Jean-Paul Marat, the people's friend;
Bax, Ernest Belfort, 1854-1926
c/o.^vtor&e' c/Ze/iA&riJ •-^V s^f t2<au/er7iia/ JEAN-PAUL MARAT T&x&Uffytt'a Announcement. MRS. DELANY (MARY GRANVILLE): £ iltemoir (1T00-1TSS). Compiled by GEORGE PASTON. WITH SEVEN ILLUSTRATIONS IN PHOTOGRAVURE. Second Edition. Large Crown 81/0. Cloth, ys. 6d. Times. — " From every point of view she was a memorable woman, and her life, in the agreeable form in which ' George Paston ' presents it, with a good deal of new material in addition to what he derives from the auto- biography and letters, is well worth reading." FRANCESCO CRISPI: INSURGENT, EXILE, REVOLUTIONIST, and Statesman. By W. J. STILLMAN. WITH TWO PORTRAITS. Large Croivn 81/c js. 6d. Times. — "No one is better qualified to write the life of Signor Crispi than Mr. Stillman." London: GRANT RICHARDS, 9 Henrietta Street, W.C. Jean -Paul MARAT. .want Politique. impender;- JEAN -PAUL MARAT THE PEOPLE'S FRIEND BY ERNEST BELFORT BAX Author of ' Handbook of the History of Philosophy ' ; ' Religion of Socialism ' ; ' Ethics of Socialism] etc. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS SECOND EDITION LONDON GRANT RICHARDS 9 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN I 9O I First Edition, September 1900 Second Edition, September 1901 -' t RSE 3 ^ Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinbt PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION The exhaustion of the first edition of the following work within a year of publication has induced the publishers to undertake the present cheap edition, which will place it within the reach of all who are interested in the French Revolution, including such for whom the price of the former edition proved an obstacle. The book has 'been extensively reviewed both in this country and in America, and its reception by the press generally has been more favourable than I expected as regards an attempt to portray in its true colours one of the typical historic embodiments of hostility to class privilege and wrong. There have been, of course ', exceptions — one critic ', writing in a IV hig journal generally regarded as sane, concluded his article with the remark that Marat died a " homicidal maniac " / Such literary lunacy as this one would think could only nowadays injure the reputation of the journal in which it appears, in so far as it has any effect at all. Besides this, vi MARAT an article on the subject of "Marat" appeared in another journal, supposed to be the weekly organ of Tory culture, which, had it appeared where one might have expected it, in the " Mudborough Mercury" or some other local luminary of provincial primrose journalism, would only have been treated with the contempt it merited, but which, coming from the columns of the " Saturday Review" with its one-time reputation for being at least clever and scholarly in its criticism^ whatever might be its opinions, deserves perhaps a few words of animadversion. The writer starts by a paragraph of simple abuse of book and author, describing the former as worth- less and the latter as knowing next to nothing of his subject. Such violent charges one would have thought might have been supported by some show of proof ; yet the only tangible criticism of a pertinent character is what is at worst the discovery of the misprint of one letter in a name ! For the rest, the " Reviewer " [save the mark !) makes an exhibition of himself clearly indicating the extent of his knowledge of the French Revolution. He is evidently ignorant of the fact that there were two Montmorins, one [Marc Amand de Montmorin) the ex-minister, and the other (Louis Victor Lux de Montmorin) the Governor of Fontainebleau, both of whom were tried (the former at the bar of the Assembly) about the same time, and both of whom perished in the September massacres. PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION vii If it can be maintained that the first was not conclusively proved guilty ', the same can hardly be said of the second, the returned emigre, him of the incriminating document, who was the person to whom Marat referred. As further evidence of the erudition of my anonym- ous critic who doth protest so much, I may here confess that in the first edition there was a rather important slip, now corrected, in a date, which, if he had had the wits to see it, would have afforded him a better opportunity for crowing at my expense, than the misprint of an &for an o in a proper name. Words fail this gentleman of the "Saturday Review" at the thought of my statement that the so-called " victims " of the September massacres were mainly " hangers-on of the noble and wealthy" Tet, though only a humble author and not a Saturday Reviewer, I claim the right, notwithstanding, of using the English language correctly, and of describing as above the mercenary Swiss Guard hired to defend the King and Court, and even the Cures who were in prison for avowedly espousing the cause of the Royalist plotters — and of thus describing them irrespective of whether they were personally rich or poor. The present cheap edition, sad to say, deprives my reviewer of the last consolation he applies to his soul in his concluding