Madame Tussaud

by Michelle Moran

  “Of course not. It’s a plot!” Marat interjects, speaking for the first time tonight. Because he never bothers to swallow before he speaks, we can all see his sharp teeth covered in food. Marat narrows his eyes, and now he truly looks like a feral animal. “The monarchy knows its way of life is in peril, so they plan to starve the populace into subservience!”

  “You don’t really believe that?” Henri asks, aghast. “The monarchy could easily deploy the army to smother any rebellious acts.”

  “Not in the Palais-Royal!” Marat shouts.

  The Palais-Royal is owned by the Duc. Once it was a vast garden shaded by chestnut trees, but eight years ago the Duc had the trees chopped down to make way for a sprawling shopping arcade. Anything can be found in the Palais-Royal: Madeira wine, English shoes, Indian coffee, exotic women. Until last year, we rented one of the Duc’s shops to house the museum, but the prostitutes who lingered outside were driving our wealthy customers away. The Palais-Royal has become a veritable den of iniquity, sheltering every type of thief and anarchist. But since the grounds belong to the Duc, the king’s soldiers are forbidden from policing inside any of the hundred and eighty arcades.

  “And if the king took back the Palais-Royal?” Henri asks.

  “He would never do that!”

  Henri fixes Marat with a practical gaze. “He is king. He may do as he wishes.”

  I am impressed with his rhetoric.

  Everyone looks to the Duc to see if he agrees. “I have been banished twice to the Villers-Cotterêts. What is to stop my cousin from exiling me entirely and taking the Palais-Royal for himself?”

  “The p-people!” Camille exclaims. “W-we—we would never allow it. The Estates-General meets at Versailles in three months,” Camille reminds him. “We will s-see then how loud the voice of the people can be.”

  “I hope louder than their costumes,” the Duc remarks. “I am told that the Third Estate is required to come entirely in black. Black three-corner hats, black coats with tails, plain black cravats, and black knee breeches. The clergy, however, will be wearing scarlet silk.”

  Robespierre leans forward. “And the nobility? What will the nobility be wearing?”

  The Duc sighs, as if it pains him a great deal to relay this message. “Their hats will be designed in the style of Henri IV, and their vests are to be of black silk, trimmed in lace and embroidered with gold.”

  It is as if a powder keg has exploded. Everyone begins shouting at once, with the exception of the Duc, who sits back and watches the fire that he has ignited. When my mother and I rise to clear the plates from the table, Lucile grabs my arm.

  “Do you see why Camille is so upset? They wish to humiliate us!”

  “But Curtius told me yesterday that they are giving us greater representation. They are doubling the number of deputies who represent the Third Estate to a thousand.”

  “That’s right. They can dress our deputies in sackcloth, but this meeting of the Estates-General is going to change everything. It has to change everything.” Her dark eyes suddenly fill with tears. This is about more than representation for her. This is about whether she will be able to marry the man of her choosing. Though I have never asked, I doubt that her father knows she sneaks away with Camille. They have been coming to us for only a year, but it has been seven months since they first vowed to marry. And now that Camille has passed the first round of elections to be made a deputy of the Third Estate, perhaps it will come to pass.

  “Will your father consent to the marriage if Camille can distinguish himself somehow?” I ask.

  Lucile looks over her shoulder to see if he is listening, then leans closer to me. “Yes, there will certainly be a better chance. There are a hundred thousand livres waiting for the man who claims my hand. Camille is only a lawyer, and my father has already turned him away once.” She blinks rapidly, to stop the tears from falling. “He is a brilliant writer. There are great thoughts in his head.”

  “And I am sure he will make an impression at Versailles.”

  This relieves her greatly. “Do you think so?”

  I look across the table at her intended. He is so engaged in what he is saying that he has lost his stutter entirely. “Yes,” I reply, although I don’t add what sort of impression. There is no room for passion like his at court. I think of the king’s recent visit, and the quiet reverence with which his family treated him. I doubt that any man has ever been allowed to grow red-faced with rage in His Majesty’s presence.

