Charlotte Corday

“ The executioner cut her hair, bound her hands, and threw the red chemise over her. M. Hauer was struck with the almost unearthly loveliness which the crimson hue of this garment imparted to the ill-fated maiden. “This toilet of death, though performed by rude hands, leads to immortality,” said Charlotte, with a smile.
A heavy storm broke forth as the car of the condemned left the conciergerie for the Place de la Revolution. An immense crowd lined every street through which Charlotte Corday passed. ”

“ All those who have written of the French Revolution have paused in their chronicle of blood and flame to tell the episode of the peasant Royalist, Charlotte Corday; but in telling it they have often omitted the one part of the story that is personal and not political. The tragic record of this French girl and her self-sacrifice has been told a thousand times by writers in many languages; yet almost all of them have neglected the brief romance which followed her daring deed and which was consummated after her death upon the guillotine. ”

“ In her defence the law of heredity has been invoked, for it has been maintained that Charlotte Corday, who was a great-grandniece of the great Corneille, had inherited those sublime patriotic and republican sentiments which the great tragic poet so often and so eloquently expresses in his dramatic poems. In fact everything has been done{284} to surround her crime with the halo of martyrdom, and to secure for her the glory of a national heroine. ”

“ His heart is with the poor; yet the blacks of the West Indies should be taught that if they will not raise sugar and cotton by their own free will, "Quashy should have the whip applied to him." He frowns upon the reformatory speakers upon the boards of Exeter Hall; yet he is the prince of reformers. He hates heroes and assassins; yet Cromwell was an angel, and Charlotte Corday a saint. He scorns everything, and seems to be tired of what he is by nature, and tries to be what he is not. ”

“ On leaving the convent in which she had been educated, Charlotte Corday went to reside with her aunt, Madame Coutellier de Bretteville Gouville; an old royalist lady, who inhabited an ancient-looking house in one of the principal streets of Caen. There the young girl, who had inherited a little property, spent several years, chiefly engaged in watching the progress of the Revolution. ”

“ Excessively sick and worn, poor man; with precisely elevenpence-half-penny in paper; with slipper-bath, strong three-footed stool for writing on the while, and a squalid—washerwoman, one may call her; that is his civic establishment in Medical-School Street; thither and not elsewhither has his road led him. Not to the reign of brotherhood and perfect felicity; yet surely on the way towards that. Hark! a rap again! A musical woman's voice, refusing to be rejected: it is the citoyenne who would do France a service. Marat, recognising from within, cries—Admit her. Charlotte Corday is admitted. ”

“ The story runs that the dead face reddened under the blow. Scientists of the day disputed over this, some arguing from it a proof that consciousness does not at once depart the brain upon decapitation.
That night, while Paris slept, its walls were secretly placarded with copies of a eulogy of Charlotte Corday, the martyr of Republicanism, the deliverer of France, in which occurs the comparison with Joan of Arc, that other great heroine of France. This was the work of Adam Lux. ”

“ Miss Corday was a native of this department, and had, from her earliest years, been very carefully educated by an aunt who lives at Caen. Before she was twenty she had decided on taking the veil, and her noviciate was just expired when the Constituent Assembly interdicted all religious vows for the future: she then left the convent, and resided entirely with her aunt. The beauty of her person, and particularly her mental acquisitions, which were superior to that of French women in general, rendered an object of much admiration. ”

“ Cookman (Alfred, American clergyman connected with the Presbyterian church) , 1828-1871. "I am sweeping through the gates, washed in the blood of the Lamb."
Corday d'Armans, de (Marie Anne Charlotte, usually called Charlotte Corday, a young woman of noble family and of a courageous and lofty spirit. She stabbed Marat, one of the most bloodthirsty of all the vile monsters of the French Revolution) , 1768-1793. "This is the toilette of death, arranged by somewhat rude hands, but it leads to immortality." ”

