Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution

by Michelle Moran

  The mayor of Paris has taken the podium and is attempting to create calm by telling the Assembly that the king has not fled of his own accord. “He must have been kidnapped!” Mayor Bailly cries. “Look at the men who surround him, the ministers we’ve allowed to give him advice. Are they as trustworthy as our king, who has only the good of his people at heart?”

  There are hisses from the crowd, and several assemblymen make threatening gestures. Then a tall man with dark hair strides forward, holding a fistful of papers in the air. I recognize him as Alexandre de Beauharnais, a nobleman who once came to the Salon looking to order a model of himself and his wife. He pushes aside the mayor and takes the podium. “Proof,” he shouts, “in the king’s own handwriting that he will never support a Constitution!”

  Alexandre begins to read the damning evidence purposefully left behind in the Tuileries on the king’s desk. In the letter, the king complains about the creation of the Assembly and goes so far as to call for a counterrevolution in Paris. There is no doubt now about his intentions. Wherever the king has fled, there is going to be war. If he should reach Austria, he will summon his own troops and any the queen’s brother is willing to provide. Paris has two weeks, perhaps a month at most, before an army descends.

  Robespierre takes the podium, but no one can hear him above the chaos. He gives up and appears on the balcony. “Come with me to the Jacobin Club,” he tells us. “There will be order there, and we can decide what to do.”

  But inside the Club, there is pandemonium as well. When Robespierre is finally able to command silence, his speech is scathing.

  “There are those in this audience who have perfected the mask of patriotism,” he says. “They wear the tricolor on their hats, yet they are royalists in their hearts. These are the enemies who are most dangerous to us. These are the men who will be your assassins as soon as the new flower of our liberty is plucked. Look around you!” he shouts. “Unless you wish to be crushed by the growing sea of tyranny about to descend, I suggest we find these false patriots and root them out!”

  I look at my mother, whose face is as pale as mine must be. My brothers are in the Swiss Guard. Our first language is German.

  “He trusts you,” Henri whispers. “It was Curtius he went to when the news came.”

  “In twenty-four hours,” Robespierre continues, “if the king isn’t captured, we should all expect war. I have prepared myself for whatever is to come. I am willing to give my life for the liberty of my country.”

  “And we would give our lives to save you!” someone shouts. It’s Camille, and he has brought Lucile with him. They are sitting together at the front of the room, both wearing enormous tricolor cockades. The Club members rise and swear to defend Robespierre’s life with their own. “Until the end!” they cry, and the shout is echoed throughout the old monastery.

  As we leave the Club, Robespierre is on the verge of tears. “They love me,” he says. “They can see I serve my country even before myself.” He stops in front of a young sapling and gently reaches out to touch its leaves. It’s one of the many liberty trees planted by the revolutionaries in the past three months. Before the dinner to celebrate Camille’s marriage to Lucile, the guests gathered in the Tuileries Gardens to plant a liberty tree in their name. It’s the fashionable thing to do among patriots now.

  “The National Guard will be ready to fight by this evening,” Curtius swears. “I’m going now to see Lafayette.”

  “The king will return with more troops than you can fight,” Robespierre worries.

  “That may be true, but we won’t be unprepared. Where are you going?”

  “Home,” Robespierre says quietly, “to make my will.”

  That evening, as Alexandre de Beauharnais assumes the leadership of France, we push through the crowds to the Boulevard du Temple, where we each make wills of our own.

  “There has never been a better time to marry,” Henri says. The rest of the house has gone to sleep, and we are the only ones inside the salon.

  “In a time of uncertainty?”

  “In a time when we don’t know if we’ll be alive to see the end of this month or the next.”

  “Tomorrow,” I say. “Let’s discuss this tomorrow.”

  But he reaches across the couch and pulls me toward him. “I am tired of tomorrow, Marie.” His eyes are wide and full of conviction. “I love you now.”

  Chapter 40

  JUNE 22, 1791

  “THEY HAVE BEEN CAPTURED! THE ROYAL FAMILY HAS BEEN captured!”

  As the newsboys shout, the words spread like fire throughout the city, burning from street to street until all of France is consumed. Everyone is outside gossiping with neighbors or pushing into the cafés at the Palais-Royal. Although it’s ten in the morning, there is no one inside our exhibition. I look at my mother. We are alone at the caissier’s desk. “Let’s go,” she says in German. “Curtius won’t be back until tonight. The only way we are getting news is if we go to the Palais.”

  We shut the doors and tell Yachin that he has been given the day off.

  “On account of the king’s capture?” he asks eagerly. “I heard they discovered him in the city of Varennes. What will they do with him?”