  “Wealthy men have asked for my hand,” she says. “Men who could improve our family’s standing.”

  “And your father has turned them down?”

  “I have, and now my father has given me a year to decide. It must all happen within a year.” There is panic in her voice, and for the first time, I am thankful that I am not the daughter of a wealthy man. I reach out and squeeze her hand. “What about you?” she asks. “Isn’t there anyone you care for?”

  “I have an exhibition to care for,” I reply. “And there are options open to an unmarried woman with ambition. Look at Rose Bertin. From an ordinary seamstress to the milliner of the queen. She is the wealthiest self-made woman in France!”

  “But whom does she come home to?”

  I am surprised at Lucile’s naïveté. A woman like Rose may come home to any man she chooses. “I am sure Rose is not lonely. Money means that there are always people around you.”

  After I leave to help my mother clear the table and serve the coffee, I watch Camille and Lucile from the kitchen. She is whispering something in his ear to make him blush. If Camille becomes a deputy, it will be his responsibility to take his city’s cahiers to Versailles. I have heard that there are more than fifty thousand cahiers being drafted, and that these lists of grievances are long. The people are demanding that all citizens be equal before the law. They are declaring that it is not right for the First and Second Estates to be free from taxes. Some of the cahiers request the abolishment of censorship in journalism. But nearly all demand that the lettres de cachet be abolished. The people live in fear of these lettres, which allow anyone to be arrested, so long as the king has signed the document. For jealousy and vengeance, husbands have imprisoned their spouses, then taken up with mistresses. Parents have imprisoned unruly sons and sent away daughters who have refused good marriages. And though he has issued more than ten thousand, there is evidence that the king does not read these lettres, that he signs blank forms and the police fill in whichever names they wish.

  I think of the Marquis de Sade, currently imprisoned in the Bastille under a lettre de cachet drafted by his in-laws. A thousand things conspired to send him to this place, including poisoning prostitutes in Marseille and imprisoning a young woman until she made an escape from his second-floor window. But his must certainly be the rare case of justice being served. If the Estates-General can accomplish nothing more than the banishment of these lettres, it will be a success.

  As the coffee is finished and everyone rises to leave, Curtius asks Henri to stay behind. “I am having some trouble with the du Barry model,” he says. “Since we moved her for the king’s visit, the mechanical heart is no longer working.” This is one of my uncle’s favorite figures, not because she is scantily dressed but because he has fitted her with a beating heart that makes the model’s ample chest rise and fall. Visitors always bend closer for a look, and some have sworn that they can even hear her breathing.

  “Have you tried replacing the pump?” Henri asks. I follow them down to the du Barry tableau. I watch as Henri steadily tinkers with the model, his hands moving lightly over her wax breasts, and suddenly the wine from dinner has flushed my cheeks. After a few minutes Henri declares, “It was the valve.” The heart is beating again, and mine flutters under my fichu. I fan myself distractedly with my hand, but neither of the men seems to notice.

  Curtius claps him heartily on the back. “Henri, I don’t know what we would do without you. How is that exhibition of yours going?”

/>   Henri smiles broadly, and I wonder how many women linger after his shows hoping he will smile like this at them. Quite a few, probably, though they are wasting their time. Like me, Henri is married to his work. But experiments with hydrogen do not pay the rent, and so Henri has taken on the task of putting on scientific shows. “I am about to install a new exhibit,” he tells us. “The Auricular Communications of the Invisible Girl. Perhaps you would like to see it tomorrow?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “But I have—”

  “We would love to,” Curtius interrupts.

  What’s the matter with him? He knows that Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe is to bring her daughter in for a sitting. I put on my best showman’s smile. “I look forward to seeing the Invisible Girl.”

  “Oh, you won’t see her,” Henri promises. “But you will hear her.”

  My cheeks flush again. “Of course.”

  “Tomorrow at seven in the morning then,” he says, and he is looking at me.