“ Marat's four thousand busts were thrown down, and his grave dishonored.
As for Charlotte Corday, she was a murderess roused to madness by the crimes of her victim.
HOW "THE BABY" WENT NUTTING, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. BY KATE UPSON CLARK.
"Beats all," said good old Mr. Hurlbut to good old Mrs. Hurlbut, as he laid down the paper from which he had been reading—"beats all what mizzable little fellers some o' them poor children in the city be. It seems a good many folks on farms, like us, Sereny, have took 'em in 'n' kep' 'em a spell. Must 'a done the poor little things good. Law! makes me feel bad." ”

“ Laissez passer la citoyenne Marie, &c., Corday, âgée de 24 ans, taille de 5 pieds 1 pouce, cheveux et sourcils châtains, yeux gris, front élevé, nez long, bouche moyenne, menton rond fourchu, visage ovale. Arrived in Paris she first attended to some business for a friend at Caen, and then she wrote to Marat: “Citizen, I have just arrived from Caen. Your love for your native place doubtless makes you desirous of learning the events which have occurred in that part of the republic. ”

“ She was so loving, so gentle,” Mrs. Corday’s blonde head rested upon the capable hands, the same hands that for years had guided the destiny of marvellous wardrobes for the women riders of Corday’s Equine Troupe. Mrs. Corday was plainly overcome. “And,” she continued presently, “there was not in our troupe, ever, a woman who could ride like Yvette Duval.”
“Your mother? I often heard dad——”
“Yes, my mother,” said Mary. “But I was ashamed of the circus!” ”

“ When I see my face in the glass I perceive a pale gloomy countenance that is by no means pleasing."
"You may be out of spirits when you look in the glass. I hope you are not unhappy at Bayswater."
"Why should I be unhappy, papa? No sister was ever kinder or more loving than Charlotte Halliday is to me. I should be very ungrateful to Providence as well as to her if I did not appreciate such affection. How many lonely girls, like me, go through life without picking up a sister?"
"Yes, you are right, my dear. Those Sheldon people have been very useful to you. ”

“ Corkran with an approving eye at the cascade of cut paper that decked her own grate, “and the cold meat given to the boy that cleans the boots!”
“Roddy Lambert’ll be sorry for it some day when it’s too late,” said Mrs. Baker darkly, “but men are all alike; it’s out of sight out of mind with them!”
“Oh, Mrs. Baker,” wheezed Mrs. Corkran with asthmatic fervour, “I think you’re altogether too cynical; I’m sure that’s not your opinion of Mr. Baker.” ”

“ Nothing was good enough for him; anything was good enough for her. Very well; she ministered to him without repining. He and his mother took their pleasures together, and Charlotte was never invited to join them, and never asked to be invited. There was no interchange of confidences between them. They had secrets which they kept from her; she had secrets which she kept from them. Those shared by Mr. Fox-Cordery and his mother savored of meanness and trickery; Charlotte's were sweet and charitable. ”

“ Here it is,” and from beneath the mattress of her bed she produced a thick calf-bound volume. “Here are the printed forms,” she continued, getting up and busying herself arranging a writing-table, which she pushed towards her friend, whose eyes followed her movements in dumb amazement. “Now,” she said, “Harriet, you are to copy a certificate of marriage on one of these blank strips, do you see.”
“I!” cried Mrs. Chambers. “Good heavens, Charlotte, you are out of your mind! It would be downright forgery. You are mad to think of it.”
“Forgery! Folly—it’s only a joke. ”

“ He knew that he was weak and foolish and dishonourable; he knew that he was sowing the dragon's teeth from which were to spring up armed demons that would rend and tear him. But Charlotte's eyes were unspeakably bright and bewitching, and Charlotte's voice was very sweet and tender. A thrilling consciousness that he was not altogether an indifferent person in Charlotte's consideration had possessed him of late when he found himself in that young lady's society, and a happiness which had hitherto been strange to him gave a new zest to his purposeless life. ”

“ Caroline enjoyed such peaceful rest that night, circled by her mother's arms, and pillowed on her breast, that she forgot to wish for any other stay; and though more than one feverish dream came to her in slumber, yet, when she woke up panting, so happy and contented a feeling returned with returning consciousness, that her agitation was soothed almost as soon as felt. ”

