MARAT'S BATHTUB. The Modest Rig In Which He Received Charlotte Corday.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 195, 19 March 1887, Page 3

MARAT'S BATHTUB. The Modest Ri q In Which He Received Charlotte Corday.

The Musee Grevin, on the Boulevard dea Italiene, is a cross between the Eden Muses of Kew York and the renowned " wax figgers " of Mme. Tusaaud, of London, without the eminent respectability of the one or the historic interest of the other. It ia chiefly afflicted with the disease which memorably recalls the salon of 1885 —an efflorescence of coryphees ; and when it placards at its door the appetising announcement that the visitor will find within something from Zola, which even the liberal jury of ISBS would not admit to the Palais de l'lndufctrie, all Paris wants to go in. It ia proper to protest that no Buch scandalous invitation turned my steps across its threshold this morning ; for having seen the collection of last year at the spring Hxhibition, 1 felt that not only the Musee urevin, but that other museums in which INapl'^s preserves the wickedness of the buried cities could hardly surprise me, I really wished to see the last addition the bathtub— the identical bathtub in which Marat was murdered by the Judith of that tragic summer's day, ninetythree year* ago ; and this chiefly because, to mo as tn every one else, it has always been a mjsfery how even a Frenchman — even a Frenchman of the days of Thermidor, Ventor and the rest— even the demon of the triuoivire, should have been so lost to decency as to causa a young female visitor, who wished to see him, to be summoned to his bathroom. Having done two or three rooms whoso most conspicuous objects were a number of waxen damsels in Paradisic costume, pointing their dexter toes toward high noon, I descended into the crypt, all devoid of the blood-curdling horrors of the Twenty-thud street establishment, but containing in one well-lighted chamber the " Assassination of Marat." On the wall near by is the evidence of the authenticity of the bathtub, together with some manuscript of Marat's written just before his death. The scene ia very effectively rendered, the position and appearance of Marat being* copied from David's wonderful picture. But the tub was what interested me j firefc, because it ia the veritable tub, and secondly because it explains the mystery. This ia how it looks : It is shaped exactly like a slice : it is much too short for one to lie in> at full length, and with a seat inside, as was often found in the bathtubs of those days. Marat might very well have beenj as the local chronicler tells us that he was, correcting his proofs when Charlotte Corday entered, The contemporary ' records add that ho was en chemise, and that his friend?, anticipating some of our loyal politicians, vs hooped up the boys by a liberal display of Marat's "bloody shirt*' on the day of the funeral. The directors of the Musee Grevin gave,it ia.Eavd, , b.OOO francs for 4;he tuj><* " Happily they can make their tn'6ney out of it without fear of a summons totheGon-' ciergie, But it was not always ' so, f for" shortly after' Marat'a death a tob^entery prising. Mme. Jarley of the year II in month, Thermidor had Her head .chopped off for the crime of exhibiting a wax»6ffig^o| 1 Charlotte Corday. **" f **a