  After I see Henri to the door, I go upstairs to search for Curtius. I am angry with him. When does he think I will have time to prepare for a sitting if I am listening to some invisible girl? No doubt the mechanics of the show will be interesting—everything that Henri does defies logic. But there is nothing interesting about being unprepared. I stalk through the salon and stop as I’m about to enter the kitchen. Next to the unwashed pots and pans, Curtius has his arms around my mother, and they are sharing a tender moment. He is whispering something in her ear, and she is giggling. They are young again in the way they love each other. For a moment, I am tempted to interrupt. Then I turn around.

  I will have to remember to be angry with him tomorrow.

  Chapter 6

  FEBRUARY 4, 1789

  The contagious example of the Duc d’Orléans [is ruinous].

  —MADAME CAMPAN,

  FIRST LADY-IN-WAITING TO MARIE ANTOINETTE

  ALTHOUGH I SHOULD BE LAYING OUT CALIPERS AND BOWLS of plaster, I am standing in Henri’s workshop surrounded by the most curious instruments of science. Because I have been so busy with the Salon, I have not been here for several months—perhaps even a year, I realize with shock—and in that time much has changed. Placed haphazardly on the long wooden countertops are gadgets I have never seen before, and in between them are clear tubes filled with bubbling liquid. Everything looks new, but then that is the nature of science. Whereas wax will be the same in two hundred years, science changes daily.

  Like the house that we rent, Henri’s home with his brother, Jacques, has been divided into three parts. On the first floor is a vast auditorium with a sprawling workshop behind it, while upstairs are large chambers off a long hall and a kitchen. For me, the workshop is the most soothing. I imagine this is how Henri feels as well. It is probably a place where he can shut out the incessant noise of the Boulevard and concentrate on something quiet. While the crowds outside may never stop, art and science will go at your own pace. Even when an exhibition has gone poorly, I find peace in retiring to the back of my workshop to be among the tools of my trade.

  At a table on the far side of the room, Jacques Charles is scribbling furiously. Above him hangs the formula for which he is known, v1/t1 = v2/t2. The volume of a gas at constant pressure increases linearly with the absolute temperature of the gas. This is how Henri initially explained it to me. His words had confounded me for days until I returned and he showed me the experiment that resulted in the equation. He took a deflated silk balloon and held it over a lighted candle. The silk envelope twitched and flickered upward from his outstretched fingers. Heat expanded air, air filled the balloon, then the balloon went up. Magic, and not magic at all.

  When Jacques Charles lifts his head and greets us, I refrain from asking him what he is working on. My business is with Madame Sainte-Amaranthe and her daughter, and the fewer questions I ask, the sooner I will be able to return to the Salon. Still, I wonder when he will launch his next balloon. A model of the one launched in the Tuileries Gardens hangs next to the formula above his head. It is an exact replica, from its wicker gondola to its valve-and-ballast system. Nearly half a million people had been there to see it off, and because our family were special guests of the Charles brothers, we were granted a place in the front row across from the queen and her ménage. The queen had dressed her ladies in loose, flowing lévites, pink and yellow to coordinate with the color of the balloon. Matching scarves were tied around their waists, and their pink bonnets were identical. Only the queen herself stood out, in a lévite and bonnet of the purest white. I look around the workshop and realize what is missing. “The plaque from the queen,” I say. “Commemorating your flight. What happened to it?”

  Henri exchanges a look with his brother. Although fifteen years separate them, in some ways they are strikingly similar. I can see their kinship now in the way they both lower their eyes. “We thought it prudent to put it away,” Henri explains, “in case anyone should wish to tour our laboratory.”

  “It could be a major draw to your exhibition!” I look at Curtius to see if he agrees, but he is silent.

  “Do you know why the people were respectful during Their Majesties’ visit to your Salon?” Henri asks. “Because bread and firewood were passed out in their names all along the Boulevard du Temple that morning.”

  So the king and queen are savvy. They know that a peaceful outing in Paris requires a donation to the local poor. “I don’t see why that means you should take down her gift.”