“ Sometimes, in moments of doubt or despondency, he had thought it possible that poverty, the advice of friends, caprice or inconstancy on the part of Charlotte herself, should sever them. But among the possible enemies to his happiness he had never counted Death. What had Death to do with so fair and happy a creature as Charlotte Halliday? she who, until some two months before this time, might have been the divine Hygieia in person—so fresh was her youthful bloom, so buoyant her step, so bright her glances. Valentine's hardest penance was the necessity for the concealment of his anxiety. ”

“ If you had chosen to take my advice, you would have placed Charlotte Halliday's fortune, and Charlotte Halliday herself, beyond his power, by an immediate marriage. You didn't choose to do that, and there was an end of the matter. I have been a heavy loser by your pigheaded obstinacy; and I dare say before you and Phil Sheldon have done with each other, you too will find yourself a loser."
"God help me, yes!" cried Valentine, with a groan; "I stand to make the heaviest loss that was ever made by man." ”

“ Valentine would have no money staked on that dear head.
The steed which Charlotte had desired for her husband's pleasure, the library which she had catalogued so often, were yet among the delights of the future; but life has lost half its brightness when there is no unfulfilled desire left to the dreamer; and the horse which Mr. Hawkehurst was to ride in time to come, and the noble library which he was to collect, were the pleasant themes of Charlotte's conversation very often, as she and her husband walked on the heights of Wimbledon in the twilight, when his day's work was done. ”

“ She knew that seventy per cent of her fellow women would condemn her for having married Martin Collingwood, and that more than that number would despise her for overlooking the crude insults of his letter and of his speech by the pandan bushes. Her face flamed as she recalled them. As long as she should live they would be a thorn in her flesh, a scourge, an agony to be relived.
Yet no flagellant ever bent more meekly under his own blows than Charlotte did as she resigned herself to bearing that cross. ”

“ Fox-Cordery was rather staggered by this reply.
"There is an absence of moral perception in you," she said severely, "that will lead to bad results. If you were not my daughter I should call in a policeman."
Charlotte opened her eyes wide, and she shivered slightly. She was neither a theorist nor a logician; she never debated with herself whether a contemplated action was right or wrong; she simply did what her nature guided her to do. ”

“ As she strained her eyes through the blackness, Charlotte felt that the weight of ages lay on their aching pupils. Fatigue, despair, and fear all tore at her heart. There rose always before her the vision of Martin as she had imagined him in the little coastguard steamer’s cabin, and the cold dread clenched her heart that the waves had sucked him down and down to the bottomless sea, a lonely, dead thing in the awful vastness of it. ”

“ The weak side of Charlotte’s nature was her ready abandonment of herself to fury that was, as often as not, wholly incompatible with its cause, and now that she had been dealt the hardest blow that life could give her, there were a few minutes in which rage, and hatred, and thwarted passion took her in their fierce hands, and made her for the time a wild beast. ”

“ Rattray from the pleasures of the table, and was hurrying her out of the room.
“Oh now, Miss Mullen, you mustn’t be so cynical,” said Mrs. Beattie from behind the tea-urn; “we have six girls, and I declare now Mr. Beattie and I wouldn’t wish to have one less.”
“Well, they’re a great responsibility,” said Mrs. Corkran with a slow wag of her obtrusively widowed head, “and no one knows that better than a mother. I shall never forget the anxiety I went through—it was just before we came to this parish—when my Bessy had an offer. Poor Mr. ”

“ Burkham, the doctor who attended Mr. Halliday, and from his lips I have heard the truth. I want you to accompany me to Hastings, and to take your place by Charlotte's bed, as her nurse and guardian. If Mr. Sheldon suspects your knowledge of the past, and I have little doubt that he does"—a look in the housekeeper's face told him that he was right—"you are of all people best fitted to guard that dear girl. Your part will not be a difficult one. If we dare remove her, we will remove her beyond the reach of that man's power. ”

“ Fox-Cordery, smiling blandly upon his sister. "We must not give Charlotte the opportunity of saying that she is unfairly treated. Speak freely, Charlotte; you are unbosoming yourself to your best friends. Do not be afraid. We will protect and take care of you. Charlotte harbors none but the most affectionate feelings for us, mother. If in a moment of excitement she says something that is not exactly loving and dutiful, we will excuse her. ”