A Girondin from Caen in Normandy and a political opponent of Marat, she entered his house on July 13, 1793, and stabbed him through the heart while he was in his bath, a scene that was memorably depicted by Jacques-Louis David in his painting The Death of Marat.
Corday was arrested on the spot, immediately imprisoned, tried and convicted and guillotined just four days later.
Assassination explanation
On June 11 in its Versailles rooms Osenat will offer a manuscript letter written by Corday to the French people which she took with her when she set out to assassinate Marat.
An ‘Address to French friends of law and peace’, a justification of her act of assassination, was discovered when she was searched at the prison de l’Abbaye. It was folded and pinned inside her bodice.
The letter has a long provenance back to an auction in 1834 when it belonged to the Lyon historian François-Nicolas Cochard and has made several subsequent appearances under the hammer.
It will be offered by Osenat with an estimate of €80,000-100,000.
