Simonne Evrard

 

All indications are that Simonne Evrard was the love of Jean-Paul Marat’s life.  At the time they met, he was all-but destitute.  Nevertheless, the two became engaged in 1791, and were subsequently married in 1792 in an unofficial ceremony “before the supreme being.

 

Simonne was born in 1764. Available documents describe her as plain but not unattractive, of average height and weight, with a rather large mouth and brown hair, brown eyes, and an aquiline nose and oval face.

 

Evrard, one of three sisters, had inherited a small fortune from her deceased parents, giving her a measure of monetary stability in the tumultuous world of the French Revolution.With her financial assistance, Marat published his newsletter entitled Ami du Peuple, which detailed his opposition to war and his disdain for those perceived to be royalist sympathizers.

The first-floor apartments in which Marat was assassinated were rented in Evrard’s name. Besides Marat and Evrard, Catherine Evrard, her sister, Jeannette Maréchal, the cook, and Laurent Bas, an associate editor of Ami du Peuple were in residence on the fateful day.

 

Following the attack by Corday, Evrard is said to have exclaimed, “O my God! he is assassinated.” Along with Bas and Maréchal, the grieving widow wrestled the assassin to the floor. A struggle ensued and Bas was forced to hit Corday with a chair to delay her attempted escape long enough for a crowd of supporters and onlookers to arrive to thoroughly block Corday’s further attempts to flee.

 

Upon Marat’s assassination Evrard, standing with the Jacobin party, spoke out against revisionists such as Jacques Roux.  Since the Convention recognized Simonne Evrard as Marat’s widow, she was allowed to articulate in his stead. She felt the spirit of Marat’s political orientation was being bent to the wills of those whose influence now prevailed.  Just as she had tended to her husband’s skin disorder, so she played nurse to his political and philosophical legacy.

 

Simonne Evrard’s Diagnosis

 

There is no evidence that Simonne Evrard suffered from any sort of major mental condition or personality disorder.  Peter Weiss does not indicate that the patient playing this role in his script has any particular malady, either.  The only reasonable conclusion a reader might draw from the text, with respect to Evrard’s psychology, is that the lady might have been something of what is termed today as “codependent.”

 

In the interest of giving Evrard some background that agrees with the spirit of Weiss’s work, the Axis I syndrome Shared Psychotic Disorder may be pertinent. 

 

 

297.3 Shared Psychotic Disorder

 

Extremely rare, Shared Psychotic Disorder is dramatic and is inherently inter­esting. Previously called Induced Psychotic Disorder, it was known as long ago as 150 years as folie a deux, which means "double insanity." Usually two people are involved, but three, four, or more can be involved. It affects women more often than men, and it usually occurs within families. Isolation may play a role in the development of this strange condition.

 

One of the persons affected is independently psychotic; through a close (and often dependent) association, the other has come to believe in the delu­sions and other experiences of the first. The content of the delusion is usually believable; occasionally, the content may be bizarre. Isolating the independently psychotic patient may cure the other(s), but this is by no means an invariable remedy. For one thing, the parties involved are often closely related and rein­force each other for their psychopathology.

 

Criteria for Shared Psychotic Disorder

          Someone who is closely associated with a delusional person also develops a

          delusion.

 

          The content of this new delusion is similar to that of the first person's delu­sion.

 

          The disorder is not explained better by another psychotic disorder, such as Schizophrenia or a mood disorder with psychotic features.

 

          This disorder is not directly caused by a general medical condition or the use

          of substances, including prescription medications.

 

A Case Study of Shared Psychotic Disorder

 

Miriam Phillips was 23 when she was hospitalized. She had spent nearly all her life in the Ozarks, where she sometimes attended class in a three-room school. Although she was bright enough, she had little interest in her studies and often volunteered to stay home to care for her mother, who was unwell. When she was in the 12th grade, she dropped out of high school to stay home full-time.

 

It was lonely living in the hills. Miriam's father, a long-distance trucker, was away most of the time. She had never learned to drive, and there were no close neighbors. Their television set received mostly snow; there was little in the way of mail; and there were no visitors at all. So she was surprised late on a Monday afternoon when two men paid a call.

 

After identifying themselves as FBI agents, they asked if she was the Miriam Phillips who three weeks earlier had written a letter to the president. When she asked how they had known, they showed her a faxed copy of her own letter:

 

Dear Mr. President, what do you plan to do about the Cubans? They have been working on mother. Their up to no good. I’ve seen the police, but they say Cubans are your job, and I guess their right. You have to do your job or I’ll have a dirty job to do. –Miriam Phillips

 

When Miriam finally figured out that the FBI agents thought she had threat­ened the president, she relaxed. She hadn't meant that at all. She had meant that if no one else took action, she'd have to crawl under the house to get the gravity machines.

 

"Gravity machines?" The two agents looked at each other.

 

She explained. They had been installed under the house by Cuban agents of Fidel Castro after the Bay of Pigs invasion in the 1960s. The machines pulled your body fluids down toward your feet. They hadn't affected her yet, but they had bothered her mother for years. Miriam had seen the hideous swelling in her mother's ankles. Some days it extended almost to her knees.

 

The two agents listened to her politely, then left. As they passed through town on their way to the airport, they called at the local community mental health clinic. Within a few days, a mental health worker came to interview Miriam, who agreed to enter the hospital voluntarily for a "checkup."

 

On admission, Miriam appeared remarkably intact. She had a full range of appropriate affect and normal cognitive abilities and orientation. Her reason­ing ability seemed good, aside from the story about the gravity machines. As far back as her teens, her mother had told her how the machines came to be installed in the crawlspace under their house. The mother had been a nurse, and Miriam had always accepted her word in medical matters. By some unspoken agreement, the two had never discussed the matter with Miriam's father.

 

After Miriam had been on the ward for three days, her therapist asked whether she thought any other explanation for her mother's edema was pos­sible. Miriam considered. She had never felt the gravity effects herself. She had believed that her mother told her the truth, but she now supposed that even Mother could have been mistaken.

 

Though Miriam was given no medication, after a week she stopped talking about gravity machines and asked to be discharged. At the end of their shift that afternoon, two young attendants gave her a lift home. As they walked her to the front door, it was opened by a short woman, quite stout, with salt-and­-pepper hair. Her lower legs were neatly wrapped in elastic bandages. Through the partly opened door she darted a glance at the two men.

 

"Hmmm!" she said. "You look like Cubans."