paragraph, based on the original price of the book. He is of course as well aware as viii MARAT any one else that the reactionary " daub " ftz/fe/ Marat has been finally disposed of by the evidence for the first time brought together in English by me, and something like a "portrait" has been substituted. Hence his unmannerly fury ! For the rest, the book has been carefully gone over for this edition ; additions and corrections have been made in many places, and minor inaccuracies [there was only one that could have been fairly described as at all material) have been remedied. In fine, the author ventures to hope that in its present shape, at least, the volume will satisfy, on the ground of historical accuracy, any fair-minded critic, however exacting may be his demands. PREFACE As being perhaps the best abused man in modern history, the "People's Friend" has always exercised a fascination over the writer of this volume. The verdict of the" world" on a public character, as well as on moral worth in general and its opposite, like the public opinion of the "world" on other matters, represents, as a rule, simply and solely, the verdict of class-prejudice and ignorance. The reason is that the dominant class ', by virtue of its economic position, can succeed in imposing moral judgments in accord- ance with its material class-interests upon the whole of society, including the ignorant and unthinking mass of those who are direct sufferers from the system by which it profits. It is, in fact, a fairly safe plan to ascertain for oneself " what most people think " on such questions, and then assume the opposite to be true. The result is a good working hypothesis, which remains, of course, to be possibly modified or even abandoned by subsequent investigation, but which is generally the nearest approach to truth we can make x MARAT in the absence of the requisite knowledge for forming an unbiassed judgment. Acting on this principle, the very extravagance of abuse with which Marat had been assailed suggested to me the probability that an exceptionally noble and disinterested character lay behind it. Modern research on the subject of the French Revolution has certainly more than justified this assumption. The old legend of "the monster Marat" has been so completely blown to the winds that any historian who attempted to resuscitate it nowadays would assuredly put himself out of court with all serious students of the French Revolution. The work of rehabilitating the memory of Marat owes its initiation, and in part completion, to the exhaustive labours of the late M. Bougeart and to the equally minute and careful researches of M. Chevremont. M. Bouge art's excellent Life of Marat in two volumes appeared in 1865. The French Imperial authorities, the representatives of privilege, class-interest, and its malice, avenged themselves on the man who had cleared the memory of the great enemy of power and privilege by sentencing him to four months* imprisonment. Since then M. Chevremont has untiringly worked in the same direction as his friend Bougeart. His two thick volumes on the " Esprit politique " of Marat, containing a verbatim reproduc- tion of all that is most valuable in his political writings, is a monument of industry and of devotion to PREFACE xi the memory of the " People's Friend" In addition to these two writers may be mentioned the " (Euvres de jf.-P. Marat " of the late M. Vermorel, contain- ing an excellent collection of the more important articles in Marat's journals ; besides his placards and manifestoes. The researches of MM. Bougeart and Chevremont form the foundation of the present Life. All the three works mentioned are, I believe, out of print. Of the older histories of the French Revolution, that of Villaume is the fullest and the fairest as regards Marat. The first to undertake the re- habilitation of Marat in this country was Mr. Bowen Graves, in an article in the " Fortnightly Review " for February 1 874. It was followed, at an interval of rather more than three years, by an article in the " Gentleman s Magazine " for November 1 877, by the present writer, and a year later by a small volume on the same lines. This little book is also no longer obtainable, so far as I am aware. Since then articles have appeared in various periodicals, endeavouring to show Marat as he really was. Foremost amongst Marat's vindicators in the English language must be mentioned Mr. Morse Stephens, both in the first two volumes of his excellent, but unfortunately unfinished " History of the French Revolution," as well as in the " Fncyclopcedia Britannica" (gth edition, article " Marat"), in the xii MARAT columns of the " Academy" and in two articles in the " Pall Mall Magazine "for September and October 1896. I must not forget to mention also the eminent artist, M. Georges Pilotelle, who, although a Parisian, has resided in this country since 1875, and whose collection of Marat relics is perhaps the most complete and valuable existing. Through his kindness, some of these are reproduced in the present work. M. Pilotelle is a friend of M. Chevremonfs, and has imbibed a full measure of the latter s enthusiasm for the " People's Friend." The