“If that happens—”
“Oh, it won’t,” Rose says. “The king can never make a decision. Louis”—Rose has called him by his first name!—“can’t decide between a green waistcoat and a brown.” She turns to me. “I hear the Salon is turning a handsome profit these days.”
“Much like your boutique. When’s the last time the queen ordered so many dresses?”
Rose grins. “Perhaps the royal family should parade more often.”
BUT THE PROCESSION is not successful. The people line the roads from Paris to Versailles and watch their monarchs pass in stoic silence. I refuse to watch a woman crippled by the loss of her elder son forced to dress in her finest silks to convince people that the nation is more important than personal grief. And it is. But when is the queen allowed to weep, to face the misery of loss?
The fishwives taunted her for not producing a child after she arrived in France. And then, when the child came, they cheered in the streets and lit fireworks in the sky. Now, it’s as if Louis-Joseph, with his curious eyes and hopeful smile, never even was.
I can’t imagine the sorrow of the queen when she learns that forty-seven members of the nobility have already joined the National Assembly, following the lead of the Duc d’Orléans. We rush to re-dress his wax model in a black coat with a white cravat. Though it’s galling to me, the Duc’s figure dressed in plebeian clothes is an astounding draw. People pay twenty sous. Then twenty-five. There are so many visiting Englishmen that we send our signs to Yachin’s father to have them translated into English. As a printer, he can do these things. Although I cannot read the signs, I hang them in each room of the Salon.
It is all happening quickly now. Without daily trips into the Palais-Royal, it would be impossible to keep up with the news. On the twenty-third of June, the king visits the National Assembly against his Finance Minister’s wishes, and declares that the divisions between the three estates must remain. He orders the errant members of the clergy and nobility to return to their own assemblies. As Camille describes it for us that night in our salon, Necker is so outraged that he resigns his post.
“And then Mirabeau stood on his seat and declared to the entire Assembly, ‘We are here by the power of the people, and we will not leave except by the force of bayonets.’ Can you imagine?” Camille is nearly crying with joy. “He challenged the k-king!”
“And Necker?” Lucile asks.
“Oh, Necker returned to his post,” Camille says. “The king spent the afternoon begging.”
“So what will happen?” Henri asks.
“I don’t know!” Camille thrives off of this uncertainty. “I have to return to Versailles tomorrow. I have two articles I’m working on for the gazette.”
“And something else,” Lucile adds coyly. “Go ahead. Tell them.”
Camille looks around the table. We are a smaller group tonight: Robespierre and the Duc have not been here since finding fame in the Assembly. They have not even seen themselves in wax. “I am writing my first political tract,” he says.
“He calls it La France Libre.”
“I heard two publishers have already turned it down,” Marat retorts. “Are they so frightened of angering the king?”
“P-perhaps,” Camille stutters. “But I won’t be discouraged. We’ll find a press.”
“He is writing about a republic,” Lucile explains. “About throwing off this mantle of tyranny and embracing freedom.” If Lucile were a man, she would be right there with Camille.
“It’s radical,” Camille admits. “But it’s nothing the Americans haven’t proposed.”
“Only this is not America,” Curtius points out.
“It could be. It will be. Give it time, and this National Assembly will rise above the king.”
WE ARE IN the Café de Foy on the twenty-seventh of June when we hear the news. Just as the sun is about to set and the streetlamps of the Palais-Royal are being lit, a man stands at the doors to the café and shouts that the Revolution is over. The Third Estate has won, and the king has ordered both the clergy and the nobility to join the National Assembly. He has legitimized this strange, new body of government, and now every vote shall be counted! Men begin dancing in the streets, and women are waving their handkerchiefs from the windows, shouting down to their neighbors that the Third Estate has triumphed.
“We should leave,” Henri says suddenly.
I look down at his coffee. It’s not half finished. “With all this excitement?”
“Couldn’t you hear what the men were saying behind us?” Henri asks. “Unless you consider troops converging on Paris exciting, we should find a carriage or walk.” He fetches my uncle, interrupting his conversation.
Whispers are exchanged, and Curtius comes to me at once. “In a few hours, these men will all be drunk. We should get home.”
But pushing through the crowds of the Palais-Royal is nearly impossible. There must be thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people celebrating. Vendors are selling boxes of fireworks for twelve sous. Once, these bright lights were strictly reserved for celebrations in Versailles, but suddenly anyone can purchase them. The rockets and serpents screech their way through the air and light up the sky in different colors. Children are clapping at the noisy displays, and I wonder what their parents will do if soldiers surround the Palais-Royal. There’s no finding a horse and carriage, but it’s only thirty minutes to the Boulevard by foot.
Every stranger we pass bids us good evening, and one man shouts, “It’s a fine day to be a patriot!”
“Patriots, equality …” Henri shakes his head. “Everyone is celebrating as if there’s bread in the bakeries and oil in the lamps. But what has really been accomplished?”
“Lower taxes?” I ask.
“They haven’t voted. Anything might happen between now and then.”
It takes an hour to reach the Boulevard du Temple. When we arrive, my mother is standing on the steps, her hands on her hips and a lantern at her side. “Where have you been?” she cries. “You left for the Palais five hours ago.”
