Politics really do get people hot under the collar. So it was with Mademoiselle Corday. She was only twenty five when she had had quite enough with Marat, one of the leading Jacobins of the French Revolution and one who had instigated the Reign of Terror (and there is no hyperbole in its name either).
He was a journalist who stirred up opinion in his newspaper; she was a member of a minor aristocratic family who was more than a little fed up with their class ending up in the final caress of the guillotine. On 10 July 1793 she put her plan in to action. Getting access to Marat was easy – she told his housekeeper that she would be informing him of a plot against the state.
She was admitted – approaching Marat in his bathtub (he had a skin condition and conducted many of his affairs from there). After giving Marat the names of the plotters she pulled out a knife and plunged it deep in to his chest, an act immortalized in much artwork. She herself was guillotined just a week later. Records maintain that her decapitated head was picked up, slapped on the cheek and the face registered a look of ‘unequivocal indignation’ at this post mortem attack.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Charlotte Corday
Politics really do get people hot under the collar. So it was with Mademoiselle Corday. She was only twenty five when she had had quite enough with Marat, one of the leading Jacobins of the French Revolution and one who had instigated the Reign of Terror (and there is no hyperbole in its name either).
He was a journalist who stirred up opinion in his newspaper; she was a member of a minor aristocratic family who was more than a little fed up with their class ending up in the final caress of the guillotine. On 10 July 1793 she put her plan in to action. Getting access to Marat was easy – she told his housekeeper that she would be informing him of a plot against the state.
She was admitted – approaching Marat in his bathtub (he had a skin condition and conducted many of his affairs from there). After giving Marat the names of the plotters she pulled out a knife and plunged it deep in to his chest, an act immortalized in much artwork. She herself was guillotined just a week later. Records maintain that her decapitated head was picked up, slapped on the cheek and the face registered a look of ‘unequivocal indignation’ at this post mortem attack.
Politics really do get people hot under the collar. So it was with Mademoiselle Corday. She was only twenty five when she had had quite enough with Marat, one of the leading Jacobins of the French Revolution and one who had instigated the Reign of Terror (and there is no hyperbole in its name either).
He was a journalist who stirred up opinion in his newspaper; she was a member of a minor aristocratic family who was more than a little fed up with their class ending up in the final caress of the guillotine. On 10 July 1793 she put her plan in to action. Getting access to Marat was easy – she told his housekeeper that she would be informing him of a plot against the state.
She was admitted – approaching Marat in his bathtub (he had a skin condition and conducted many of his affairs from there). After giving Marat the names of the plotters she pulled out a knife and plunged it deep in to his chest, an act immortalized in much artwork. She herself was guillotined just a week later. Records maintain that her decapitated head was picked up, slapped on the cheek and the face registered a look of ‘unequivocal indignation’ at this post mortem attack.
Shi Jianqiao
1935, Tianjin, China. Sometimes the only way to kill someone is when they have their defenses down. So it was when Shi Jianqiao slipped in to a Buddhist temple and fired three shots in to Sun Chuanfang’s head while he was praying. She then threw the gun down and explained her act to terrified and astonished onlookers.
She had even taken the time to print up and copy a document explaining her actions. Chuanfang was not mourned. He had been involved in the repression of strikes in Shanghai, opium trafficking and was a well-known collaborator with the Japanese. Jianqiao was opposed to all of these actions.
Moreover, he had had her father executed by decapitation and had ordered his head put on a pike outside a railway station for all to see. So, quite rightly she was angry – very angry. She was put on trial with three different courts handing out contradictory verdicts. With public opinion resoundingly on her side she was eventually released and was given a full pardon. She died in 1979.
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