Charlotte Corday

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In the magnificent grounds surrounding her home in Normandy, Charlotte Corday and Barbaroux are happy in their love-making, unwarned of the stormy events that fate has decreed should end their dreams. Marat, the leader of the French revolutionists, having plotted the death of the King, arrives at the home of Charlotte. Her beauty attracts his fancy, and finding her in love with Barbaroux, he tells them of his plans for the wholesale slaughter of the French nobility, and by cleverly insinuating that both Charlotte and her lover may be included in the list of those to be executed unless they embrace the cause of the revolution, he succeeds in inducing Barbaroux to accompany him to Paris. A year later, the revolution is at its height. The aristocrats are being brought to the guillotine by the thousands, and Barbaroux, expressing his disgust of outrages committed by Marat, is overheard by Danton, who betrays him to Marat. Barbaroux, hearing that Marat has ordered his arrest, escapes under a mass of rubbish in a cart, and is pursued by the soldiers. Charlotte, in reading her Bible, feels called upon by a Divine command to do something to restore peace to unhappy France, and sets out for Paris; on the road she is attacked by a mob of peasants. Later she meets the cart in which Barbaroux is escaping just as it breaks down, and Barbaroux emerges from hiding under the rubbish. They are clasped in an embrace as Marat's soldiers arrive and take Barbaroux a prisoner. Marat, hearing that Charlotte was seen on the road, orders the soldiers to find her, but she avoids them, and later while addressing the multitude from his balcony, Marat sees Charlotte in the crowd. Fearing to point her out lest the mob mistake it for an order to do her harm, he stops his speech and hastens down to get her himself, but she has disappeared. Charlotte, witnessing the guillotine, is horrified. She writes a note to Barbaroux, telling him of her determination to do a big deed to help restore peace. She allows the prison guard to kiss her in exchange for a promise to deliver the note to her love, and Marat, arriving a moment later, takes the note from the guard's hand, and discovering it is from Charlotte, goes to Barbaroux's cell and promises him his liberty if he will tell where Charlotte can be found. Barbaroux, unable to give the information, is brutally beaten. Marat, feeling, that the purpose mentioned in Charlotte's note is a vengeance about to fall upon him, is terror stricken, and in his panic is confronted by the vision of the people he has executed. The next day, Charlotte goes to Marat's house. Marat signs two orders, one for the immediate release and one for the immediate execution of Barbaroux. Showing them to Charlotte, he tells her she is the price of the one for his release. Charlotte pretends to agree to his terms, and Marat, after destroying the death warrant, calls upon Charlotte to embrace him, which she does, and at the same time kills him with a dagger which she had concealed under her cloak. Danton entering at that moment arrests Charlotte, and finds the order of release. Barbaroux is set free. Believing her mission fulfilled and that in causing the death of one man she had saved the lives of thousands. Charlotte mounts the scaffold and gives up her life that quiet may again reign in France.