  “If she had not placated the people, they would have stood at your doors shouting ‘Down with The Austrian.’ ”

  I don’t believe it. “They’ve been coming in droves to see what she’s seen.”

  “This week,” he points out. “What about next week? Or the week after that?”

  “She isn’t popular,” my uncle says quietly, and this is the first I’ve heard him speak against her. “We should listen carefully to what’s happening. There may come a time when the Duc is more popular than the king.”

  “The Duc d’Orléans?” I exclaim. The man who stumbles into his coach too drunk to sit upright every Tuesday night? The man who has publicly humiliated his wife by installing his mistress as governess, giving her the right to educate his children despite the Duchesse d’Orléans’s pleas to raise her own sons and daughters?

  “He has sold art from his estate worth more than eight million livres,” Jacques says. He stands next to his brother. “He is using the money to buy bread and firewood for the poor.”

  “And the peasants have begun calling him Father Charity,” Henri adds flatly.

  “So he thinks to win the crown through a popularity contest?” I demand.

  Everyone around me nods. To displace a king. It is unthinkable.

  “Come. Let’s hear the Invisible Girl,” Curtius says. “That is a far more cheerful subject.”

  But as we cross the workshop, I can’t stop thinking about the Duc, imagining him on the king’s throne, wearing the king’s crown. And who would be his queen? His mistress, Mary Nesbitt, whose origin can be traced to a wheelbarrow according to the scandal sheets? Or perhaps it would be Grace Elliott, London’s finest courtesan? And what would become of his wife, the beautiful and neglected Duchesse d’Orléans? I am so obviously disturbed by this prospect that Curtius puts his arm around my shoulder and says, “It will be fine. We didn’t come here to speak politics.” It is a reminder that I must look interested and enjoy the entertainment.

  Henri hesitates before the door to the auditorium. “We can do this another time.”

  “No,” I say. “I wish to see it. I don’t want to be the only one in Paris who hasn’t met the Invisible Girl.”

  Curtius smiles at me. It is important to him that we keep on good terms with the Charles brothers, and Henri in particular, who has been like another son to him, fixing our mechanics, painting our walls, helping build our tableaux. We enter the auditorium, with its hundreds of seats and darkly painted walls. At the far end of the stage, a large box has
been suspended from the ceiling. A giant horn has been affixed to the box. Henri waves us toward the stage, and I put my ear to the horn.

  “That is a lovely green dress you have on,” someone says from the other side of the horn.

  I jump back. “Where is she?” I look around. “How did she know?”

  Henri laughs. “Can’t you figure it out?”

  I am intrigued despite myself. Curtius puts his ear to the horn, and I hear a young woman’s voice tell him that his brown gloves are extremely elegant. Somehow, she can both see us and project her voice through the box. But she can’t be inside the box, for it is too small to accommodate a person. “She’s behind the stage,” my uncle says, “and there’s a peephole somewhere.”

  “Close, but not quite.”

  I listen again, and this time the girl compliments my green purse. I study the wall in front of me, then run my hands over its smooth surface. There is no hidden opening. I look up, and there, craftily disguised by a hanging lamp, is a peephole. “She’s up there!” I exclaim. Henri watches me with open fascination. “She’s looking down on us. And the mouthpiece of the horn … you have extended it all the way up to the attic.”

  “You are the first person to guess it.”

  It’s incredibly ingenious. “It will make you a million livres!” I say.

  “Is that all you think about?” Henri laughs, but there is earnestness in his question. “Curtius, you have raised a coldhearted entrepreneur. The only thing money is good for, Marie, is buying time. The time to do the things you like.”

  I often forget that exhibitions are a secondary passion for him. His first love is the laboratory, but as the more versatile brother, he has taken on the role of provider. It is only in his spare time that he is able to join Jacques among the gadgets and glass tubes. “Well, think of all the time a million livres could buy,” I say. “You could construct an entire fleet of balloons.”