Jean-Paul Marat

Jean-Paul Marat (UK: , US: ; French:; born Mara; 24 May 1743 – 13 July 1793) was a French scientist, physician, political theorist, journalist, and politician. Before the French Revolution, he pursued a career in medicine and science and published works on subjects including optics, electricity, political theory, and criminal law. During the Revolution he became one of its most prolific, radical and controversial journalists. Through his newspaper L'Ami du peuple (The Friend of the People), Marat responded rapidly to political events but also publicized complaints and grievances brought to him by ordinary citizens, presenting himself as their advocate against officials and others whom he accused of injustice or abuse. Publication reached an extraordinary intensity in 1791, when about 500 issues appeared.

Marat became closely associated with the sans-culottes and the radical politics of Paris. He did not work entirely alone, but received financial and practical assistance from a small circle of devoted supporters, including two sisters, a cook and a typesetter who lived in the same house with him. Unable to find printers willing to publish some of his more controversial writings, he established his own printing press and continued to publish despite repeated attempts by the authorities to suppress his newspaper. He frequently changed his residence and printing arrangements and spent long periods in hiding; he later described having lived underground for seven months. His presses were seized or destroyed on several occasions, but publication resumed. On 23 August 1792, he was allocated four presses from the former royal printing house for his publications.

Marat was elected to the National Convention in September 1792 and aligned with the Montagnards in their struggle against the Girondins. His journalism became notorious for increasingly violent calls for the punishment and sometimes the pre-emptive killing of those he regarded as enemies of the revolution. Marat repeatedly justified such violence as a means of preventing greater bloodshed, at times calculating the number of lives that might be sacrificed in order to save many more. His writings and political activity have consequently remained central to debates about political violence during the Revolution, including the September Massacres. Early June 1793 he played an active part in the conflict that culminated in the fall of the Girondins.

On Saturday evening, 13 July 1793, Marat was assassinated by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin sympathizer, while taking a bath for a debilitating skin condition (possibly dermatitis herpetiformis). Corday held Marat responsible for much of the violence and political disorder in France and believed that killing him would help restore peace.

Marat's assassination dramatically transformed his political image. His body was publicly displayed at the Cordeliers and Jacques-Louis David took a leading role in organizing the funeral ceremonies. On 16 July, a large procession accompanied his body through Paris to the former Cordeliers convent, where he was buried in the garden and a monument was subsequently erected over his grave. Popular societies, sections of Paris, and the Montagnards increasingly represented him as the murdered Ami du peuple and as a martyr of the Revolution. David gave this image its most enduring form in The Death of Marat.

Marat's remains were transferred to the Panthéon in September 1794, but during the Thermidorian Reaction his public cult rapidly collapsed and he was removed from the Panthéon in February 1795.