chief source of biographical as of other information concerning Marat is, of course, the collec- tion of his political writings from 1789 till 1793, which may be consulted in the Bibliotheque Nationale. These have been carefully gone through by most of the authors mentioned, as well as by the present writer. The ordinary histories of the French Revolution are for the most part worthless, the portions treating of Marat reproducing, and in some cases, as with Michelet, even embellishing, the calwnnies and slanders of his adversaries. Refer- ences to Marat in the voluminous " Memoir es " left by contemporaries of the Revolution are largely second- hand. The malignafit fabrications of Barbaroux and Madame Roland have been sufficiently exposed, though their clumsiness and absurdity are such as to render this almost superfluous. The " Memoir es de PREFACE xiii Brissot," though from the pen of a vehement personal enemy \ contain a few biographical facts which, if obviously presented in a light intentionally hostile to Marat, may not be altogether destitute of truth. Of the assassin, Charlotte Corday, enough and more than enough has been written. M. Vatel has collected probably all the available material about her. Dr. Cabanes, whose work, " Marat inconnu" contains many interesting facts concerning the great " Montagnard" has also made some researches on the subject. The " proces verbal" of the trial may still be seen. The facts concerning Charlotte Corday and the assassination have been brought together in a narrative form by M. Paul Gaulot in his " Grande s J our nee s Revolutionnaires," pp. 45-108. The reports of the debates in the " Convention" the " Moniteur," and other contemporary newspapers have also been consulted, together with the early numbers of the " Musee Neuchdtelois" the latter for the few ascertainable biographical facts concerning Marafs early life and that of his family at Boudry and Neuchdtel. Now, the above process of social and political development may be said to have reached its completion, as such, by the beginning of the eighteenth century. Feudalism existed nomin- ally, it is true, but as a tolerated and protected appanage of the system which had readily superseded it, or, it might be, merely as the ornamental exterior of the latter. In France, the evolution spoken of is par- ticularly well-marked. During the reign of the " great monarch " the centralisation of the French kingdom in the hands of the King and his advisers, which had been attempted with varying success from Louis XL onwards, was systematically carried out. Meanwhile, the economic change from mediaeval conditions to the earlier forms of capitalism, both industrial and mercantile, which for a century and a half past had been making steady progress, meant the growth in influence, if not in actual political power, of the Third Estate in the larger towns. This had been artificially forced on by the new bureaucratic system during the latter part of the seventeenth century, especially as represented by Colbert. The new conditions of fiscal and bureaucratic centralisation, in which each district INTRODUCTION 3 and manor was subject to the authority of the " Intendant " of the Province and his sous-delegue, they in their turn being nominated and strictly accountable to the Crown Minister at Paris or Versailles, proved nevertheless in the long-run incompatible with the economic advance all along the line. Hence the movement towards revolution in France was pre-eminently political. Dissatisfaction with the prevailing order of things, which made itself first actively felt amongst the literary and smaller official class, slowly but surely spread above and below this social stratum, until in the years immediately preceding the Revolution there was no one contented with the existing order save the higher nobles and ecclesiastics (and they not entirely) and the Court and its immediate satellites — in short, those who directly profited by the blood- sucking of the tax-gatherer and the general abuse of authority. Thus the eighteenth century was unique in its political aspect as representing an arrested development on nearly all sides. Feudal forms were preserved as the incasement under cover of which bureaucratic realities were called into being immediately by the rapacity of kings and courtiers, this rapacity itself having been called forth by the expansion of the new capitalism with its world-market and its new finance based thereupon, with all that this involved economic- ally and socially. But the eighteenth century was not far advanced before it became obvious 4 MARAT that the whilom new reality itself had become crystallised and was incompatible with further progress on the same lines. The only branch of human affairs that escaped stagnation was the speculative. In spite of all repressive laws, in spite of the sword of the executioner, theoretic- ally suspended over the head of any exponent of views hostile to the status quo political and religious, the intellectual revolt, headed by the philosopheS) went on apace. Apart from this, it was not only politically that the eighteenth century was one of arrested development. Its art, its literature, and