Madeleine Cemetery

The Madeleine Cemetery was one of four cemeteries in Paris used to get rid of carcasses during the French Revolution. It was notable for housing the bulk of the dead from the September Massacres of 1792 and the decapitated corpse of Charlotte Corday, the Girondin assassin of Jean-Paul Marat. Guillotine victims of the era were housed in the trenches of the Madeleine Cemetery and Corday was no exception. Other notable figures who were guillotined and buried in the cemetery were Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Monarchs of France, who were found of high treason by the National Convention and sentenced to death.

Parent Map

Romanticism: A Class Map

Coordinates

Latitude: 48.861393000000
Longitude: 2.393327600000

Timeline of Events Associated with Madeleine Cemetery

Date Event Manage

La Mort de Marat
13 Jul 1793 to 13 Jul 1793

The Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat

In the summer of 1793, Jean-Paul Marat was assassinated by Charlotte Corday of Caen. Corday's allegiances were Girondin and she blamed Marat for the atrocities of the September Massacre the year before, an event which he was a major proponent for. She arrived to Marat's flat under the guise of having news of Girondin activity in Normandy, and Jean-Paul's wife let her into his medicinal bathing chambers, for Marat suffered from a rare skin disease. Corday ditched her facade after he confirmed his violent intention for the Girondins, driving a dagger into his chest. Corday was then caught, tried and guillotined, with no resistance on her part.

The death of Marat would rally Montagnard (Jacobin) forces against the Girondins, eventually leading to the Jacobins' Reign of Terror, perpetuated by ther rally cries of Jacques-Louis David's artwork of the scene. Both Corday and Marat were portrayed as martyrs for their actions to their respective factions, immortalizing the events in the wake of the escalation of conflict deeply embedded in France during the revolution.

References:

http://francerevisited.com/2012/07/charlotte-corday-and-the-bathtub-assassination-of-jean-paul-marat/

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/charlotte-corday-assassinates-marat