Portrait of Simonne Evrard, wife of Marat (Carnavalet, Paris)
The following article, entirely dedicated to Simonne Evrard , wife of the French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat, has been translated for Pills of History by Stefania Di Pasquale , collaborator of the research group Pole-Nord Group Brussels , which deals with the French Revolution and in particular of Marat (if you want to read what they published, click here:http://www.marat-jean-paul.org).
In sincerely thanking Stefania for her precious collaboration, I invite you to read the post, which sheds light on a little-known and guilty neglected female figure, which deserves to be explored, both for its indisputable connotations of modernity, and for what she has done for the conservation of her husband's writings.
Happy reading.
Albertine Marat, sister of the "Friend of the People" and sister-in-law of Simonne Evrard
Simonne Evrard was born in Tournus (France) on February 6, 1764, Simonne's father, Nicolas Evrard , was born in Tournus on May 4, 1724, married twice.
From the union with Catherine Baret , she had a daughter: Philiberte (born February 28, 1762) and from her second marriage to Catherine Large , three daughters: Simonne (born February 6, 1764), Etiennette (born October 4, 1766) and Catherine (born September 16, 1769).
Nicolas Evrard was an employee-carpenter of boats and lived in a house located in the Pêcherie district, Saint-André parish, on the quai du Nord, in Tournus.
He owned a house.
His second wife, Catherine Large, owned a wood in Charne and another land, without much value, five kilometers from Tournus.
With regard to the studies of the girls, the most likely thing is that they received an education at the free school of the hospice of Tournus.
In 1774, her mother died, followed, on February 18, 1776, by her father Nicolas.
Philiberte is 14, Simonne 12, Etiennette 10 and little Catherine 7.
It is not clear who was designated for protection, but tradition has it that the four orphans moved to Paris, where a woman from Tournus would have opened a shop near a laundry giving them work.
Later, some documents indicate that Etiennette married a cook, Antoine Bezancenot, and Catherine a printer, Jean-Antoine Corne.
Marat met Simonne before January 1, 1792, the date that appears in the promise of marriage he made to his fiancée.
This text is found among the cards sealed after her murder.
Marat wrote it before leaving for England.
" The beautiful qualities of Mlle Simonne Evrard have captured my heart from which she receives the homage, which I leave her as a pledge of my faith, during the journey that I am forced to make to London, the sacred commitment of give her my hand, immediately after my return. If all my tenderness is not enough to guarantee my fidelity, may the oblivion of this commitment cover me with infamy. "
Paris 1 January 1792
J-P Marat the friend of the people.
This text was also published in the Journal de La Montagne , a newspaper that will contribute, on several occasions, to transmit to the public precise documents concerning Marat.
It is in this Journal that we will find, on 23 July 1793, the testimony of the citizen Guirault who remembered, not in a romantic way, the possible circumstances of this ceremony.
A document to watch out for, of course.
Marat who did not believe in a vain ceremony on the commitment of marriage, however not wanting to alarm the modesty of the town Evrard, called her one day to her bedroom window; clasping his hand in that of his fiancée, both bow before the Supreme Being , " In the vast temple of nature, he said, which I take as a testimony of the eternal faithfulness I swear to you, creator to hear us . "
Simonne Evrard is known above all by her contemporaries from the apparition of her that she made of her on August 8, 1793 , at the forum of the National Convention, she where she was introduced by Robespierre himself.
The skill she displays at the Convention testifies that she is aware of the whole past and present political context and that she knows her role, and soon that of Marat's sister Albertine as well, will become sensitive roles.
It should be noted that at this moment, her widow title is not contested by anyone, when in front of the same assembly, Marat's enemies are numerous: Carra, Ducos, Dulaure, Jacques Roux, Leclerc …
"I did not come to ask you for the favors of greed that craves and demands poverty. The widow of Marat only needs a grave. Before reaching this happy end of the torments of my life, I come to ask you for justice for the new attacks committed against the memory of the most intrepid and most outraged of the defenders of the people. These monsters, how much gold they lavished! how many self-righteous pamphleteers have been hired to cover up her reproachful name. With that horrible fury they tried to give him a colossal political existence and a hateful celebrity, for the sole purpose of dishonoring the cause of the people, which he faithfully defended; today all covered in his blood, they persecuted him to the grave; a few days, they still dare to assassinate his memory, they are trying to paint the monster that immersed the parricidal iron in her bosom under the traits of an interesting heroine. We see in this circle the vilest of all folliculars, the Carra, the Ducos, the Dulaure, shamelessly boasting in their periodicals, to encourage their fellow men to slaughter the rest of the defenders of freedom. I'm not talking about the vile Petion who, in Caen, in the assembly of his accomplices, dared to say on this occasion that the murder was a virtue.
