How to Pronounce Charlotte Corday

Meaning and Context

Charlotte Corday, born Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont in 1768, remains one of the most enigmatic and debated figures of the French Revolution. A young woman from a minor aristocratic Norman family, she was a sympathizer of the moderate Girondin faction who became convinced that the radical Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat was a primary driver of the escalating Terror. On July 13, 1793, she gained entry to Marat's Paris apartment under the pretense of providing a list of counter-revolutionaries and fatally stabbed him as he sat in his medicinal bath. This assassination, often termed the "death of Marat," instantly transformed Corday from a provincial unknown into a central character in revolutionary history, symbolizing the deadly clash between revolutionary fervor and the desperate attempt to curb its excesses. Her subsequent trial and execution by guillotine four days later cemented her legacy as both a political martyr and a calculated killer, a duality that continues to fascinate historians exploring the role of women, political violence, and propaganda during the French Revolution era.

Common Mistakes and Alternative Spellings

The standard and correct spelling is Charlotte Corday. Common errors and variations often arise from anglicization or phonetic misspellings. "Charlotte Corday" is sometimes incorrectly written as Charlotte Corde or Charlotte Cordé, dropping or misplacing the 'y'. The first name is occasionally misspelled as Charolette or Sharlotte. In some historical texts, her full aristocratic name, Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont, may be referenced, but the simplified "Charlotte Corday" is universally recognized. It is also important to note the correct pronunciation (kor-DAY) to avoid confusion with the similarly spelled but unrelated word "corset" or the city "Cordoba."

Example Sentences

Driven by a profound belief that his death would save the nation, Charlotte Corday meticulously planned her journey to Paris with the singular goal of assassinating Marat.

Historians often analyze the portrait painted of Charlotte Corday in the days following her arrest as a deliberate attempt by authorities to portray her as cold and unfeminine.

The dramatic confrontation between Charlotte Corday and the ailing Marat in his bath has been immortalized in numerous works of art, most famously in Jacques-Louis David's painting The Death of Marat.

In her testimony, Charlotte Corday famously declared, "I killed one man to save a hundred thousand," framing her act as a tyrannicide rather than a mere murder.

The legacy of Charlotte Corday continues to oscillate between that of a fanatical murderer and a heroic figure of resistance against tyranny.

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