The interior of the revolutionary tribunal crowded with figures. Charlotte corday (right) stands at the bar, a raised circular stone platform, her wrists linked by a chain, addressing her judges (left), who listen with alarm, as do the spectators and the two ruffians holding spears who stand behind her. Three judges sit on an elaborate throne inscribed 'vive la republique', on whose canopy are two cornucopias pouring out coins; on each is a cap of 'libertas'. Between them a grotesque figure of justice, holding scales and dagger, tramples on a crown. The three grotesque judges are (left to right): a barber, a comb protruding from his pocket; a butcher, the most ferocious; a tailor, with shears and tape. Beneath them sit four ragged officials, pen in hand, all wearing legal wigs and bonnets-rouges. Between them and the prisoner is the body of marat, on a wooden bedstead so short that his knees are raised vertically; it is covered with spots, and shows the bleeding wound. Beside it stand two men, one holding up a blood-stained shirt on a pike, the other the knife on a dish. A sea of heads wearing bonnets-rouges fills the body of the hall, half length figures fill the gallery and the seats beneath it. Charlotte, a buxom young woman, gaily dressed, with feathers in her hair, declaims: "wretches, - i did not expect to appear before you - i always thought i should be delivered up to the rage of the people, torn in pieces, & that my head, stuck on the top of a pike, would have preceded marat on his state-bed, to serve as a rallying point to frenchmen, if there still are any worthy of that name. - but happen what will, if i have the honours of the guillotine, & my clay-cold remains are buried, they will soon have conferred upon them the honours of the pantheon; and my memory will be more honoured in france than that of judith in bethulia". " the title continues: 'at the bar of the revolutionary tribunal of paris, july 17th 1793. For having rid the world of that monster of atheism and murder, the regicide marat, whom she stabbed in a bath, where he had retired on account of a leprosy, with which, heaven had begun the punishment of his crimes. - '
"the noble enthusiasm with which this woman met the charge, & the elevated disdain with which she treated the self created tribunal, struck the whole assembly with terror & astonishment. " 29 july 1793
hand-coloured etching. Date: 1793. Dimensions: Height: 311 mm; Width: 364 mm. Medium: paper. Depicted People: Charlotte Corday. Collection: British Museum. The heroic Charlotte La Cordé, upon her trial, ... (BM 1868,0808.6304)
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