Editing Jean-Paul Marat (section)

== Early life, education, and early writing ==
===Family===
[[Image:Picswiss NE-21-25.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Commemorative plaque]] on the house where Marat was born, in [[Boudry]] in [[Switzerland]]]] Jean-Paul Marat was born in [[Boudry]], in the Prussian [[Principality of Neuchâtel]] (now a [[Swiss cantons|canton]] of [[Switzerland]]), on 24 May 1743.<ref>[[#Belfort Bax|Belfort Bax]], p. 5.</ref> He was the first of five children born to Jean Mara (born Juan Salvador Mara; 1704–1783), a [[Sardinia]]n<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mara |first1=Émile |title=L'origine et l'âme sardes de Jean-Paul Mara, dit Marat |journal=Annales historiques de la Révolution française |date=1964 |volume=175 |issue=175 |pages=78–84|doi=10.3406/ahrf.1964.3659 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pillai |first1=Carlo |title=Le ascendenze sarde di Jean Paul Marat |journal=NOBILTA'. Rivista di Araldica, Genealogia, Ordini Cavallereschi |date=2005 |pages=505–512}}</ref> from [[Cagliari]], and Louise Cabrol (1724–1782), from [[Geneva]].<ref name=HDS>{{HDS|031228}}</ref> His father studied in Spain and Sardinia before becoming a [[Mercedarians|Mercedarian]] friar in 1720, at age 16, but at some point left the order and converted to [[Calvinism]], and in 1740 immigrated to the Protestant [[Republic of Geneva]]. His mother, who had [[Huguenot]] background from both sides of her family, was the daughter of French ''[[Wig#Manufacture|perruquier]]'' Louis Cabrol, originally from [[Castres]], [[Languedoc]], and Genevan citizen after 1723, and his wife Pauline-Catherine Molinier. Jean Mara and Louise Cabrol married on 19 March 1741 at the parish church of Le Petit-Saconnex, a district of Geneva.<ref name=Goetz>{{cite news|url=http://docplayer.fr/14907605-Jean-paul-marat-notice-generale-etapes-de-vie-action-journaux-livres-theorie-politique.html|author=Goëtz-Nothomb, Charlotte|language=fr|pages=5–6, 9|title=Jean-Paul Marat – Notice Generale}}</ref> One of Marat's brothers, David Mara (born in 1756), was a professor at the [[Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum]] in the [[Russian Empire]], where he had [[Alexander Pushkin]] as his student.<ref name=Goetz/>

Marat's family lived in moderate circumstances, as his father was well educated but unable to secure a stable profession. Marat credits his father for instilling in him a love of learning. He explains he felt "exceptionally fortunate to have had the advantage of receiving a very careful education in my paternal home."<ref>[[#Conner2012|Conner (2012)]], pp. 9–11</ref> From his mother, he claims to have been taught a strong sense of morality and social conscience. Marat left home at the age of 16, desiring to seek an education in France. He was aware of the limited opportunities for those seen as outsiders as his highly educated father had been turned down for several college (secondary) teaching posts. In 1754 his family settled in [[Neuchâtel]], capital of the Principality, where Marat's father began working as a [[tutor]].<ref name=HDS/>

=== Education ===
Marat received his early education in the city of [[Neuchâtel]] and there was a student of Jean-Élie Bertrand, who later founded the [[Société typographique de Neuchâtel]].<ref name=HDS/> At 17 years of age he applied for the expedition of [[Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche]] to [[Tobolsk]] to measure the [[transit of Venus]], but was turned down.<ref>{{cite book|author=Gillispie, Charles Coulston |title=Science and Polity in France: The End of the Old Regime|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EPgIpRIvaSAC&pg=PA292|date=2009|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-2461-8|page=292}}</ref> His first patronage was fulfilled with the wealthy Nairac family in [[Bordeaux]], where he stayed for two years. He then moved to [[Paris]] and studied medicine without gaining any formal qualifications. After moving to France, Jean-Paul Mara [[Francization|francized]] his surname as "Marat".<ref>{{cite book|title=Dictionnaire des parlementaires français|author1=Robert, Adolphe|author2=Cougny, Gaston|url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k837081|location=Paris|year=1891|language=fr|page=252}}</ref>
He worked, informally, as a doctor after moving to [[London]] in 1765 due to a fear of being "drawn into dissipation".{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}} While there he befriended the [[Royal Academician]] artist [[Angelica Kauffman]]. His social circle included Italian artists and architects who met in coffee houses around [[Soho]]. Highly ambitious, but without patronage or qualifications, he set about inserting himself into the intellectual scene.

