But no one is thinking about who will run the hospitals and poorhouses when the anniversary of the Bastille approaches. Instead, a celebration—larger than any celebration to come before—is planned for the fourteenth of July. The National Assembly is calling it the Fête de la Fédération. On the Champ-de-Mars, a tremendous stadium has been built for the occasion. Tens of thousands of people flood into Paris to take part in the festivities. The fête begins with deputies from foreign nations parading with their flags to remind us that we are one people, one race, one human nation. The Swedes, the Turks, the Mesopotamians—they are all here to celebrate this great oneness. Then Lafayette mounts a podium to swear an oath to the Constitution, which is still in the making, and the entire stadium falls silent.
“We swear forever to be faithful to the Nation, to the Law, and to the King, to uphold with all our might the Constitution as decided by the National Assembly and accepted by the King, and to protect according to the laws the safety of people and properties, transit of grains and food within the kingdom, the public contributions under whatever forms they might exist, and to stay united with all the French with the indestructible bonds of brotherhood.”
The king takes his place at the podium to swear his oath. Then the queen appears, and when everything is finished, there is cannon fire all around the Champ-de-Mars.
“Study these faces,” Curtius suggests. “These are men you may never see again.”
With two family members as captains in the National Guard, I am introduced to every foreign delegate. There is John Paul Jones, the Scottish fighter who has founded the American Navy. And Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet Common Sense inspired the Americans to rebel against England. It was over a year ago that Wolfgang gave me a copy. These men have traveled to Paris for this occasion, and both believe this is a great day for France.
“Not every action the Assembly makes will be for good,” Paine tells me. “But tyranny can never be allowed to flourish.”
Perhaps I should be happy. But I see the misery of Madame Élisabeth when I visit her, and I hear of the way the people treat the queen, and I have to think it cannot be this way in England. Not even King George III, who is said to be mad and ruled by his son, is slandered in the streets and spit on in his gardens.
In all of this, there are two events that bring us real joy. Near the end of July, Abrielle is delivered of a healthy son. He is christened Michael Louis Grosholtz, and although the baron does not come to see him, no child has ever brought his family greater happiness. His bassinet may not be lined with silk, but he will never be cold and he will never go hungry.
Then, in December, Lucile brings us the news she has been waiting years for. She and Camille are finally to marry. In this new world of assemblies and liberty, Camille has become someone of great importance. When the king is forced to sign the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, commanding all priests to swear an oath of loyalty to the nation or be labeled a dissident, it’s Camille’s paper the people turn to for information. And when the Assembly abolishes all hereditary titles of nobility, it’s Camille’s paper that inspires the celebration in the streets. He has become a man of rousing metaphors, and Lucile’s father has turned down proposals from men with incomes of twenty-five thousand assignats a year to give her to Camille.
The wedding is held in the fashionable Church of Saint-Sulpice, with its view of the Left Bank and its Italian colonnades. I am wearing the very best gown I own, and the pearls around my neck are a gift from Curtius.
I look around the church and see many of the faces from our new Fête de la Fédération tableau. There is Lafayette, sitting with his pretty wife, Adrienne. And there is Mirabeau. He looks terribly frail for such a large man. He is sitting at the front of the church with a bloodied handkerchief around his neck. When I ask Curtius what this is for, he tells me, “The leeches. He uses them for his eyes.” When I recoil, he adds, “Apparently, the Salle du Manège has poor ventilation, and no one can see. The room is filled with smoke, but it’s the only place they can find that is large enough to house the Assembly.”
I look back at Mirabeau, who is clearly suffering. It can’t just be his eyes. His cheeks are hollow, and my guess is that his syphilis is very bad. He is sitting next to the Duc d’Orléans, who returned to France several months ago with a new name, Philippe Égalité. He has proclaimed himself a man of the people and is now a member of the Jacobin Club. Nearly everyone here, including my uncle, has also become a member. Every law, every act, every possible decree, is debated endlessly before the Club, with the hope that the members who hold positions of power will return to the National Assembly with a single agenda. They are all men of dreams, but none of them speak as long or as passionately as Robespierre.
