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Who assassinated Jean-Paul Marat in 1793?
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Jacques-Louis David
Self-portrait by Jacques-Louis David, oil on canvas, 1794; in the Louvre, Paris.
Jean-Paul Marat was assassinated on July 13, 1793, by Charlotte Corday, a young supporter of the Girondin political faction.123
Corday gained access to Maratâs home under the pretext of providing information regarding dissidents in Normandy. While Marat was in his bathâa treatment he used for a skin conditionâshe stabbed him in the chest with a knife. Following the assassination, Corday was arrested, tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal, and guillotined on July 17, 1793.123
The event was famously immortalized in the painting The Death of Marat by the French artist Jacques-Louis David, who depicted the scene shortly after the murder to honor Marat as a martyr of the French Revolution.23