Jean-paul Marat: Terror and Death for The Sake of Death?

Described as, ” short in stature, deformed in person, and hideous in face,” no one was more loved, feared, and loathed during the French Revolution than was, Jean-Paul Marat.

Jean-Paul Marat

Born in Boudry, near Neuchatel, in Switzerland, on 24 May, 1743, he was from the start an outsider. His family were Calvinist converts and as such were treated as outcasts. So discrimination was for Jean-Paul, a part of everyday life. He was, by all accounts, a sullen and moody child who made few, if any, friends. At the first opportunity, aged 16, he left home, and for the best part of ten years disappears from the historical radar. Re-emerging in Newcastle, England, it would appear that he had already established a reputation as a respected physician, and it was while he was in England that he published his first philosophical works. It was evident from his writings that he believed that science held the solution to all society’s ills.

In 1776, he briefly returned to Switzerland before moving onto Paris, where he worked as a Doctor. Quickly acquiring a number of aristocratic patients his reputation soared, and he soon effectively became a Court physician, becoming wealthy as a result. But Marat considered himself not a doctor but a scientist. He used his new found wealth to establish his own laboratory and he wrote a series of essays on heat, light, and electricity. He soon became well-known in Parisian scientific circles and was even visited on a number of occasions by Benjamin Frankllin, the great hero of the French scientific elite. But for all his kudos and new-found social cachet he still failed to gain admission to the Academie des Sciences, who considered his researches inadequate and turned down his application. The rejection hurt, Marat. It was yet another example of the despotism of authority. And he wasn’t one to forget a sleight.

On 14 July, 1789, the Bastille fell, and with it the collapse of deference. Marat embraced the Revolution enthusiastically, and with his future as a scientist stalled, turned his hand to journalism. In September, 1789, he founded his own newspaper L’ Ami du Peuple (The Friend of the People). It soon became hugely popular among the poor and dispossessed of Paris. In its pages it attacked all those in authority. Marat, never joined any political faction, his power lie with the mob. Everyone was fair game. He might support a political faction one day and then withdraw that support the next. The truth was he hated all those in positions of power, they were all petty despots and tyrants, and he was happy to mark them all as – enemies of the people (a phrase he coined). He was the attack dog of the Revolution. He would list in his paper all those he deemed traitors and demand their execution. Moreover, he would call on the people to demand their execution, and a great many were executed as a result. Marat had no scruples about this. It was up to the accused to prove their innocence; it was not for him to prove their guilt.