Jean-Paul Marat: Resistance as a Way of Life

Marat saw oppression to be resisted always and everywhere, but he was particularly aware of the variety threatened or inflicted by representative assemblies in the name of the people. This paper will show how he exploited the ideological gap opened in 1789 between notions of sovereignty represented in successive national assemblies and sovereignty embodied in the people (more specifically in the Parisian crowd and radical sections).  Inherently oppositional, he made denunciation his way of life, purge his goal, the call to insurrection his weapon.  The uprising of 2 June 1793, pruning the openly riven Convention in the name of the unity of the people, was his moment of triumph. Withdrawing from the Convention, he was close to death on 13 July when Charlotte Corday restored him to the mythical life of the martyr.  Along with spectacular rites of commemoration, calls for vengeance (Robespierre’s notable among them) escalated into demands for terror.