Another Common Household Accident

This is the birthday of Charlotte Corday, the woman who assassinated Jean-Paul Marat.

A political cover-up was attempted prior to the trial; Claude François Chauveau-Lagarde, who previously had represented Marie Antoinette, was appointed as defence for Charlotte Corday. The president of the Tribunal ordered him to enter a plea of insanity on his client's behalf, in order to remove any notion of patriotic idealism from the act.

In her memory, this is to the tune of Gershwin's "They Can't Take That Away From Me":

They say I'm not to blame
They claim I'm only mad
So he gets martyr's fame
And no one recalls that he was bad

The way he led the ring
That brought us tyranny
The way he killed our king
Is forgotten if they slander me

If the people's hand is just a nut, then the terror can go on
Better let them pity me than think upon

The way I held my knife
The way his blood ran free
The way I took his life
Will be remembered well in history