Soon the wicked perfidy of the conspirators, pretending to pay homage to his civic virtues, multiply prints at great costs of infamy, where the horrible murderer is presented under favorable features, and the martyr of the homeland defaced from the most horrible convulsions.
But here's the most perfidious of their maneuvers:they have corrupted nefarious writers who usurp his name with impunity and deface his principles, to eternalize the empire of slander in which he was a victim! Cowards! First they flatter the pain of the people for his praise, they speak the language of patriotism and morals, so that the people still believe they are listening to Marat; but it is only to defame the most zealous defenders who have preserved it; it is to preach, in the name of Marat, the maximum exaggerations that his enemies have attributed to him, and that all his conduct disavowed of him
I denounce two men in particular, Jacques Roux and Leclerc, who claim to continue his patriotic papers and make his shadow speak in order to insult his memory and make the people wrong; after debiting the revolutionary clichés, they told the people that he must prescribe all kinds of government; it is there that they order in his name to make the day of August 10 bloody, because his sensitive soul, torn apart by the spectacle of the crimes of tyranny and the ills of humanity, have sometimes issued just anathemas against public blood and oppressors of the people; they try to perpetuate after his death the parricidal slander that persecuted him and presented him as a senseless apostle of disorder and anarchy. And who are these men who claim to replace him? he is a priest who the very next day, where faithful deputies triumph and their cowardly enemies, come to insult the National Convention with a perfidious and seditious skill. There is another no less perverse man associated with the mercenary fury of this impostor. What is remarkable is that these two men are the same men who were denounced by him, a few days before his death, to the Cordillera club, as people hired by our enemies to disturb the public peace and that, in the same section , they were formally expelled from the womb of this popular society.
What is the purpose of the wicked faction that continues these criminal plots? it is to demean the people who pay homage to the memory of which he died for his cause, to defame all the friends of the homeland, which he designated in the names of Maratists; to disappoint the people perhaps all the French of the whole republic who gather for the meeting of August 10, and present their perfidious writings in which they speak of the doctrine of the representative of the people they have slaughtered; it is perhaps to disturb these solemn days by some fatal catastrophe. God! What then will become of the fate of the people? if such men can usurp his trust! what is the deplorable condition of its intrepid defenders if death itself cannot save them from the anger of their murderers! Lawmakers, how long would you suffer when crime insults virtue? Where does this strange privilege to the emissaries of England and Austria come from to imprison public opinion, offer the defenders of our laws daggers, and to know the foundations of our nascent republic? if you leave them unpunished, I will denounce them here to the French people, to the universe. The memory of the martyrs of freedom and the patrimony of the people; that of Marat is the only good I have left, I dedicate the last days of a languid life to the defense of him. Lawmakers, avenge your country, honesty, misfortune and virtue, hitting the most cowardly of all enemies. "
From the ceremonies that took place after Marat's death, we will find from the mouths of several speakers these acknowledgments of Simonne's office:" his company is inseparable from him" , Alexandre Rousselin will say, "his dear companion" will say Lepeletier's brother , his « worthy and dear wife Citizen Hiver. will say
And in her response to the detractors of the Friend of the People, Albertine Marat speaks of her with esteem and affection:
"Not finding relief with less fortunate people, he fell into his sorrows, people, your good genius decided something else:he allowed a divine woman, whose soul resembles his, consecrating her fortune and his rest, to keep your friend. Heroic woman, she receives the homage that your virtues deserve:yes we owe it to you. Inflamed by the divine fire of freedom, you wanted to preserve the most ardent defender. You shared his fate and his tribulations:nothing can stop your zeal; you sacrificed to the Friend of the people the fear of your family and the prejudices of your century. Forced here to contain myself, I will wait for the moment when your virtues appear in all their splendor ".
From the very text of Simonne's speech before the Convention, we again note that she evokes precisely what Marat felt about her attitude to politics, in which, in her eyes, there is a serious and permanent formation.
Simonne was jailed Twice in her life, the first time in May 1795, the government of the Directory imprisoned, guillotined and exiled all Jacobin sympathizers, even those suspected of sympathizing with Robespierre.
Marat's widow and her sister-in-law Albertine Marat were deported to the prison of Saint-Pélagie and they stay there for eight months.
The second incarceration of the two women took place in 1801 after the attack on Napoleon.
These women throughout their lives suffered humiliation and gave themselves up to life in prison, trying to keep all the writings of the Friend of the People.
Simonne worked hard to publish the works of her late husband, but the poverty was too great and she could no longer have her writings divulged.
Simonne Evrard died in total poverty on February 24, 1824, following a fall of stairs in Rue de la Barillerie.
As for the continuation of the events concerning Albertine Marat and Simonne Evrard, we find them united in the defense of their brother and husband and in the project of finally publishing his Œuvres Politiques et Patriotiques .
( Translation carried out by Stefania Di Pasquale, translator and collaborator of the historical research group Pole-Nord Brussels )