its social life bore the impress of the stiffness which its political side so prominently exhibited. Pictures a la Watteau^ Louis -Quinze furniture, periwigs and shoe- buckles, all testify to the formalism that flowed from the arrested development in the body politic and social. And these characteristics were not confined to France alone. France was then setting the tone to all the rest of Europe in manners, in art, in literature, and to some extent in public policy. England had her Pope, her Samuel Johnson, her Sir Godfrey Kneller, her new parish churches with their sham classi- cism and their bescrolled monuments and tomb- stones, and her formal gardens with stone arbours, grottoes, and statuary. In Germany, all the century's distinctive art and architecture — all that there was in addition to the traditional mediaeval examples — was no more than a slavish imitation of French models. As for the political INTRODUCTION 5 forms in Germany, the court of every petty poten- tate was a more or less successful attempt to emulate Versailles, alike in its etiquette and amusements and in the public policy (save the mark !) that issued from it. France being therefore the classical land of the political system which superseded mediaeval feudalism proper — the land where the system of centralisation and bureaucracy had been carried out more logically than in any other — France became also the classical land of the political Revolution that was to inaugurate the popular political forms under which the economic realities of nineteenth -century Capitalism should work. In England, post -mediaeval officialism never reached the point it did in France, the monarchy was limited by constitutional checks, and the Court oligarchy never showed the same capacity for extortion. English taxation was not so oppressive as French, and English finance never reached the hopeless confusion and entanglement of that of France. As for Germany, despite the attempts of princes and grand dukes to pose as miniature facsimiles of Louis Ouatorze, its older feudalism did not become so completely encrusted with bureaucracy as in France. For one thing, the important element of centralisation on a large scale was absent. In Prussia alone was the contrary the case, and here, therefore, the French model was most successfully imitated. Hence, in England and in Germany, the political interest was never all-embracing, and hence the modern 6 MARAT industrial and intellectual revolutions respec- tively, were neither overshadowed nor absorbed by the political struggle. They were thus en- abled to work themselves out more or less independently. My object in pointing out the foregoing general characteristics of eighteenth -century political life, especially so far as France is concerned, is to show the kind of world of which the subject of the present biography formed part and parcel. As the second half of the century got well advanced, the new ideas which inspired the intellectual movement of the age, and which in many of its phases had been initiated in England, though they had fructified in the hands of French litterateurs and publicists, spread over the rest of Europe in their new form, including even the land that was originally the land of their birth. Notions of justice, equality, liberty, which the philosophic movement had impressed upon men's minds, took root and began to give rise to almost limitless hopes for the future of mankind, and of the dawn of a new era of universal peace, happiness, and rationality. Wordsworth has well expressed the sentiment of the time : — Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven. This awakening was quite different in char- acter from that of the Renaissance and Re- formation periods, although, as Renan has pointed INTRODUCTION 7 out, the French literary salon was the lineal descendant of the courts of the Medici and the Farnese gardens. In fact, the resemblance between the cultures is obvious at a glance. We have the same cynicism, the same air of superiority, and the same contempt for dogma and tradition. The difference is, that in the former case the new learning and the new ideas to which it gave rise remained the mono- poly of the few, whereas in the latter case they speedily made their influence felt throughout ever-increasing areas of the population, ultimately coalescing with the contemporary discontent of the people. The correlative popular movement in the former period was that of the Reforma- tion and of the agitations leading up to it. But the Renaissance and the Reformation had little direct connection with one another, and developed, in the course of time, an actual antagonism. The popular movements of the Reformation took their stand almost entirely on the Bible and the traditional Christian dogma. Justice and equality ought to be estab- lished because the Gospel declared all men to be brothers and proclaimed the law of brotherly love. The basis of the whole popular thought of that time was believed to lie, not in human learning and reason, but in the correct inter- pretation of the words of the Old and New Testaments. Now, on the contrary, as has been said, the primarily exclusive culture of the French