MARAT, JEAN PAUL, one of the most infamous characters of the French revolution, b. 1744, of Protestant parents, at Baudry, in Neufchatel. He spent some of his early years in Britain; published several treatises in London; acted as a teacher of languages in Edinburgh; and underwent punishment for stealing some valuable medals from the museum in Oxford. Afterwards returning to Paris, he practiced an inferior branch of the medical profession until the revolution brought him into prominence as a dema n-onlie His features and appearance were grotesque, his look wild, and his speeches extravagant, the ludicrous mingling with the terrible. His influence over the lowest classes, however, soon became great. He issued a journal, which he at first called the Publiciste Parisien, but afterwards the Anti du Peuple, -which is historically connected with some of the most fearful events of that period, No falsehood was too monstrous to be published in it, no atrocity too great to be recommended. It was in a great measure -the influence of Marat which led to the cruelties and massacres of Sept., 1792, in the inidst of which he was elected a member of the convention, but on his appearance there he was received with almost universal expressions of -abhorrence. No one would sit beside him, and when lie attempted to speak a tumult always arose. His journal, now the Journal de la Republique, became more ferocious and sanguinary than ever. He
-demanded the sacrifice of 270,000 heads, and defended this in the convention, saying that if these were not granted, he would demand more. During the king's trial, he was urgent for his immediate execution, and in his joumal called upon the people to slay '200,000 of the adherents of the old regime, and to reduce"the convention to one-fourth. In April, 1793, Marat obtained the enactment of the fearful law against suspected persons, in virtue of which 400,000 were imprisoned. Robespierre, Danton, and Marat were now the triumvirate which ruled France. But on July 13, 1793, Marat was stabbed in his own house by Charlotte Corday (q.v.). This event was followed by some of the worst .atrocities of the reign of terror; streams of blood flowing, as was said, to the manes of 31arat, whose likeness, with gaping wounds, painted by David, was exhibited on an .altar in the court of the Louvre, and then hung up in the convention; whilst it was decreed that his housekeeper, whom he had married "one fine day, in the presence of the sun," should be maintained at the expense of the state. A decree of Nov. 4, 1793, _gave to Marat's remains the honors of the Pantheon; but"they were cast out of it again .on Nov. 8, 1795, and his picture was removed from its place in the convention.