker 1: to make repairs to the guillotine. It said that following

288
00:21:11,200 --> 00:21:15,840
Speaker 1: her execution, Charlotte's headless body was autopsied to see if

289
00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:19,480
Speaker 1: she was a virgin. Jacobin leaders still believed that she

290
00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:22,960
Speaker 1: could not possibly have worked alone, and speculated that she

291
00:21:23,119 --> 00:21:27,920
Speaker 1: was perhaps the mistress of a co conspirator. To their disappointment,

292
00:21:28,320 --> 00:21:32,240
Speaker 1: she was, in fact, quote found to be a virgin,

293
00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:36,199
Speaker 1: at least according to the very limited medical beliefs and

294
00:21:36,359 --> 00:21:41,280
Speaker 1: understanding of the construct of virginity at that time. In

295
00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:44,800
Speaker 1: the aftermath of her death, which Charlotte saw as an

296
00:21:44,840 --> 00:21:48,560
Speaker 1: act that would save France, did not have the effect

297
00:21:48,760 --> 00:21:53,840
Speaker 1: she envisioned. The Jacobin only grew in power. Marat's paranoia

298
00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:58,640
Speaker 1: about dangerous counter revolutionaries was seemingly validated when he let

299
00:21:58,720 --> 00:22:03,280
Speaker 1: one into his home. In killing Mara, Charlotte created a martyr.

300
00:22:03,920 --> 00:22:07,880
Speaker 1: A bust of Maraw quickly replaced a religious statue on

301
00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:12,800
Speaker 1: one street in Paris. Charlotte's own image, which she seemingly

302
00:22:12,840 --> 00:22:17,600
Speaker 1: sought to preserve through portraiture and her letters, was often shunned.

303
00:22:18,359 --> 00:22:22,000
Speaker 1: The famous painting Death of Mara by the deceased's good

304
00:22:22,080 --> 00:22:25,720
Speaker 1: friend Jacques Louis da Vide hangs to day in the Louver.

305
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:29,440
Speaker 1: In that famous work, we see Mara as a christ

306
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:33,600
Speaker 1: like figure in the bath, with one arm gracefully falling

307
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:36,840
Speaker 1: over the edge of his tub, a pose which mirrors

308
00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:40,960
Speaker 1: that of Jesus in Caravaggio's The Intubement of Christ or

309
00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 1: Michelangelo's version of Jesus in The Pieta. It's an idealized

310
00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:50,919
Speaker 1: portrayal of the man. His famously diseased skin is clear,

311
00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:54,800
Speaker 1: with the exception of the knife sized hole in his

312
00:22:55,000 --> 00:23:01,560
Speaker 1: chest dripping crimson. Where is Charlotte, though in Davide's portrait

313
00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:05,000
Speaker 1: she is only present in the note that Marat holds

314
00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:09,640
Speaker 1: an indictment of her guilt. David feared that the presence

315
00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:12,880
Speaker 1: of a pretty young woman in the portrait would attract

316
00:23:13,119 --> 00:23:18,440
Speaker 1: sympathy on her behalf. Jacobin leaders harbored the same fears,

317
00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:22,800
Speaker 1: and they published a text that circulated across Paris. Quote,

318
00:23:23,320 --> 00:23:26,440
Speaker 1: this woman being called pretty was not pretty at all.

319
00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:30,760
Speaker 1: She was a virago, chubby rather than fresh, slovenly, as

320
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:35,600
Speaker 1: female philosophers and sharp thinkers almost always are. Moreover, this

321
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:39,239
Speaker 1: remark would be pointless were it not generally true that

322
00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:43,280
Speaker 1: any pretty woman who enjoys being pretty clings to life

323
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:47,080
Speaker 1: and fear's death. Her head was stuffed with all sorts

324
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:50,879
Speaker 1: of books, she declared, or rather she confessed with an

325
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:54,920
Speaker 1: affectation bordering on the ridiculous, that she had read everything

326
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:59,080
Speaker 1: from Tacitus to the Portier de Chatreux. All these things

327
00:23:59,119 --> 00:24:03,560
Speaker 1: mean that this woman had hurled herself completely outside of

328
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:08,439
Speaker 1: her sex. End quote. In his own writing previous Noble

329
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:13,760
Speaker 1: Blood subject, the Marquis de Sade claimed, quote Murat's barbarous assassin,

330
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:18,640
Speaker 1: like those mixed beings whose sex is impossible to determine,

331
00:24:19,040 --> 00:24:23,160
Speaker 1: vomited up from hell to the despair of both sexes,

332
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:29,080
Speaker 1: directly belongs to neither. It's funny. In a way, Charlotte