salons 8 MARAT was destined to leaven the ideals of the whole people. The political and social sentiment of the time drew its aliment not from the Bible, but from Greek and Roman history. The " patriot " was he who championed the " people " of his country against their tyrants, the monarch and governing class, not as now the "Jingo " who backs up that governing class in trampling on the rights of other peoples in the interests of its own aggrandisement. The most classic expres- sion all round of the salon order of thought per se was in Voltaire's writings, whilst the works of Rousseau expound the same essential code of thought in a form adapted not to wits and versifiers, but to the general consciousness of the time. In Rousseau we have the earnestness of a man of the people face to face with the practical problems of contemporary life and society, and at the same time a true son of his time as regards his general thought and way of looking at things. Rousseau, like the philosophes, drew, in- directly at least, from English sources. The Con- trat Social was based upon Hobbes's Leviathan, where the theory of an original compact between the members of human society is clearly laid down. The fundamental distinction between the two resides chiefly in the fact that whereas Hobbes postulated that the compact once made was irrevocable, whence he deduced his absolute- monarchy principles, Rousseau introduced the crucial innovation that the " people," as repre- senting the original makers of the compact, were INTRODUCTION 9 free to revoke it whenever they wished. The " Social Contract " of Rousseau was an agree- ment made " once upon a time " by a society of human beings who found the " state of nature " inconvenient or uncomfortable When, where, or how, men did not at that time stop to consider. It was sufficient that this theory of a social contract, as having been the origin of men's living in communities, with recognised laws, institutions, and customs, was a plausible one for it to be accepted unhesitatingly without further examination of its historical or anthropo- logical basis — or even as to whether it had any. What has been sometimes, though with ques- tionable propriety, called the " metaphysical method " satisfied the average contemporary needs in matters of this kind. An abstract proposition was, to the eighteenth - century mind, a sacramental formula, in the attempt to realise which it was prepared, according to the measure of its sincerity, to sacrifice all other considerations. It would seem scarcely necessary in this book to discuss at great length once more the Rousseauite theories in detail. As is well known, the epoch-making Genevese writer, io MARAT starting with what was nothing more than a debating-society paradox, was gradually brought to meditate seriously on the problems of society, on inequality of condition, on the nature of the bond which held men together in political communities, in short, on the "Rights of Man " in all their bearings. The ripe fruit of all these meditations, and, we may also add, the ripe fruit of eighteenth-century thoughts on these ques- tions, was embodied in the momentous volume above referred to, he Contrat Social. It would hardly be too much to say that never in the history of the world has a single literary pro- duction had an influence so immediate and so far-reaching as this remarkable book. To remind the reader how it has been called the Bible of the Revolution would savour of platitude ; but we must never lose sight of the fact, when considering the views, immediate objects, and remoter ideals of the men of the Revolution, that Rousseau's writings, and chiefly this book, formed the basis, if in varying degrees, of all of them. The other great writer whose name is con- stantly coupled with Rousseau's — namely Voltaire — had also an influence both deep and wide on the theoretical side of the Revolution, but it was an influence of a very different kind from that of Rousseau. In the first place, Voltaire's in- fluence was much more indirect than Rousseau's ; and in the second place, it was negative rather than positive. As far as it went, Rousseau's INTRODUCTION n was eminently the latter. The principles he enunciated seemed to furnish the gate into the promised land. Voltaire had scorched up with his wit the superstitions that stood in the way of progress, and had pointed out and gibbeted abuses that needed destroying, but of any serious attempt at constructive proposals there is little trace in his writings. The difference between the two men was also illustrated by the re- spective classes mostly swayed by their teach- ings. As often before remarked, Voltaire, the aristocrat, the friend of kings and courtiers, the brilliant cynic, and withal the foremost apostle of eighteenth-century " culture," was pre- eminently the man of the " Girondins," of the educated higher middle-class and petite noblesse of France. Rousseau, the serious thinker, the fanatic at times, the apostle of equality and of social regeneration, as he understood these things, was pre-eminently the man of the "Mountain,'' of the lower middle and working class, of the mass of the French people, whether in