"Perhaps The Others Will Be Afraid."

One of the most murderous and fanatical instigators of the French Revolution, including the horrible Paris massacres of September 1792, was Jean-Paul Marat, who like so many of our political leaders today seems to have been driven insane with power.

In July of 1793, Marat was stabbed to death in his medicinal bath by a beautiful young woman named Charlotte Corday, who had philosophically reached the decision voluntarily to give up her own life in order to put a stop to Marat's genocidal rampage. She was dragged before a kangaroo court and guillotined about 24 hours later.

As bloody as the coming Reign of Terror was in France, historians all pretty much agree that it would have been far worse had Marat survived to participate. Charlotte Corday's act of selflessness and sacrifice unquestionably saved tens of thousands of lives, and possibly saved France from the grip of a madman who would have made Robespierre and Napoleon look like choir boys.

At her so-called trial, the following exchange took place between the president of the Paris Revolutionary Tribunal and young Charlotte:

M. le President: "Did you think that with your dagger you could slay all the Marats?"

Mlle. Corday: "With this one gone, perhaps the others will be afraid."