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Le soir du 13 juillet 1793, Jean Paul Marat est assassiné par une jeune Girondine, Charlotte Corday. Alors que souvent, les historiens se focalisent sur le coup de couteau, l’étude de l’arrestation postérieure de l’assassin révèle que ce soir-là est aussi le moment d’un événement non advenu : le massacre de Corday. La sociabilité particulière qui entoure l’événement, du quartier des Cordeliers à l’immeuble sans-culotte de Marat, ainsi que le contexte de très forte politisation, enfin l’intervention collective d’une chaîne d’acteurs (l’entourage de Marat, les gardes nationaux, le commissaire, les élites politiques et les simples citoyens présents ce soir-là), semblent expliquer que le recours à une solution politique et pacifique ait été préféré à la violence.

In the evening of the 13th of July 1793, Jean Paul Marat was assassinated by a young woman with Girondin convictions, Charlotte Corday. Although historians tend to focus on Corday’s knifing of Marat itself, studying her subsequent arrest allows one to raise other interesting questions. One such concerns why the crowd was not allowed to execute summary justice and tear Corday apart on the spot. Here it is necessary to study the specific spatial and social context of the event : the quartier des Cordeliers and the sans-culotte house where Marat resided, as well as the heightened political awareness of the time, and finally the collective action of a series of groups and individuals. Crucial to the unfolding of events were of course Marat’s own immediate companions but also the gardes nationaux, the commissioner, the political élites and the ordinary citizens at the crime scene that evening. A study of these key players will enable us to explain why recourse to retribution by immediate violence was not undertaken and why a political and judicial solution was preferred.