the towns or on the country-side. Wherever such were given to reading at all, they were sure to read Rousseau. But in neither case must this be regarded as exclusive. There were few men of the Girondin type who had not studied Jean -Jacques' productions, and, on the other hand, the Voltairean spirit had penetrated widely amongst the people, far more widely than the writings themselves. The effect of these two 12 MARAT intellectual giants was felt far beyond the frontiers of France. The foreign monarchs, princes, and cultured upper classes, who had been willing to accept the lead of France as the tone -giver in literature, art, manners, and policy, could not escape the inevitable Nemesis. The doctrines of the revolutionary thinkers already began to ferment in the minds of their own subjects or social inferiors. Thus throughout Western Europe the revolutionary spirit, and as often as not the actual ideas of the representatives of contemporary French thought, had found their way into the most unexpected nooks and corners of social life. This was notably the case in the years immediately preceding the great convulsion. The stock phrases and words of the time — the "Rights of Man," "Equality," " Reason," above all that name of might the "People" — were household words far outside French soil. To the last of these it behoves us to devote a few words before concluding these introduc- tory remarks. The " People " of the period with which we are dealing connoted the whole of society outside the governing class as such, — that is, monarchs, ministers, higher nobles and ecclesiastics, together with all those whose function it was to carry on the main work of government. The reigning potentate, wherever he was, was regarded as the embodied anti- thesis of the " People," who were deemed the victims of his tyranny. Of the distinctions, INTRODUCTION 13 potential and actual, of the embryonic germs, even of antagonism, existing within this some- what amorphous concept, the " People/' men of the eighteenth century recked but little. The " People " must be freed from tyrants, from bad laws, from oppressive taxes, from the bond- age of superstition. The monarch must be converted into the representative or trustee of the " People," if he were to continue at all. Good and equal laws for all must be established. No favour or exemption must be shown in taxation, which must be strictly proportioned to means. Priestcraft must be abolished. The dogmas of the churches must give way to a " natural religion," founded on the sentiments common to all good men and easily understanded of the multitude. Given these things and all would be well. Such were amongst the staple thoughts of the awakened intelligence of the period. Little did men then dream of the tyranny of economic circumstance, blind as they were to the facts of economic evolution and to the truth that beneath the consciously made laws of human society at any given period lie the fundamental natural laws governing the development of production, distribution, and exchange, that indeed the laws of the code or the statute-book are in the bulk dictated by these. A political change, a change from privilege and status to equality before the law and freedom of contract in the political sphere, together with the establishment of the reign of reason i4 MARAT on the ruins of superstition in the intellectual sphere, seemed all that was necessary to place men in a position to be happy for all time. The notion of continuous development, of society as a dynamic synthesis, was to all practical in- tents and purposes entirely absent from revolu- tionary and pre -revolutionary speculation on political and social matters. Such was the condition of life and thought at the time when the subject of the present study had reached manhood and had gone forth on his wanderings through various cities of Western Europe, to seek, if not fortune, at least the livelihood that he may perhaps have found it difficult to obtain at home. CHAPTER I marat's early years Jean-Paul Marat, or Mara, the " t " having been added to give the name a French look, was born at the village of Boudry, on the lake of Neuchatel, the present Swiss canton of that name being then a fief of the Prussian crown. The register of his birth and baptism is as follows : — "Jean- Paul Mara, son of M. Jean- Paul Mara, proselyte of Cagliari, in Sardinia, and of Mme. Louise Cabrol, of Geneva, was born on the 24th of May, and has been baptized on the 8th of June, 1743, having no godfather and having for godmother Mme. Cabrol, grandmother of the infant." His father thus belonged to the popu- lation of mixed race and Italian speech inhabit- ing one of the most interesting insular seats of early European civilisation. He was made a citizen of Geneva on the 10th of March 1741, having renounced his hereditary faith in favour of the Calvinism of his adopted city. The name " Mara," taken in conjunction with his native country, suggests some interesting i 6 MARAT reflections for the philologist and ethnologist. It is well known that a strong Semitic element has always existed in Sardinia, as the result of colonisation in early ages from the neighbouring Carthaginian