If I lean to the side, I can see him near the altar in a pale blue coat and silver cravat. He is acting as witness for Camille. I wonder if, in their schoolboy days together, they ever imagined standing in Saint-Sulpice with all the important players of the nation behind them. When the ceremony is finished, Robespierre steps back while Camille shouts triumphantly, “Lucile Desmoulins!”
The entire church erupts into applause. Then we are on our feet and moving to follow the happy couple out the door.
“Perhaps that will be us someday,” Henri remarks, and I can hear the edge in his voice.
“The Austrians are at our gates,” I tell him. “You know Curtius can’t leave his position now. There could be war at any moment. Today, tomorrow—”
“Next month, next year …”
I can see the mistrust in his face. He’s beginning to believe that I don’t love him, that I’ll postpone our marriage forever. “I hope I’ve never given you any cause to doubt how much I love you. Or that I want to marry you.”
“Then let’s do it now. Today.”
“Henri—”
“How long will this continue? Last year, Curtius promised to resign his post. So when will it be? Another year? Two? I’m a patient man, Marie, but everyone has a breaking point. You must make a choice. Do you want to be Rose Bertin or Vigée-Lebrun?”
My eyes fill with tears. Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun was the queen’s artist. She married a fellow painter named Jean-Baptiste, and the pair of them have traveled across Europe together, arranging commissions and painting portraits. They have a daughter, little Jeanne Julie Louise. Somehow, Vigée-Lebrun has balanced motherhood with art. But how am I to do that? I can’t. Not yet.
Henri wipes away my tears with the back of his glove. Then he puts his arm through mine. “Think on it,” is all he says.
Chapter 38
APRIL–JUNE 1791
War is the national industry of Prussia.
—COMTE DE MIRABEAU
MIRABEAU IS DEAD.
I am in the workshop when I hear the news that the great voice of the Revolution has passed. A year ago, almost to this date, it was Benjamin Franklin. Now, it is the man who was only recently made president of the National Assembly. At first, there is the hope that the news is wrong. Then there is talk that perhaps he has gone to the countryside to escape from politics and live incognito. But when Mirabeau’s body is displayed to the public, the wailing and beating of chests begins.
Immediately, we make the bust of Mirabeau the centerpiece of our Salon, and the people who come dressed in black to mourn his passing would fill a stadium. On the day his ashes are interred inside the Panthéon—built to reflect the great masterpiece in Rome—the Assembly requests our bust for their procession.
“The Revolution has been the making of us,” Curtius says as Robespierre carries away the wax head.
I reflect on this. While good men like de Flesselles and de Launay have died, we have thrived. While the Swiss Guards are mistrusted for being the king’s men, Curtius and Wolfgang are greatly respected as captains of the National Guard. Why does life carry some people on the crest of the wave while others drown beneath the water?
I look across the room to a white certificate hanging above the caissier’s desk.
It is the Assembly’s official recognition of Curtius as one of the Vainqueurs de la Bastille. In a splendid ceremony at Notre-Dame, he was given this document along with a sword inscribed with his name. We are good patriots. That is clear for anyone to see. And perhaps this is why Jacques-Louis David helped Curtius become a member of the Académie.
I remember the moment when the news arrived—as exciting as the night the letter came from the king to say that he’d be visiting our Salon. At last, the recognition of my uncle’s talent has come. It doesn’t matter that I wasn’t made a member as well. What matters is that the Salon de Cire will finally be in every guidebook to Paris. We have been recognized by the Académie as worthy of being seen, and for the rest of his life, perhaps on his gravestone, my uncle will be Philippe Curtius, member of the Académie Royale.
