by Lyndon Orr
CHARLOTTE CORDAY AND ADAM LUX
Perhaps some readers will consider this story inconsistent with thosethat have preceded it. Yet, as it is little known to most readers and asit is perhaps unique in the history of romantic love, I cannot forbearrelating it; for I believe that it is full of curious interest andpathetic power.
All those who have written of the French Revolution have paused intheir chronicle of blood and flame to tell the episode of the peasantRoyalist, Charlotte Corday; but in telling it they have often omittedthe one part of the story that is personal and not political. Thetragic record of this French girl and her self-sacrifice has been told athousand times by writers in many languages; yet almost all of them haveneglected the brief romance which followed her daring deed and which wasconsummated after her death upon the guillotine. It is worth our whileto speak first of Charlotte herself and of the man she slew, and thento tell that other tale which ought always to be entwined with her greatdeed of daring.
Charlotte Corday--Marie Anne Charlotte Corday d'Armand--was a native ofNormandy, and was descended, as her name implies, from noble ancestors.Her forefathers, indeed, had been statesmen, civil rulers, and soldiers,and among them was numbered the famous poet Corneille, whom the Frenchrank with Shakespeare. But a century or more of vicissitudes had reducedher branch of the family almost to the position of peasants--a factwhich partly justifies the name that some give her when they call her"the Jeanne d'Arc of the Revolution."
She did not, however, spend her girlish years amid the fields and woodstending her sheep, as did the other Jeanne d'Arc; but she was placedin charge of the sisters in a convent, and from them she received sucheducation as she had. She was a lonely child, and her thoughts turnedinward, brooding over many things.
After she had left the convent she was sent to live with an aunt. Hereshe devoted herself to reading over and over the few books whichthe house contained. These consisted largely of the deistic writers,especially Voltaire, and to some extent they destroyed her conventfaith, though it is not likely that she understood them very fully.
More to her taste was a copy of Plutarch's Lives. These famous storiesfascinated her. They told her of battle and siege, of intrigue andheroism, and of that romantic love of country which led men to throwaway their lives for the sake of a whole people. Brutus and Regulus wereher heroes. To die for the many seemed to her the most glorious end thatany one could seek. When she thought of it she thrilled with a sortof ecstasy, and longed with all the passion of her nature that such aglorious fate might be her own.
Charlotte had nearly come to womanhood at the time when the FrenchRevolution first broke out. Royalist though she had been in hersympathies, she felt the justice of the people's cause. She had seen thesuffering of the peasantry, the brutality of the tax-gatherers, and allthe oppression of the old regime. But what she hoped for was ademocracy of order and equality and peace. Could the king reign as aconstitutional monarch rather than as a despot, this was all for whichshe cared.
In Normandy, where she lived, were many of those moderate republicansknown as Girondists, who felt as she did and who hoped for the samepeaceful end to the great outbreak. On the other hand, in Paris, theparty of the Mountain, as it was called, ruled with a savage violencethat soon was to culminate in the Reign of Terror. Already theguillotine ran red with noble blood. Already the king had bowed his headto the fatal knife. Already the threat had gone forth that a mere breathof suspicion or a pointed finger might be enough to lead men and womento a gory death.
In her quiet home near Caen Charlotte Corday heard as from afar thestory of this dreadful saturnalia of assassination which was makingParis a city of bloody mist. Men and women of the Girondist party cameto tell her of the hideous deeds that were perpetrated there. All thesehorrors gradually wove themselves in the young girl's imagination aroundthe sinister and repulsive figure of Jean Paul Marat. She knew nothingof his associates, Danton and Robespierre. It was in Marat alone thatshe saw the monster who sent innocent thousands to their graves, and whoreveled like some arch-fiend in murder and gruesome death.
In his earlier years Marat had been a very different figure--anaccomplished physician, the friend of nobles, a man of science andoriginal thought, so that he was nearly elected to the Academy ofSciences. His studies in electricity gained for him the admirationof Benjamin Franklin and the praise of Goethe. But when he turned topolitics he left all this career behind him. He plunged into the verymire of red republicanism, and even there he was for a time so muchhated that he sought refuge in London to save his life.
On his return he was hunted by his enemies, so that his only placeof refuge was in the sewers and drains of Paris. A woman, one SimonneEvrard, helped him to escape his pursuers. In the sewers, however,he contracted a dreadful skin-disease from which he never afterwardrecovered, and which was extremely painful as well as shocking tobehold.