coasts of Africa. The word " Mara " itself certainly, as it stands, looks Hebrew and suggests the "waters of Marah." In view of the characteristics of Marat him- self in his revolutionary career, the name has a queer significance, and might lead the curious to speculate as to whether it was a cognomen bestowed in remote ages upon some unknown ancestor of Carthaginian race whose dis- position reappeared in the " bitterness " of the " People's Friend." In the absence, however, of any evidence, we are equally at liberty to assume his distant forefathers to have been valiant Roman legionaries, who, it may be, served in the Punic wars and finally settled down in the conquered territory. Louise Cabrol, the mother, the wife of the elder Jean-Paul, was the daughter of a French Protestant wigmaker who had also become naturalised in the city of Calvin ; but of her family no further information seems obtainable. Next to the younger Jean-Paul in age was Henri Mara, who was born in 1745, and who subsequently migrated to Russia, where he had a successful career in the service of the Russian Government as professor in one of the Imperial military schools, being accorded the rank of " Colonel." He dropped his patronymic, how- I EARLY YEARS l7 ever, and called himself M. de Boudry, after his native place. The elder sister Marie was born at Boudry in 1746. The year after his marriage, the elder Mara, having obtained a position in a manufactory of Indian stuffs at Boudry, near the town of Neu- chatel, as designer or chemist, or possibly in both capacities, migrated thither with his wife. His employment for some reason or other com- ing to an end, he moved in 1754 to the neigh- bouring town of Neuchatel. The registers at this place for that year contain a notice to the effect that " the sieur Jean Mara, native of Cagliari in Sardinia, proselyte, designer, and master of the Italian and Spanish languages, having sought the right of domicile in the town, his request was adjourned for authentic certificates of his good -conduct." These must have proved satisfactory, as we shortly after- wards find him admitted as an inhabitant with full rights. His occupation now was that of professor of languages. Here was born his son David, whose baptism is recorded for the date 2 1 st February 1756. An indication of the good repute in which the family stood is afforded by the fact that the godfather and god- mother were M. David Huguenin, Councillor of State and Chancellor, and his wife. The Huguenins are, it may be mentioned, a very old stock of Neuchatel. Charlotte- Albertine Mara was born here in 1760, and Jean-Pierre in 1767. 1 8 MARAT In 1768, shortly after the disturbances in which the Advocate - General lost his life, Marat's father left the town and returned to the city of his adoption, Geneva, apparently with the hope of bettering his position. The Mara family left enemies behind them, how- ever, for they had not long arrived when the following letter was received by Mme. Mara :— NeuchAtel, 19M March 1768. Madam — As you have the most diabolical tongue that we have ever had in our town, and as you are a notorious liar and slanderer, who are never tired of injuring your neighbours by your tongue, I shall take care to make you known at Geneva. I have already written to different persons, and have painted you in your true colours, as also your children, who resemble you. Your one-eyed son [apparently David] is a notorious ragamuffin. It is he who did the most injury to the Advocate - General. Yes, I say once more that you are a notorious liar, a most evil tongue, a slanderess, a woman of no character, whom every one despises, and who is only too despicable. Your husband is no better. He is a downright hypocrite and canting humbug (caffard). Adieu. Alter your conduct. I have forgotten to tell you that everywhere I can I shall expose you. I have already written anonymously to four persons to tell them what you are, and I have still ten letters to write to describe you and your children, not forget- ting your scoundrel and hypocrite of a husband. I had intended to write to M. Joly, but I cannot do so. Moderate your infernal and diabolical tongue. This is not all. There are many other things that are being prepared for you. EARLY YEARS i9 On another sheet in the same handwriting is the following postscript : — Your daughters are both fit to be at Geneva, no less than your husband. As to those who will come from the thirteen cantons and from the town-hall, I will make you known to them, please God, so that they may tear out your tongue, as they have torn out the eye of your rascal of a son. Your husband will pose at Geneva as the honest man, but it will not be long before you are known. Whatever happens, I shall write as many anonymous letters as I can. There are several children here who would like to pay you out. They will make it as hot for you as they can. You deserve it. Adieu, diabolical tongue, calumniator, impostor, liar, slanderess, beggarly wretch, renegade's wife ! Mara senior enclosed this cowardly letter of anonymous abuse in one of his own to the Prussian Vice - Governor and his Council of State, and wrote also to the Secretary of