slipper-bath; sore afflicted; ill of Revolution Fever,—­of what other malady this History had rather not name.  Excessively sick and worn, poor man:  with precisely elevenpence-halfpenny of ready money, in paper; with slipper-bath; strong three-footed stool for writing on, the while; and a squalid—­Washerwoman, one may call her:  that is his civic establishment in Medical-School Street; thither and not elsewhither has his road led him.  Not to the reign of Brotherhood and Perfect Felicity; yet surely on the way towards that?—­Hark, a rap again!  A musical woman’s-voice, refusing to be rejected:  it is the Citoyenne who would do France a service.  Marat, recognising from within, cries, Admit her.  Charlotte Corday is admitted.

Citoyen Marat, I am from Caen the seat of rebellion, and wished to speak with you.—­Be seated, mon enfant.  Now what are the Traitors doing at Caen?  What Deputies are at Caen?—­Charlotte names some Deputies.  “Their heads shall fall within a fortnight,” croaks the eager People’s-Friend, clutching his tablets to write:  Barbaroux, Petion, writes he with bare shrunk arm, turning aside in the bath:  Petion, and Louvet, and—­Charlotte has drawn her knife from the sheath; plunges it, with one sure stroke, into the writer’s heart.  “A moi, chere amie, Help, dear!” No more could the Death-choked say or shriek.  The helpful Washerwoman running in, there is no Friend of the People, or Friend of the Washerwoman, left; but his life with a groan gushes out, indignant, to the shades below. (Moniteur, Nos. 197, 198, 199; Hist.  Parl. xxviii. 301-5; Deux Amis, x. 368-374.)

And so Marat People’s-Friend is ended; the lone Stylites has got hurled down suddenly from his Pillar,—­whither He that made him does know.  Patriot Paris may sound triple and tenfold, in dole and wail; re-echoed by Patriot France; and the Convention, ’Chabot pale with terror declaring that they are to be all assassinated,’ may decree him Pantheon Honours, Public Funeral, Mirabeau’s dust making way for him; and Jacobin Societies, in lamentable oratory, summing up his character, parallel him to One, whom they think it honour to call ’the good Sansculotte,’—­whom we name not here. (See Eloge funebre de Jean-Paul Marat, prononce a Strasbourg in Barbaroux, p. 125-131; Mercier, &c.) Also a Chapel may be made, for the urn that holds his Heart, in the Place du Carrousel; and new-born children be named Marat; and Lago-de-Como Hawkers bake mountains of stucco into unbeautiful Busts; and David paint his Picture, or Death-scene; and such other Apotheosis take place as the human genius, in these circumstances, can devise:  but Marat returns no more to the light of this Sun.  One sole circumstance we have read with clear sympathy, in the old Moniteur Newspaper:  how Marat’s brother comes from Neuchatel to ask of the Convention ’that the deceased Jean-Paul Marat’s musket be given him.’ (Seance du 16 Septembre 1793.) For Marat too had a brother, and natural affections; and was wrapt once in swaddling-clothes, and slept safe in a cradle like the rest of us.  Ye children of men!—­A sister of his, they say, lives still to this day in Paris.