Marat, Jean Paul
ma-ra', Jean Paul (1744-1793), a famous leader of the French Revolution. Though associated in the popular mind with ignorant, violent persons, he was, as a matter of fact, a well educated man, a scientist of high repute. His father was a physician of some learning who had abandoned France and married a Swiss Protestant. Marat was born at Neuchatel, Switzerland. In youth he imbibed the doctrines of Rousseau. When he was sixteen years of age his mother died. His father appears to have furnished him with sufficient means to set out on a tour of travel. He visited Bordeaux, where he studied medicine, and Paris, where he became a specialist in diseases of the eye. He also traveled in Holland, where he met the men who were engaged in the preparation of the great French encyclopedia which they dared not publish at home. He settled for a time in London, practicing the profession of medicine in the fashionable district of Soho. In 1775 he visited Edinburgh, where he made the acquaintance of eminent physicians. He was granted a degree by the University of St. Andrews. Marat's fame as an able physician reached the ears of Charles X of France, who summoned him to Paris at a liberal salary. As court physician Marat stood high among the aristocracy. He was a resident at Paris when Benjamin Franklin was there. The two men were interested in the same problems of light, heat, and electricity. Marat was considered for membership by the French Academy, but was rejected for reasons that were not creditable to the academy. Despite his position at court, Marat was a firm believer in the doctrine of representative government, and was an opponent of aristocracy in all its forms. During his early career he had written a number of political pamphlets. When the days of the Revolution arrived he was one of the most outspoken in favor of a radical change in the French government. He was ready with plans and became one of the foremost men in the movement. He joined the club of Cordeliers organized by Danton. He started a paper. He began by attacking the city authorities with a bitterness that grew until it embraced Lafayette and even the king himself. His paper became the oracle of the Paris mob. At times he was obliged to hide in cellars and sewers to save his life. Twice he fled for a few months to London, then returned to lurk in his former hiding places.
When the Red Republican element of Paris triumphed, Marat was chosen one of the twenty-four representatives of Paris in the National Assembly. He sat with Danton and Robespierre, leaders of the faction known as the Mountain, and was one of the foremost opponents of the more moderate Girondists. He became a party to the imprisonment and practical massacre of aristocrats. He voted for the death of the king, and, when the time came, was ready to send the Girondists to the guillotine. He was still an editor. July 13, 1793, he sat in a warm bath trying to obtain relief from a painful skin disease contracted while lurking in the sewers. He was busily occupied writing for his journal when a young woman, Charlotte Corday, begged admission with pretended tidings of a Girondist uprising in Normandy. As she gave him the names of the leaders he wrote them on his tablet, saying, "They shall soon be guillotined." At this moment the young woman stabbed him through the heart. His funeral was held with especial marks of honor. Marat was a learned, skillful, excitable man, a sincere patriot, one of the leaders without whom the French Revolution could not have accomplished its work.