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See also:JEAN See also:PAUL See also:MARAT (1743-1793)
, See also:French revolutionary See also:leader, eldest See also:child of See also:Jean See also:Paul See also:Marat, a native of Cagliari in See also:Sardinia, and See also:Louise Cabrol of See also:Geneva, was See also:born at Boudry, in the principality of See also:Neuchatel, on the 24th of May 1743
.
His See also:father was a designer, who had abandoned his See also:country and his See also:religion, and married a Swiss See also:Protestant
.
On his See also:mother's See also:death in 1759 141m-at set out on his travels, and spent two years at See also:Bordeaux in the study of See also:medicine, whence he moved to See also:Paris, where he made use of his knowledge of his two favourite sciences, See also:optics and See also:electricity, to subdue an obstinate disease of the eyes
.
After some years in Paris he went to See also:
In the same year there appeared the third See also:volume of the French edition of the Essay on Man, which reached Ferney, and exasperated See also:Voltaire, by its onslaught on Helvetius, into a See also:sharp attack which only made the See also:young author more conspicuous
.
His fame as a See also:clever See also:doctor was now See also:great, and on the 24th of See also:June 1777, the See also:comte d'See also:Artois, afterwards See also: The latter alone deserves remark . The Assembly was at this See also:time full of anglomaniacs, who desired to establish in France a constitution similar to that of See also:England . Marat had seen that England was at this time being ruled by an See also:oligarchy using the forms of See also:liberty, which, while pretending to represent the country, was really being gradually mastered by the royal See also:power . His See also:heart was now all in politics; and he decided to start a See also:paper . At first appeared a single number of the Moniteur patriote, followed on the 12th of September by the first number of the Publiciste parisien, which on the 16th of September took the See also:title of L'Ami du peuple and which he edited, with some interruptions, until the 21st of September 1792 . The life of Marat now becomes See also:part of the See also:history of the French Revolution . From the beginning to the end he stood alone . He was never attached to any party; the See also:tone of his mind was to suspect whoever was in power . About his paper, the incarnation of himself, the first thing to be said is that the man always meant what he said; no poverty, no misery or persecution, could keep him quiet; he was perpetually crying, " Nous sommes trahis." Whoever suspected any one had only to denounce him to the Ami du peuple, and the denounced was never let alone till he was proved See also:innocent or guilty . Marat began by attacking the most powerful bodies in Paris—the Constituent Assembly, the ministers, the See also:corps municipal, and the court of the See also:Chatelet . Denounced and arrested, he was imprisoned from the 8th of See also:October to the 5th of See also:November 1789 . A second time, owing to his violent See also:campaign against See also:Lafayette, he narrowly escaped See also:arrest and had to flee to London (See also:Jan . 1790) . There he wrote his Denonciation contre See also:Necker, and in May dared to return to Paris and continue the Ami du peuple . He was embittered by persecution, and continued his vehement attacks against all in power, and at last, after the See also:day of the Champs du See also:Mars (July 17, 1790), against the king himself . All this time he was in hiding in cellars and sewers, where he was attacked by a horrible skin disease, tended only by the woman Simonne Evrard, who remained true to him . The end of the Constituent Assembly he heard of with joy and with See also:bright hopes for the future, soon dashed by the behaviour of the Legislative Assembly . When almost despairing, in See also:December 1791, he fled once more to London, where he wrote his Ecole du citoyen . In April 1792, summoned again by the See also:Cordeliers' See also:Club, he returned to Paris, and published No . 627 of the Ami . The See also:war was now the question, and Marat saw clearly that it was to serve the purposes of the Royalists and the Girondins, who thought of themselves alone . Again denounced, Marat had to remain in hiding until the loth of See also:August . The See also:early days of the war being unsuccessful, the See also:proclamation of the See also:duke of See also:Brunswick excited all See also:hearts; who could go to See also:save France on the frontiers and leave Paris in the hands of his enemies ? Marat, like See also:Danton, foresaw the massacres of September .
After the events of the loth of August he took his seat at the See also:commune, and demanded a tribunal to try the Royalists in See also:prison
.
No tribunal was formed, and the massacres in the prisons were the inevitable result
.
In the elections to the See also:Convention, Marat was elected seventh out of the twenty-four deputies for Paris, and for the first time took his seat in an assembly of the nation
.
At the See also:declaration of the See also:republic, he closed his Ami du peuple, and commenced, on the 25th, a new paper, the See also:Journal de la republique fran4aise, which was to contain his sentiments as its predecessor had done, and to be always on the See also:watch
.
In the Assembly Marat had no party; he would always suspect and oppose the powerful, refuse power for himself
.
After the See also:battle of Valmy, See also:Dumouriez was the
greatest man in France; he could almost have restored the See also:monarchy; yet Marat did not fear to denounce him in placards as a traitor
.
His unpopularity in the Assembly was extreme, yet he insisted on speaking on the question of the king's trial, declared it unfair to accuse See also:
The skin disease he had contracted in the subterranean haunts was rapidly closing his life; he could only ease his See also:pain by sitting in a warm See also:bath, where he wrote his journal, and accused the Girondins, who were trying to raise France against Paris
.
Sitting thus on the 13th of July he heard in the evening a young woman begging to be admitted to see him, saying that she brought See also:news from See also:Caen, where the escaped Girondins were trying to rouse See also:Normandy
.
He ordered her to be admitted, asked her the names of the deputies then at Caen, and, after See also:writing their names, said, " They shall be soon guillotined," when the young girl, whose name was See also:Charlotte See also:Corday (q.v.), stabbed him to the heart
.
His death caused a great commotion at Paris
.
The Convention attended his funeral, and placed his bust in the See also: Marat's works were published by A . See also:Vermorel, tEuvres de J . P . Marat, l'ami du peuple, recueillies et annolees (1869) . Two of his tracts, (1) On Gleets, (2) A Disease of the Eyes, were reprinted, ed . J . B . See also:Bailey, in 1891 . See A . Vermorel, Jean Paul Marat (188o) ; See also:Francois Chevremont, Marat: esprit politique, accomp. de sa See also:vie (2 vols., 1880) ; Auguste Cabanas, Marat inconnu (1891); A . Bougeart, Marat, l'ami du peuple (2 vols., 1865) ; M . See also:Tourneux, Bibliographie de l'histoire de Paris See also:pendant la revolution franyaise (vol. ii., 1894; vol. iv., 1906), and E . B . Bax, J . P . Marat (1900) . The Correspondance de Marat has been edited with notes by C . Villay (1908) . (R . |
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Could anybody confirm J.P.Marat as the 'French Visionary', referred to on the reverse of the 1980s album cover of 'cafe bleu', by the Style Council? cheers
In the bibliography about Marat, please add: Jean-Paul Marat, Œuvres Politiques 1789-1793 (ten volumes - 9.000 pages) Edition princeps by Jacques De Cock and Charlotte Goëtz - Editions Pôle Nord, Brussels, 1989-1995 Marat en famille. La Saga des Mara(t) by Charlotte Goëtz - Volumes 7 and 8 of "Chantiers Marat", Editions Pôle Nord, Brussels, 2001 "Plume de Marat" and "Plume sur Marat" - A general bibliography - by Charlotte Goëtz - Volumes 9 and 10 of "Chantiers Marat", Editions Pôle Nord, Brussels, 2006.
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