Two of the more interesting minor players in the French Revolution were Jean-Paul Marat (1743 – 93) and Charlotte Corday D'Armont (1768 – 93). Marat , rather strangely for a French revolutionary leader, was a qualified doctor who practised medicine in London. It was in the British capital that he published his revolutionary tract Philosophical Essay on Man. Marat was thirty when the pamphlet was distributed in English, causing him considerable fame among the English chattering classes. In it Marat contradicted the view of Helvétius which was that science was irrelevant for a philosopher.
He returned to Paris to edit the new radical newspaper L'ami du peuple, and shortly became one of the members of the extremist Cordelier Club. He rapidly rose in the ranks of people of importance involved in the anti-Monarchist, anti-Church, anti-Parliament but still Glorious Revolution. Though he was by no means a fool, he proceeded to attack other leading revolutionaries – on humane grounds usually – but managed to avoid the usual punishment for such lèse majesté. Briefly exiled (but not murdered) by public prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville in 1790, he returned in 1792 to be elected to the Assembly in opposition to the Girondins. This led to triumph in 1793, when the Girondins were soundly defeated in the Assembly, after which most of that group were shortened by a head on the guillotine. For once Marat did not care about the shedding of blood.
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