But Austrian and Prussian troops are amassing at our border. The fear that the Revolution may be crushed drives two men to break into the Tuileries and attempt to take the queen’s life. Marat, now a master of sensationalism, has written on the front page of his Ami du Peuple:
Five or six hundred heads would have guaranteed your freedom and happiness, but a false humanity has restrained your arms and stopped your blows. If you don’t strike now, millions of your brothers will die, your enemies will triumph, and your blood will flood the streets. They’ll slit your throats without mercy and disembowel your wives. And their bloody hands will rip out your children’s entrails to erase your love of liberty forever.
All of Paris is in a frenzy. Our family has cleverly played both sides, and if the queen’s Austrian allies march into France, we will not have much to fear. But men who’ve been outspoken against the king? They’ve gambled everything, and they have no choice but to press forward. It will be their lives in danger if the queen’s brother Leopold II gathers his troops to restore the monarchy. So now, more than ever, the Assembly appreciates the men in the National Guard. They will be the ones to fight against any invading army hoping to prevent a Constitution from being signed. The king’s aunts have both escaped to Rome, and each day is more dangerous for the royal family. When I visit Madame Élisabeth in June, she confides in me that everyone in the Tuileries is despondent.
“The National Assembly means to take my brother’s power and leave him with nothing more than a veto. Why not just strip him of everything right now?” she asks. “Because, in the end, that’s what they plan to do.”
We are in the workshop with de Bombelles, who must no longer be referred to as the marquise. At every door, along every hall, the National Guardsmen who have been posted to the Tuileries have found a hundred ways of making life miserable for the royal family. They whisper threats under their breath as the family dines. They warn the innocent and impressionable dauphin to be careful in the gardens, because assassins might be waiting behind every bush. They leave behind crude drawings for Madame Royale to find, and they threaten anyone who mistakenly addresses them with a hereditary title.
“It’s become unbearable,” de Bombelles agrees, taking from me a pair of glass eyes. “And now they’ve forbidden the royal family to leave. Élisabeth can no longer go out to deliver her saints.”
I look up in surprise. “Not even to a church?”
Madame Élisabeth shakes her head. “We are prisoners in here,” she says, repeating something she told me two years ago. “I predicted this, and my brother wouldn’t believe me.”
“We will find someone to deliver your models,” I promise. She has completed thirty-three to date. Now we are working on a figure of Saint Stephen, who was stoned to death for his visions of God. His head is crowned with thorns, and his upturned palms are filled with rocks.
“Now I know how it felt for Daniel, pacing the lions’ den with no chance of escape.”
“Except through God,” de Bombelles adds immediately.
“Yes.” Madame Élisabeth hesitates. “Except through God.”
On June seventeenth, when I return to her workshop, a new mood has settled over the Tuileries. From down the hall, I can hear the king whistling. Madame Élisabeth is insistent that we finish the model of Saint Stephen today, even though there’s no time to paint on his sandals.
“He’ll go barefoot,” she decides. “That’s not so terrible, is it?” I laugh. “No, Madame.”
“So tell me,” she says, and her voice is full of intrigue and hope. “The queen says that there are shops now that sell ready-made clothing at the Palais-Royal. Is it true?”
“Yes. You can walk in and purchase a dress without hiring a tailor or having to be fitted.”
“Imagine!” She looks at de Bombelles. “A world without tailors.”
De Bombelles wrinkles her nose. She wants to say, A world run by commoners.
“And what do they charge?” Madame Élisabeth asks.
“They have a list,” I tell her. “Fancy chemise gowns trimmed with pearls are more expensive than plain ones, and the same goes for bonnets and fichus.”
“And the men? Are there shops for ready-made men’s clothing as well?”
“Yes. They can pick out wool jackets or choose culottes in three different sizes.”
This is something de Bombelles cannot conceive of. “And if someone is gigantically fat?” she demands. “What do they do?”
“Well, if they look like the Duc d’Orléans,” I whisper, “they continue to hire a tailor.”