=== Political, philosophical, and medical writing ===
Around 1770, Marat moved to [[Newcastle upon Tyne]]. His first political work, ''Chains of Slavery'' (1774), inspired by the extra-parliamentary activities of the disenfranchised MP and later Mayor of London [[John Wilkes]], was most probably compiled{{Citation needed|date=July 2022}} in the central library there. By Marat's own account, while composing it he lived on black coffee for three months and slept two hours a night, and after finishing it he slept soundly for 13 days in a row.<ref>Les Chaines de l’Esclavage, 1793 (ed. Goetz et de Cock) p. 4167 (6). Numbers in brackets refer to the original version.</ref> He gave it the subtitle, "A work in which the clandestine and villainous attempts of Princes to ruin Liberty are pointed out, and the dreadful scenes of Despotism disclosed." In the work, Marat criticized aspects of [[Constitution of the United Kingdom|England's constitution]] that he believed to be corrupt or despotic. He condemned the King's power to influence Parliament through bribery and attacked limitations on voting rights. ''Chains of Slavery's'' political ideology takes clear inspiration from [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] by attributing the nation's sovereignty to the common people rather than a monarch. He also suggests that the people express sovereignty through representatives who cannot enact legislation without the approval of the people they represent.<ref>[[#Gottschalk|Gottschalk]], pp. 19–22</ref> This work earned him honorary membership of the patriotic societies of [[Berwick-upon-Tweed]], [[Carlisle, Cumbria|Carlisle]] and [[Newcastle upon Tyne|Newcastle]]. The [[Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society]] Library<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.litandphil.org.uk/html_pages/LP_home.html |title=Lit & Phil Home – Independent Library Newcastle |publisher=Litandphil.org.uk |access-date=9 January 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100502065937/http://www.litandphil.org.uk/html_pages/LP_home.html |archive-date= 2 May 2010 }}</ref> possesses a copy, and [[Tyne and Wear Archives Service]] holds three presented to the various Newcastle guilds.

Marat published "A Philosophical Essay on Man," in 1773 and "Chains of Slavery," in 1774.<ref name="deCock">de Cock, J. & Goetz, C., ''Œuvres de Jean-Paul Marat'', 10 volumes, Éditions Pôle Nord, Brussels, 1995.</ref> [[Voltaire]]'s sharp critique of "De l'Homme" (an augmented translation, published 1775–76), partly in defence of his protégé [[Claude Adrien Helvétius|Helvétius]], reinforced Marat's growing sense of a widening gulf between the ''[[philosophes]]'', grouped around Voltaire on one hand, and their opponents, loosely grouped around [[Rousseau]] on the other.<ref name="deCock" />

After a published essay on curing a friend of gleets ([[gonorrhoea]]) he secured medical ''referees'' for an MD from the [[University of St Andrews]] in June 1775.<ref>[[#Conner1999|Conner (1999)]], p. 33</ref>

He published ''Enquiry into the Nature, Cause, and Cure of a Singular Disease of the Eyes'' on his return to London. In 1776, Marat moved to Paris after stopping in Geneva to visit his family.

In Paris, his growing reputation as a highly effective doctor along with the patronage of the [[Marquis de l'Aubespine]] (the husband of one of his patients) secured his appointment as physician to the bodyguard of the [[Charles X of France|Comte d'Artois]], [[Louis XVI]]'s youngest brother.<ref name="Conner 1999, p. 35">[[#Conner1999|Conner (1999)]], p. 35</ref> He began this position in June 1777. The position paid 2,000 [[French livre|livres]] a year plus allowances.