L'Ami du peuple

"L'Ami du peuple" (The Friend of the People) was a newspaper written by Jean-Paul Marat during the French Revolution. In it he constantly wrote his political views about the things happening on France.

The life of Marat becomes part of the history of the French Revolution after a long career in science. From the beginning to the end he stood alone. He was never attached to any party; the tone of his mind was to suspect whoever was in power. Marat began by attacking the most powerful bodies in Paris: the Constituent Assembly, the ministers, the "corps municipal", and the court of the Chatelet. Denounced and arrested, he was imprisoned from October 8 to November 5, 1789. In January 1790 second time, owing to his violent campaign against Lafayette, he narrowly escaped arrest and had to flee to London. There be wrote his "Denonciation contre Necker", and in May dared to return to Paris and continue the "Ami du peuple". He was embittered by persecution, and continued his vehement attacks against all in power, and at last, after the day of the Champ de Mars (July 17, 1791), against King Louis XVI himself. These attacks led to the outlawing of his paper.

All this time he was in hiding in cellars and sewers, where he was attacked by a horrible skin disease, tended only by the woman Simone Evrard, who remained true to him. The end of the Constituent Assembly he heard of with joy and with bright hopes for the future, soon dashed by the behaviour of the Legislative Assembly. When almost despairing, in December 1791, he fled once more to London, where he wrote his "Ecole du citoyen". In April 1792, summoned again by the Cordeliers Club, he returned to Paris, and published No. 627 of the "Ami". The first of the French Revolutionary Wars was now the question, and Marat saw clearly that it was to serve the purposes of the Royalists and the Girondins, who thought of themselves alone.

Again denounced, Marat had to remain in hiding until the insurrection of the 10th of August because of the paper. The early days of the war being unsuccessful, the proclamation of the duke of Brunswick excited all hearts; who could go to save France on the frontiers and leave Paris in the hands of his enemies? Marat, like Danton, foresaw the September Massacres. After the events of August 10 he took his seat at the Commune, and demanded a tribunal to try the Royalists in prison. No tribunal was formed and the massacres in the prisons were the inevitable result.

In the elections to the National Convention, Marat was elected seventh out of the twenty-four deputies for Paris, and for the first time took his seat in an assembly of the nation. At the declaration of the Republic, he closed his "Ami du peuple", and commenced, on September 25, a new paper, the "Journal de la république française" (Newspaper of the French Republic), which was to contain his sentiments as its predecessor had done, and to be always on the watch.

"L'Ami du peuple" had a great effect on the French people and led to many of the riots such as the revolts of August 10, 1792 and the September riots. The people were swayed by his words and, for the most part, agree with his opinions about the events of the revolution.

Even after the death of Marat, the revolutionary lecturers and supporters held him in high esteem and even replaced religious symbols with busts of Marat. This saint like view of him only lasted a year or two before the people realized what bloodthirsty views he held and the numbers of heads he caused to fall from the guillotine.