It is small wonder that the stories about Marat circulated through theprovinces made him seem more a devil than a man. His vindictivenessagainst the Girondists brought all of this straight home to CharlotteCorday and led her to dream of acting the part of Brutus, so that shemight free her country from this hideous tyrant.
In January, 1793, King Louis XVI. met his death upon the scaffold; andthe queen was thrust into a foul prison. This was a signal for activityamong the Girondists in Normandy, and especially at Caen, whereCharlotte was present at their meetings and heard their fervid oratory.There was a plot to march on Paris, yet in some instinctive way she feltthat such a scheme must fail. It was then that she definitely formedthe plan of going herself, alone, to the French capital to seek out thehideous Marat and to kill him with her own hands.
To this end she made application for a passport allowing her tovisit Paris. This passport still exists, and it gives us an officialdescription of the girl. It reads:
Allow citizen Marie Corday to pass. She is twenty-four years of age,five feet and one inch in height, hair and eyebrows chestnut color, eyesgray, forehead high, mouth medium size, chin dimpled, and an oval face.
Apart from this verbal description we have two portraits painted whileshe was in prison. Both of them make the description of the passportseem faint and pale. The real Charlotte had a wealth of chestnut hairwhich fell about her face and neck in glorious abundance. Her greatgray eyes spoke eloquently of truth and courage. Her mouth was firm yetwinsome, and her form combined both strength and grace. Such is the girlwho, on reaching Paris, wrote to Marat in these words:
Citizen, I have just arrived from Caen. Your love for your native placedoubtless makes you wish to learn the events which have occurred in thatpart of the republic. I shall call at your residence in about an hour.Be so good as to receive me and give me a brief interview. I will putyou in such condition as to render great service to France.
This letter failed to gain her admission, and so did another which shewrote soon after. The fact is that Marat was grievously ill. His diseasehad reached a point where the pain could be assuaged only by hot water;and he spent the greater part of his time wrapped in a blanket and lyingin a large tub.
A third time, however, the persistent girl called at his house andinsisted that she must see him, saying that she was herself in dangerfrom the enemies of the Republic. Through an open door Marat heard hermellow voice and gave orders that she should be admitted.
As she entered she gazed for a moment upon the lank figure rolling inthe tub, the rat-like face, and the shifting eyes. Then she approachedhim, concealing in the bosom of her dress a long carving-knife which shehad purchased for two francs. In answer to Marat's questioning look shetold him that there was much excitement at Caen and that the Girondistswere plotting there.
To this Marat answered, in his harsh voice:
"All these men you mention shall be guillotined in the next few days!"
As he spoke Charlotte flashed out the terrible knife and with all herstrength she plunged it into his left side, where it pierced a lung anda portion of his heart.
; Marat, with the blood gushing from his mouth, cried out:
"Help, darling!"
His cry was meant for one of the two women in the house. Both heard it,for they were in the next room; and both of them rushed in and succeededin pinioning Charlotte Corday, who, indeed, made only a slight effort toescape. Troops were summoned, she was taken to the Prison de l'Abbaye,and soon after she was arraigned before the revolutionary tribunal.
Placed in the dock, she glanced about her with an air of pride, asof one who gloried in the act which she had just performed. A writtencharge was read. She was asked what she had to say. Lifting her headwith a look of infinite satisfaction, she answered in a ringing voice:
"Nothing--except that I succeeded!"
A lawyer was assigned for her defense. He pleaded for her earnestly,declaring that she must he regarded as insane; but those clear, calmeyes and that gentle face made her sanity a matter of little doubt.She showed her quick wit in the answers which she gave to the roughprosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville, who tried to make her confess that shehad accomplices.
"Who prompted you to do this deed?" roared Tinville.
"I needed no prompting. My own heart was sufficient."
"In what, then, had Marat wronged you?"
"He was a savage beast who was going to destroy the remains of France inthe fires of civil war."
"But whom did you expect to benefit?" insinuated the prosecutor.
"I have killed one man to save a hundred thousand."
"What? Did you imagine that you had murdered all the Marats?"
"No, but, this one being dead, the rest will perhaps take warning."
Thus her directness baffled all the efforts of the prosecution to trapher into betraying any of her friends. The court, however, sentenced herto death. She was then immured in the Conciergerie.
