Biography of Jean Paul Marat


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Marat (mah-rah'), Jean Paul. A fanatical democrat. Born in Neuchatel, 1744. His father was an Italian, his mother Genevese. Studied and practiced medicine. Went to Paris as horse-leech to Count d'Artois. Became infected with the revolutionary fever, and had one fixed idea: "Give me," he said, "two hundred Naples bravoes, armed each with a good dirk, and a muff on his left arm by way of shield, and with them I will traverse France and accomplish the Revolution"; that is, by wholesale massacre of the aristocrats. He had to flee for his life more than once, and one time found shelter in the sewers of Paris. He was assassinated one evening in 1793, as he sat in his bath, by Charlotte Corday; his body was buried with honors in the Pantheon by a patriotic people, "that of Mirabeau flung out to make room for him." A few months later, his body was cast out.