Both women laugh uproariously. There’s no love between them and the Duc—or Philippe Égalité, as he wishes to be called, though I shall never think of him this way. Madame Élisabeth wipes tears from her eyes. “Things are truly changing,” she says. Her face becomes serious. “Thank you, Marie, for everything you’ve done for us.”
“It is nothing, Madame.”
“It is. And I want you to know I will never forget it.”
That evening, as I make my way down the hall, I recognize a woman’s voice on the stairs. Rose is talking to Léonard while half a dozen women trail behind them with baskets of accessories and heavy dresses. “Rose!” I exclaim.
Everyone freezes, as if they’ve been caught in a shameful act. “Go.” She motions for the others to continue, and when they’ve disappeared down the hall, she turns to me. “So you are helping them prepare as well?”
I frown. “Who?”
“The royal family,” she whispers impatiently. “Did they want something I couldn’t bring?” When I am silent, she realizes the mistake she has made. “Never mind,” she says quickly.
“Why? What are they planning?”
“Nothing.” Rose levels me with her gaze. “I never said anything.”
Chapter 39
JUNE 21, 1791
It is with regret that I pronounce the fatal truth: Louis ought to perish rather than a hundred thousand virtuous citizens; Louis must die that the country may live.
—MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE
ON JUNE TWENTY-FIRST, JUST AFTER DAWN, WHILE MOST OF the city is still asleep, a tocsin begins to ring. The sound starts as a single chime, then becomes a cacophony of bells as I hurry into a simple muslin dress. In the hall, my mother is covering her ears. We wait for Curtius to put on his boots, then we hurry downstairs and open the door. People are in the streets, shouting above the relentless ringing. Henri and Jacques are speaking with our grocer, and we join the three of them.
“The royal family has escaped,” Henri tells us. “They made away last night without anyone suspecting.”
“Everyone is gone!” The grocer is pulling at his apron. He has been a vocal supporter of this Revolution, and it will not go well for him if the tide turns. “The king, the queen, the children, and their governess. Madame Élisabeth is gone. Even the king’s brother the Comte de Provence has escaped. As well as his wife.”
My first feeling is of immense relief. Whatever happens now, it is in God’s hands. Then I think of what may happen if the king returns with Austrian troops. Wars do not discriminate in their destruction. With certainty, the entire city will be punished. The Pa
lais-Royal, with its cafés and salons, will be the first to be destroyed. And who’s to say that foreign troops won’t look to the Boulevard after that?
“Curtius!” someone shouts. A small man is trying to make his way through the crowds, and when I glimpse a pair of green spectacles, I recognize Robespierre. When he reaches us, his voice is filled with emotion. “Curtius,” he says, and for a moment I wonder if he is going to embrace him. “This is the day when every patriot will be put to the test. There is no doubt about it now. Our lives are in danger. Every aristocrat in France is hoping to rise up and crush this Revolution. Tell me,” he begs, and his hands are shaking. “Is the National Guard with us?”
“Of course,” Curtius replies.
“Then come with me to the Manège. We must inspire the people to stand against this!”
There is no hope of taking a coach, so the six of us follow Robespierre through the streets. The bells have stopped ringing, but the roads are so crowded with panicked citizens that the forty-minute walk takes us more than two hours. When we finally reach the Salle du Manège at the edge of the Tuileries Gardens, thousands of people are crushing one another in a desperate attempt to get inside. It will be another half hour just to get through the masses.
“There’s another way,” Robespierre says. He leads us through a back door built for the royal equestrian academy. The hall was constructed to house horses, not people, and as we take our seats in the public gallery, I can imagine how Mirabeau must have suffered in here. The room is ten times as long as it is wide, with high vaulted windows that let in little air. Because it’s impossible to hear anything from the back, Robespierre finds us seats in the balcony. As an assemblyman, however, he does not sit with us. He takes Curtius with him to the benches below, where other members are listening and shaking their heads.
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