This dramatic court scene was the beginning of that strange, briefromance to which one can scarcely find a parallel. At the time therelived in Paris a young German named Adam Lux. The continual talk aboutCharlotte Corday had filled him with curiosity regarding this young girlwho had been so daring and so patriotic. She was denounced on every handas a murderess with the face of a Medusa and the muscles of a Vulcan.Street songs about her were dinned into the ears of Adam Lux.
As a student of human nature he was anxious to see this terriblecreature. He forced his way to the front of the crowded benches in thecourt-room and took his stand behind a young artist who was finishing abeautiful sketch. From that moment until the end of the trial theeyes of Adam Lux were fastened on the prisoner. What a contrast to thepicture he had imagined!
A mass of regal chestnut hair crowned with the white cap of a Normanpeasant girl; gray eyes, very sad and serious, but looking serenelyforth from under long, dark lashes; lips slightly curved with anexpression of quiet humor; a face the color of the sun and wind, abust indicative of perfect health, the chin of a Caesar, and the wholeexpression one of almost divine self-sacrifice. Such were the featuresthat the painter was swiftly putting upon his canvas; but behind themAdam Lux discerned the soul for which he gladly sacrificed both hisliberty and his life.
He forgot his surroundings and seemed to see only that beautiful, pureface and to hear only the exquisite cadences of the wonderful voice.When Charlotte was led forth by a file of soldiers Adam staggered fromthe scene and made his way as best he might to his lodgings. There helay prostrate, his whole soul filled with the love of her who had in aninstant won the adoration of his heart.
Once, and only once again, when the last scene opened on the tragedy,did he behold the heroine of his dreams.
On the 17th of July Charlotte Corday was taken from her prison to thegloomy guillotine. It was toward evening, and nature had given a settingfit for such an end. Blue-black thunder-clouds rolled in huge massesacross the sky until their base appeared to rest on the very summit ofthe guillotine. Distant thunder rolled and grumbled beyond the river.Great drops of rain fell upon the soldiers' drums. Young, beautiful,unconscious of any wrong, Charlotte Corday stood beneath the shadow ofthe knife.
At the supreme moment a sudden ray from the setting sun broke throughthe cloud-wrack and fell upon her slender figure until she glowed in theeyes of the startled spectators like a statue cut in burnished bronze.Thus illumined, as it were, by a light from heaven itself, shebowed herself beneath the knife and paid the penalty of a noble, ifmisdirected, impulse. As the blade fell her lips quivered with her lastand only plea:
"My duty is enough--the rest is nothing!"
Adam Lux rushed from the scene a man transformed. He bore graven uponhis heart neither the mob of tossing red caps nor the glare of thesunset nor the blood-stained guillotine, but that last look fromthose brilliant eyes. The sight almost deprived him of his reason. Theself-sacrifice of the only woman he had ever loved, even though she hadnever so much as seen him, impelled him with a sort of fury to his owndestruction.
He wrote a bitter denunciation of the judges, of the officers, andof all who had been followers of Marat. This document he printed,and scattered copies of it through every quarter in Paris. The lastsentences are as follows:
The guillotine is no longer a disgrace. It has become a sacred altar,from which every taint has been removed by the innocent blood shedthere on the 17th of July. Forgive me, my divine Charlotte, if I findit impossible at the last moment to show the courage and the gentlenessthat were yours! I glory because you are superior to me, for it isright that she who is adored should be higher and more glorious than heradorer!
This pamphlet, spread broadcast among the people, was soon reported tothe leaders of the rabble. Adam Lux was arrested for treason againstthe Republic; but even these men had no desire to make a martyr of thishot-headed youth. They would stop his mouth without taking his life.Therefore he was tried and speedily found guilty, but an offer wasmade him that he might have passports that would allow him to return toGermany if only he would sign a retraction of his printed words.
Little did the judges understand the fiery heart of the man they hadto deal with. To die on the same scaffold as the woman whom he hadidealized was to him the crowning triumph of his romantic love. He gavea prompt and insolent refusal to their offer. He swore that if releasedhe would denounce his darling's murderers with a still greater passion.
In anger the tribunal sentenced him to death. Only then he smiled andthanked his judges courteously, and soon after went blithely to theguillotine like a bridegroom to his marriage feast.
Adam Lux! Spirit courtship had been carried on silently all through thatterrible cross-examination of Charlotte Corday. His heart was betrothedto hers in that single gleam of the setting sun when she bowed beneaththe knife. One may believe that these two souls were finally unitedwhen the same knife fell sullenly upon his neck and when his life-bloodsprinkled the altar that was still stained with hers.