The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David 1793
"Bijoux Murat" is a French Company that makes Jewelry and other things out of silver.
History lesson for today. I saw this image of a modern bathtub with the name Murat above it and thought, Murat sounds familiar... I took several art history classes in college and remembered the painting by Jacques-Louis David shown above. I thought, Isn't that messed up if the image of the modern bathtub is in some way mocking or trivializing what happened to that Murat guy in the 1700s? Time to consult Wikipedia...
For those who don't remember: Jean- Paul Marat was a French doctor turned political activist during the French Revolution. During that time, the people of France were rebelling against the oligarchy run by King Louis XVI (the 16th). There's a reason Kings and Queens were overthrown in place of a democracy- their system was corrupt and the people got fed up.
Jean-Paul Marat spoke out against the oligarchy and started devoting himself to radical writing and public speaking. He also wanted to help frame the constitution. He frequently questioned those in power and often had to go into hiding. France finally declared itself a republic after Louis XVI was guillotined. Ewww.
After that Marat was commended for his contributions to France's revolution for a while. Marat meanwhile, was continuing to suffer greatly by his skin disease. He began to frequent his home and spend many hours soaking in a medicinal bathtub. On July 13th a woman named Charlot Corday showed up at his house and asked to speak with him. He said he would speak to her while taking his bath.
I guess his bath had sort of become like an immobile wheelchair for him, and without it he would suffer from the pain of his skin condition. He had a board laid across his bathtub so he could continue to write. He started talking to Corday and she was asking him what would happen to a specific group of people still connected to the fallen royal oligarchy and he said, "Their heads will fall within a fortnight". Later at her trial she changed the statement to, "Soon I shall have them all guillotined in Paris". At that moment she removed a 5-inch kitchen knife she had concealed, and pierced Marat in the chest with it. He died.
It turns out Corday had family connections to some exiled royal princes. She was found guilty of Marat's murder July 17, 1793 and was guillotined. Why was the diplomatic and civilized reaction to finding someone guilty of a crime, Hey let's chop off their head.?
At Marat's eulogy, someone said:
Well, if nothing else it's good to know who significant historical figures are. I do find it strangely disturbing tht the Bijoux Murat shop is in Paris, as was Marat, and it's logo happens to be above a bath tub. Maybe it's just a misconception, but I don't like it.
Such are commonly the steps by which Princes advance to despotism. This Liberty has the fate of all other human things: it yields to Time which destroys every thing; to Vice which corrupts everything, to Ignorance which confounds every thing and to Force which crushes every thing -Marat
Five or six hundred heads would have guaranteed your freedom and happiness but a false humanity has restrained your arms and stopped your blows. If you don’t strike now, millions of your brothers will die, your enemies will triumph and your blood will flood the streets. They'll slit your throats without mercy and disembowel your wives. And their bloody hands will rip out your children’s entrails to erase your love of liberty forever. –Marat
Our manners have been poisoned at their source; we no longer have any enthusiasm for heroism, any admiration for virtue, any love for liberty… Today the art of pleasure is preferred to merit, vain pleasures to useful knowledge. For us a dancer is worth more than a wise man and a joker more than a hero. -Marat
Nothing superfluous can belong to us legitimately so long as others
lack necessities -Marat
To try and please everyone is madness but to try and please everyone in a time of revolution is treason -Marat
To form a truly free constitution, that’s to say, truly just and wise, the first point, the main point, the capital point, is that all the laws be agreed on by the people, after considered reflection, and especially having taken time to see what’s at stake -Marat
But what can one expect from an egotistical people who act only in their self-interest, are ruled by their passions and who respond only to vanity? Let us not deceive ourselves: a nation without understanding, without morals, without virtues, is not made for liberty… you are further from happiness than ever -Marat
They write on all sides that this sheet is the cause of much scandal. The patrie’s enemies cry blasphemy and the timid citizens who disapprove of my vigorous love of liberty and virtue grow pale while reading it. You admit that I am right to attack the corrupt faction that dominates the national assembly yet you would have me do so more moderately. That’s like criticizing a soldier for fighting too hard against his treacherous enemies… I know what to expect from the mob of mischief-makers who I have provoked against me, but my fear of them will have no effect upon my soul for I am devoted to the patrie and I am ready to shed my blood for her - Marat
Can I be accused of cruelty, I, who cannot even bear to see an insect suffer? But when I think that, in order to spare a few drops of blood, we expose ourselves to spilling it in great waves, I grow indignant despite myself, at our false principles of humanity -Marat
One cannot learn from medical school the genius of Asclepius (Greek god of medicine), but one can acquire the vital knowledge which prevents one from acting blindly and recklessly. Under the watchful eyes of a master, pupils can learn how to use this knowledge, an understanding that is lost on the empirically minded. -Marat
No, liberty is not made for us: we are too ignorant, too vain, too presumptious, too cowardly, too vile, too corrupt too attached to rest and to pleasure, too much slaves to fortune to ever know the true price of liberty. We boast of being free! To show how much we have become slaves, it is enough just to cast a glance on the capital and examine the morals of its inhabitants -Marat
The Paris Commune hastens to inform its brothers in all the Departments of France that a group of ferocious conspirators detained in its prisons have been put to death by the people. Acts of justice which seemed essential in order to terrorize the legions of traitors, hidden behind its walls, at the very moment when they were about to march on the enemy. Doubtless, the whole nation, after this series of treacherous acts which brought the country to the brink of the precipice, will hasten to adopt these methods so vital to the public safety, and all the French people will cry out like the Parisians: ‘We are marching to the enemy, but we will not leave these brigands behind us to cut the throats of our wives and children’ -Marat
[A patriotic journalist must]… be ready to spill his blood, drop by drop, and expose himself to a miserable death on the scaffold, for the salvation of an ignorant and misguided people, who too often disdain him, sometimes outrage him, and by whom he is nearly always misunderstood -Marat
They need only a chief, a man of head and heart. If the purest sense of civic duty counts for anything at all, I should want a friend of the people for them… What prevents their being given a staunch, upright, and incorruptible chief? You do not know where to find him? Must you be told? You know a man who aspires only to the glory of sacrificing himself for the welfare of our country. You have seen him at work for a long time -Marat
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