333
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:32,200
Speaker 1: would be villainized for a crime that some actually saw

334
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:37,320
Speaker 1: as a greater sin than murder, transgressing her sex. She

335
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:40,720
Speaker 1: understood that that would be her fate, writing quote, no

336
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:44,120
Speaker 1: one is satisfied to have a mere woman without consequence

337
00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:48,760
Speaker 1: to offer to the spirit of that great man. Among

338
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: revolutionary women, many denounced Charlotte on grounds of their love

339
00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:58,200
Speaker 1: for Mara, who they saw as sympathetic to their unique plight,

340
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:02,520
Speaker 1: while many other women men simply distanced themselves out of

341
00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:07,000
Speaker 1: a fear of a growing backlash against women at large.

342
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:10,720
Speaker 1: In the end, however, it was Charlotte who saved herself

343
00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:13,399
Speaker 1: in the eyes of the public, at least in the

344
00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:18,560
Speaker 1: long term. Her portrait successfully preserved her image in the

345
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:22,720
Speaker 1: face of many attempts to erase and deform it. In

346
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 1: their collection, the met houses a print of the painting,

347
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 1: first shown at the Royal Academy of Arts in London

348
00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:34,680
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty three, nearly a century after charlotte execution.

349
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 1: In the painting, she is portrayed with beautiful, flowing curls

350
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 1: which are about to be chopped by the executioner as

351
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:47,119
Speaker 1: she sat for the final portrait, her calm gaze is

352
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 1: a clear appeal for sympathy, just as David had correctly feared.

353
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:57,359
Speaker 1: She was also eventually given the feminized nickname that she

354
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:02,800
Speaker 1: is now associated with the Angel of Assassination. It's a

355
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: double edged sword, her sympathy as a figure in popular

356
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:11,760
Speaker 1: culture being rooted in her youth and beauty, her being

357
00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: a woman, and her villainization rooted in the erasure of

358
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 1: the feminine, both obscuring the nature of the crime itself.

359
00:26:21,119 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 1: It was not a crime of passion. It was a

360
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 1: crime of philosophy. Charlotte Corday had not killed Mara because

361
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 1: she was a woman. She had killed him because she

362
00:26:31,800 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 1: thought she was doing the right thing. You can't control

363
00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:39,840
Speaker 1: how you'll be remembered, but Charlotte did her best to try.

364
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:45,480
Speaker 1: Modern judith or wicked, she devil. Charlotte Corday's place in

365
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 1: history and culture is secure. That's the story of Charlotte

366
00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 1: Corday's famous assassination. But keep listening. After a brief sponsor

367
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 1: break for a very fun noble blood cameo. While David

368
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:23,199
Speaker 1: sought to erase Corday among his circle, the Angel of

369
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 1: Assassination had one artistic admirer who sought to preserve her

370
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 1: in a rather literal way. She was a woman of

371
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 1: similar age, then known as Marie Groscholtz, but more famously

372
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 1: known today as Madame Tousseaud, still an apprentice at the

373
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:46,360
Speaker 1: time of the wax modeler Philippe Cusius, she sent her

374
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:49,760
Speaker 1: at the behest of David to take a cast of

375
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: the newly deceased Mara. On the night of his murder,

376
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 1: she caught a glimpse of Corday as she was ushered

377
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 1: out of Mara's home, and she went to see her

378
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:04,879
Speaker 1: in her cell. During her imprisonment, Madame Tousseau would cast

379
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:08,879
Speaker 1: a death mask of Charlotte's severed head, as she would

380
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 1: four others on the receiving end of the guillotine. The

381
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: result ended up being a wax tableau of Mara with

382
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:22,879
Speaker 1: Corday beside him, staged as the murder happened. The display

383
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:26,920
Speaker 1: drew huge crowds, all of whom would have to look

384
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 1: upon both parties and determine where their loyalties lie. If

385
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:36,360
Speaker 1: you've been a very very long time listener of this podcast,

386
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 1: you might recall that in our very first episode I

387
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 1: talked in the epilogue about Madame Tussaud also being on

388
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:47,760
Speaker 1: hand to sculpt a death mask of a woman who

389
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: would be guillotined just a few short months after Charlotte

390
00:28:51,880 --> 00:29:11,720
Speaker 1: Corday Marie Antoinette. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio

391
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is

392
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: created and hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing

393
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 1: and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender,

394
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: and Lori Goodman. The show is edited and produced by

395
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 1: Noemi Griffin and rima Il Kahali, with supervising producer Josh

396
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: Thain and executive producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.

397
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

398
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.