What is Charlotte Corday?
[[File:Charlotte Corday.PNG|thumb|300px|Corday by Jean-Jacques Hauer]] '''Charlotte Corday''' (Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont, 27 July 1768 – 17 July 1793), was a figure of the [[French Revolution]]. In 1793, she was sent to the guillotine for the assassination of [[Jacobin]] leader [[Jean-Paul Marat]]. She blamed Marat for the more extreme course the Revolution had taken. He played a large role in the takedown of the [[Girondin|Girondins]]. Corday believed in the Girondins' cause. In 1847, writer Alphonse de Lamartine gave Corday the nickname ''{{lang|fr|l'ange de l'assassinat}}'' (the Angel of Assassination). ==Biography== Charlotte Corday was born in Saint-Saturnin-des-Ligneries, [[Orne]] in Normandy, France in 1768.<ref>{{citation | place = FR | url = http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/article/Charlotte_Corday/11022708 | language = fr | publisher = Larousse | title = Encyclopedie | contribution = Charlotte Corday | access-date = 2014-09-19 | archive-date = 2011-07-21 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110721002912/http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/article/Charlotte_Corday/11022708 | url-status = dead }}</ref> Corday was from a family of minor [[aristocracy|aristocrats]]. When Corday was a girl, her older sister and their mother, Charlotte Marie Jacqueline Gaultier de Mesnival died. Her father sent Corday and her younger sister to a [[convent]] in [[Caen]]. In the convent's library, Corday read the writing of [[Plutarch]], [[Rousseau]], and [[Voltaire]]<ref>Whitham, John Mills (1968), Men and Women of the French Revolution, Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press.</ref> After 1791, Corday lived in Caen with her cousin, Madame Le Coustellier de Bretteville-Gouville. They were very close. Corday was going to inherit her cousin's [[estate]]. ==Politics== As the [[French Revolution]] became more and more extreme, Corday began to support the [[:en:Girondins|Girondin]]<nowiki/>s even more. She loved their speeches and liked many of the Girondins she met in Caen very much. She decided th