“You have no idea what it was like,” Curtius says. “Thousands of people—”
“Well, did you hear the news?”
“Yes. The National Assembly can go forward.”
“Not that. The king is sending soldiers! It’s all over the Boulevard. He’s sending the Gardes Françaises along with the Royal German Regiment.”
“Foreigners,” I whisper, “from Germany and Switzerland.” Because the French can’t keep their own soldiers from deserting, they are forced to look outside their borders. The Royal German Regiment has hired men who will have no compunction about firing on French citizens.
Curtius follows her into the house, but I remain on the steps with Henri. I slip my hand into his, and we sit down together to watch the fireworks. “I hope it’s the beginning of something better,” I say.
“For the Salon?”
“For everyone. We had no bread last night. My mother couldn’t find any. Yachin says his family hasn’t eaten bread in months.”
“We are living off meat and mushrooms in our house.”
“That’s what Curtius says we’ll have to do. Everyone is growing mushrooms. I wonder how long there will be bread in Versailles?”
“Are you going back?”
“This Friday. But Madame Élisabeth only wants me for two days a week now.”
“Lucky for me.” Henri wraps his arm around my waist. “Obviously, she doesn’t know what she’s missing.”
I lean my head against his shoulder and inhale the scent of his hair. For the rest of my life, I will associate the sweetness of almond oil with Henri. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if there were no Salon, if I were simply an heiress and had nothing to do with my days but be with him. Of course, that’s unrealistic. If I were an heiress, I would be married off to an old man with a fortune in property. “I think the princesse may be more interested in news than in wax,” I say. “I’m the only one who will tell her the trut
h.”
“Not the entire truth?” Henri pulls away and searches my face.
“Certainly not. But most of it.”
“Be careful.”
“I know. That’s what Edmund said.”
“No word from him still?”
I shake my head. “I doubt there will be. Not until all of this is over.” I hear murmuring on the other side of the door and wonder if my mother is listening to us. There’s no disguising what we’re doing out here, but neither Curtius nor my mother has mentioned it. “Do you think they’re listening?” I whisper.
“If they are,” he says loudly, “then they should know that I intend to marry their daughter, Marie Grosholtz.”
“Shh.” I giggle.
“What? There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Is there?”
I lean forward and brush my lips against his. “No,” I whisper. It is the first time I have kissed him this way, and his response is passionate. It is to his credit that he has never asked me to follow him inside, into his home, his chamber, his bed. Because I’m not sure I would have the willpower to say no. And if I go to his bed, then why not marry him? So instead, we remain outside, where theatergoers doing far worse things take no notice of a couple embracing on the steps.
Chapter 22
JULY 3, 1789
I would not exchange my leisure hours for all the wealth in the world.
—COMTE DE MIRABEAU
A LETTER HAS ARRIVED FROM ROBESPIERRE PRAISING TWO men from the National Assembly and suggesting that we include them in the Salon de Cire. My uncle passes the envelope to me before my carriage arrives for Versailles. I stand in the door and read Robespierre’s small, cramped handwriting in the light of the rising sun:
The Revolution is far from finished, and you should not be deceived by the fireworks at the Palais-Royal. Though the events of this week have proved far more powerful and productive than any in the history of mankind, there is more to be accomplished. The great leaders of this new world shall be men of strong principles like Georges Danton and Mirabeau, true patriots who gather around the fire of liberty and fan the flames with their brave actions and words. If you can, include them in the Salon de Cire. Then the people of France shall know that you are great patriots as well.
“Men of strong principles like Danton and Mirabeau?” I look up at Curtius. “A lawyer and a rapist? We should take down both their models,” I say heatedly. The audacity, to suggest to us which models we should display! And the delusion. There is no man or woman alive in France who believes that Mirabeau is a man of principles.
Curtius puts his hand on my shoulder. “A letter came from Wolfgang as well. Earlier this morning. I gave it to your mother. He says thirty thousand soldiers are making their way toward Paris. Most of them mercenaries.”
We look at each other in the red light of dawn. It will be warm today. The women brave enough to visit the Palais-Royal will be wearing muslin dresses and wide straw hats, the same clothing the queen once loved and was criticized for wearing.
“The king is surrounding the city,” Curtius says. “See what you can discover from Madame Élisabeth. It may be that by tomorrow we’ll be hiding our models of Robespierre and Mirabeau. And ask the coachman to take you by the Bastille. I heard from the butcher that the Marquis de Sade’s making some kind of scene. If you can find out what’s he doing …”
WHEN I TELL the coachman to take me by the Bastille, he smirks. “So you want to hear the rantings of a madman as well?”
“Why? What is he doing?”
The old man raises his brows. “Shouting down that they are killing the prisoners.”
“What?”
“No need to be worried, Mademoiselle. My son is a guard there. The marquis is just angry that they won’t give him his daily coffee anymore. But if it pleases you to hear him …”
“Yes,” I say. “It will only be a minute.”
