Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat
- When
- 1793
- Where
- Hôtel de Providence, Paris; Marat's apartment in Paris; Place de Grève, Paris
- Episodes
- 3
On 13 July 1793, Charlotte Corday, a Girondin sympathiser, assassinated the Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat in Paris, stabbing him while he took a medicinal bath. She was guillotined four days later, and the killing failed to halt the Jacobins, whose Reign of Terror intensified.
Episodes
- Corday travels to Paris
Corday left her aunt in Caen on 9 July 1793 and travelled to Paris, lodging at the Hôtel de Providence.
- Corday stabs Marat in his bath
On 13 July 1793 Corday obtained an audience with Marat and fatally stabbed him while he took a medicinal bath in Paris.
- Corday guillotined
Four days after the murder, Corday was executed by guillotine in the Place de Grève on 17 July 1793.
Background and detail
Background. Charlotte Corday was an aristocratic sympathiser of the Girondins, a moderate faction opposed to the more extremist Jacobins. She held Marat responsible for the September Massacres of 1792 and, fearing the Revolution was endangered by the Jacobins' radical course, resolved to assassinate him. After 1791 she had lived in Caen with her aunt.
The Killing. On 9 July 1793 Corday left Caen for Paris, taking a room at the Hôtel de Providence. On 13 July she obtained an audience with Marat and fatally stabbed him with a knife while he was taking a medicinal bath. She afterwards insisted that she alone had conceived and executed the plan.
Aftermath. The assassination produced consequences opposite to those Corday expected: it did not stop the Jacobins, and the Reign of Terror intensified after the murder. Corday was executed by guillotine on 17 July 1793 in the Place de Grève, wearing the red overblouse of a condemned traitor who had assassinated a representative of the people.
People involved
- Charlotte Corday · Assassin of Jean-Paul Marat; Girondin sympathiser
- Jean-Paul Marat · Revolutionary and Jacobin leader; victim of the assassination
Sources
- Charlotte Corday Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-25
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.