State, protesting the falsity of the charges, and claim- ing that the author or authoress of the letter should be found out and punished. He pro- fessed himself to have behaved loyally to " His Majesty the King of Prussia" during his resi- dence at Neuchatel, and gives, as the only reason he can think of for any enmity felt against him- self by any inhabitants of the town, the fact that he had disapproved of their " illegal, unnatural, and imprudent conduct." Here he obviously refers to the revolt. Beyond this he knows of nothing to justify hatred on the part of any one 20 MARAT against him or his. It is not known whether a search was made, nor whether, if made, it resulted in the discovery of the delinquent. In No. 98 of his Journal de la Republique frangaise^ Marat has left the following account of his youth : — Born with an impressionable nature, a fiery imagina- tion, a hot, frank, and tenacious temperament, an up- right mind, a heart open to every lofty passion, and above all to the love of fame, I have never done anything to pervert or destroy these gifts of nature, but have done everything to cultivate them. By an exceptional good fortune I have had the advantage of receiving a careful education in my father's house, of escaping all the vicious habits of childhood that enervate and degrade a man, of avoiding all the excesses of youth, and of arriving at manhood without having abandoned myself to the whirlwind of the passions. I was pure at the age of twenty-one, and had already for a long time past been given to the meditation of the study. The only passion that devoured my mind was the love of fame ; but as yet it was only a fire smouldering under the ashes. The stamp of my mind has been impressed upon me by nature, but it is to my mother that I owe the develop- ment of my character. This good woman, whose loss I still deplore, trained my early years ; she alone caused benevolence to expand in my heart. It was through my hands that she caused the succour that she gave to the indigent to pass, and the tone of interest she displayed in speaking with them inspired me with her own feelings. Upon the love of humanity is based the love of justice, for the notion of what is just comes from senti- EARLY YEARS 21 ment as much as from reason. My moral sense was already developed at the age of eight. Even then, I could not bear to behold ill-treatment practised upon another ; the sight of cruelty tilled me with indignation, and an injustice always made my blood boil with a feel- ing as of a personal outrage. During my early years, my constitution was very delicate ; moreover, I never knew either petulance or obstinacy or the games of childhood. Docile and diligent, my masters obtained everything from me bv gentleness. I was only chastised once, and the resent- ment at an unjust humiliation made such an impression upon me that it was found impossible to bring me again under my instructor's authority. I remained two whole days without taking nourishment. I was then eleven years old, and the strength of my character may be estimated from this single trait. My parents not having been able to bend me, and the paternal authority believ- ing itself compromised, I was locked up in a room ; unable to resist the indignation that choked me, I opened the casement and flung myself into the street ; happily the casement was not high, but I did not fail to hurt myself seriously in the fall, and I bear the mark on my forehead to this day. The shallow men who reproach me with being a tete (obstinate fellow) will see from this that I was such at an early age ; but they will refuse perhaps to believe that at this time of life I was devoured by the love of fame ; a passion that has often changed its object at different periods of my life, but which has never quitted me for a moment. At five years of age, I wanted to be a schoolmaster ; at fifteen a professor ; at eighteen an author ; and at twenty a creative genius. This is what nature and the lessons of my childhood have made me. Circumstances and reflection have done the rest. 22 MARAT I was reflective at fifteen, an observer at eighteen, a thinker at twenty-one. At the age of ten I contracted the habit of a studious life ; mental work has become a veritable necessity for me, even in illness, and my greatest pleasures I have found in meditation. The foregoing is our only authentic informa- tion concerning the childhood and early youth of Marat. As regards the self-complacency of the extract, somewhat offensive to the modern mind, three things are to be borne in mind — firstly, the stilted and inflated style of the eighteenth century, especially in personal matters ; secondly, the nationality of the writer, for in spite of his birthplace Marat was essentially a Frenchman by temperament and education ; and thirdly, the virulent personal attacks that called forth the autobiographical declaration in question. As an illustration of how calumny pursued the " People's Friend " even into his early years, we may take the statement of a certain Fauche-Borel that he had seen Marat as a tiny child at Neuchatel exciting a crowd of little ragamuffins to deeds of violence of which his own hands were incapable. 