He takes me to the Bastille, where a crowd is growing beneath a window. I descend from the coach and stand among the onlookers. Above us is the massive figure of the Marquis de Sade. He has taken the funnel from his urinal and is using it as a speaking trumpet. “Political prisoners who’ve disobeyed the king are being slaughtered like lambs!” he’s shouting. “Somebody help us!”
“Liar!” I exclaim. “Those guards aren’t killing anyone.”
People turn to face me. “How do you know?” a young woman demands.
“I’ve met with the marquis. He’s sick in the mind.”
“That’s what will happen,” an old woman says, “after years of imprisonment and beatings.”
When I return to the carriage, the coachman asks, “Well?”
“I told them they weren’t killing prisoners, and no one would believe me.”
“Of course not. They want to believe in the king’s cruelty. It’s better than believing that God and Nature are starving them to death.”
I think about those words on the way to Versailles. Death is confined to the poorhouses and hospitals, both funded by the Church. But certainly people are starving. We don’t talk about it at night, but I see the account books. I know what my mother is spending on food. Fourteen sous for one dinner’s worth of milk and cream. Ten sous for salad. Six sous for vegetables that will feed only three. A daily worker’s wage is twenty-five sous.
When I arrive at Montreuil, I’m greeted by a servant who tells me in hushed tones that the princesse will not see me for another hour. “She is in prayer, Mademoiselle.”
“At ten in the morning?”
The courtier nods as we go inside. He’s impeccably dressed in a long powdered wig and an embroidered coat. “It has been this way since the death of the dauphin. The princesse prays now three times a day.”
I follow him into the workshop. It has been a month since I’ve been in here, and nothing has changed. The figure of Christ still hangs above the door, and the aprons look dazzlingly white in the sun. It could be the end of May if not for the heat and the blossoms outside.
“Is there anything I can get for you, Mademoiselle?”
“No. Thank you.”
“The princesse wishes to make a sculpture of the new dauphin today. She asked me to relay this to you.”
“I’ll prepare while I wait.”
The courtier shows himself out, and I take a seat on a wooden stool. The quiet is unnerving. Where is everyone? Hundreds of people must work in Montreuil, but there is no one in the halls and none of them can be seen outside. I look over the tools on the countertop. Everything is here. But we will need a recent bust or another likeness of Louis-Charles, the new dauphin, if we are to sculpt him.
I put on my apron and begin to knead three pieces of clay. When an hour has passed, a series of footsteps echo in the hall. But it’s far too many to be only two people. I wash my hands and rush to smooth my apron. When the doors swing open, I drop into my lowest curtsy. Madame Élisabeth has brought not only the queen but the king and the four-year-old dauphin! “Your Majesties.”
“Welcome back.” Madame Élisabeth smiles kindly.
I’m shocked by the changes a month has wrought. Both she and the queen are thin. The queen’s delicate collarbone protrudes above her lace fichu, and the angles in Madame Élisabeth’s face are entirely different. The king, however, has grown fatter. Is that possible? Only the Marquise de Bombelles looks the same.
“I thought we could model the dauphin from life,” Madame Élisabeth says. “And my brother wishes to see how a wax model is done.”
Chairs with padded arms are brought and space is made in front of the countertop for the royal family. I wonder where Madame Royale might be, but I don’t ask. Her absence is a blessing. The princesse puts on her apron, then helps the marquise into hers. “We begin by wetting and kneading the clay,” she explains. “But since Marie has been waiting, she has done it for us.”
“Can I touch?” the dauphin asks.
I look to the queen, who smiles and nods. I tear off a small piece of clay and hand it to him.
Like his brother, he’s a small, curious child.
“Can you roll it into a ball?” the king asks. The dauphin shapes the clay, and his father claps. “Excellent! Only four years old and he can already make shapes.” The king looks at me. “It has been some time since you’ve been to Montreuil.”
“Yes. June was not a month for light entertainments.”
“It was a month to forget for many reasons,” he admits. “I suppose the Boulevard is rife with political discontent. Filled with young people and entertainers. The restless sort.”
“The restlessness is all over Paris,” I confess.
“So tell us,” the queen says lightly. But her face cannot lie. There are tension lines around her eyes and mouth. “What do the Parisians think of our troops?”
I look at the pair of Swiss Guards who stand stiffly by the door. Whatever I say will make its way back to Edmund. The queen sees the direction of my gaze and snaps her fingers. “Privacy please.”
When the men remove themselves to the hall, everyone looks to me.
“The Parisians …” What should I say? The truth? A half-truth? If I tell them that there were fireworks over the Palais-Royal, will the Duc be arrested? And if the Duc discovers what I’ve said and the people make him king?
“Your words won’t go beyond these walls,” the queen swears.
I can’t believe there is no one else to give our monarchs this news, no one else who will tell them how it is in Paris. Or perhaps I am one of many people they are questioning. “This morning there was a disturbance at the Bastille,” I tell them. “The Marquis de Sade was shouting from his tower that they were killing prisoners on the orders of Your Majesty.”
“That’s preposterous!” the king exclaims. “There are only seven prisoners in the Bastille. I have wanted to tear it down for years.” He turns to Marie Antoinette. “You asked me to tear it down.”
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