  That is the question, isn’t it? Is he a king? A prisoner? “I don’t know,” I say, although I can guess. “That is what we are hoping to find out.”

  I convince Henri and Jacques to come with us, since their exhibition is empty as well, and we find a driver who is willing to brave the crowds and take us to the Palais. Jacques and Henri debate which café we should go to. Committed revolutionaries like Camille and Georges Danton will be inside the Café de Foy. To be seen there is to tell your neighbors that you support the overthrow of the king. But constitutional monarchists will meet inside the Café de la Régence.

  “We’ll go to the Régence,” Henri says firmly. “We still don’t how this will all unfold.”

  “I can tell you how it will unfold,” Jacques says darkly. “The king is about to be made a prisoner in his own country. No better time to show our love of Revolution.”

  The brothers look to me.

  “The Café de la Régence,” I tell them.

  “Of course you would side with Henri!” Jacques exclaims wryly.

  “We might see Rose Bertin in the Régence, and no one will know more about what’s happening than her.”

  I am right. As soon as we enter the café, I see Rose’s commanding figure. She is surrounded by half a dozen women, all of them eagerly listening to her tale, but when she sees me, she excuses herself and joins us at a table in the corner. The five of us pull our chairs close together, and I ask, “Is it true? Are they captured?”

  “Last night.” She tells us the story. At Easter, when the royal family was forbidden to leave the Tuileries for their annual visit to Saint-Cloud, the king realized that he should have listened to the queen and escaped. “All this time,” she laments, “when everyone with sense was telling him to flee, he wanted to believe in the good of the people. But at Easter, there was no denying reality,” she says. “So the queen summoned Fersen’s help, and they began to plan.”

  This is not the first time I’ve heard Fersen’s name associated with the queen’s. Madame Élisabeth called him her sister-in-law’s dear friend. But what dear friend risks his life for a married woman unless there is something more between them?

  “She stopped ordering cheap gowns from Madame Éloffe,” Rose says, “and began buying robes à la française in black and lavender from me.”

  “And that’s when you knew,” I say.

  “Yes.” She brings a handkerchief to her nose and blows discreetly. It wouldn’t do to be seen weeping openly over the royal family’s capture. “The preparations went on for months,” Rose admits. “She wanted so many dresses that it took a second coach to carry them.”

  “What vanity,” Jacques says critically.

  “Her wardrobe was the only thing she felt she could control,” Rose offers. “I tri
ed to convince her that there would be dressmakers in Montmédy—”

  “So that’s where they were going?” Henri asks. Montmédy is a city on the border of the Austrian Empire, near Flanders. “That’s nearly eighty leagues away. How did they get there?”

  “They didn’t. But they hoped to go through Varennes. The king refused to split up the carriages, so they all went together. The queen, the children, the Marquis d’Agoult, Madame Élisabeth, three attendants, several bodyguards … And all of them in two enormous green-and-yellow berlines.”

  I put my hand to my head. “And no one told them that this was disaster?”

  “I did!” Rose exclaims, then lowers her voice. “They might have gone in separate, smaller carriages and traveled through Reims. That’s the quickest route. But the king thought this was the first road his pursuers would take, and the queen refused to leave her wardrobe behind.”

  “Count Axel von Fersen is the Swedish ambassador,” Jacques says. “He must have told them this was madness.”

  “This is the king,” Rose says dryly. “Of course, he knew best.”

  So Fersen found the funds to build two coaches and purchased them in the name of the Baroness von Korff. He kept them at his home, and on the night before last, he arrived at the Petit Carrousel, not far from the Tuileries, dressed as a coachman. He waited in this square while each member of the royal family escaped the palace and made their way to him. The governess was disguised as the Baroness von Korff, while both the six-year-old dauphin and Madame Royale were dressed as her daughters. The king was her valet, while the queen was costumed as the children’s governess.

  Everything was loaded into the carriages. Bread, cheese, a dozen bottles of wine. The queen’s jade manicure set rode with her, along with a chess set and a mahogany writing palette. Fersen only accompanied them for four leagues to Bondy, then made his own escape to Flanders while the royal family switched drivers. But without Fersen, everything fell apart.

  “Léonard was supposed to meet the berline in Varennes with fresh horses and soldiers,” Rose says. “But he wasn’t there.”

  “The queen’s hairdresser?” Henri asks. “They could have chosen a soldier, someone with experience.”

  “But they didn’t,” Rose says.

  I imagine Madame Élisabeth clutching her silver rosary as the carriage was stopped sixteen leagues from their destination. She would have been praying to all the saints in heaven, but most especially to the Virgin. “How were they discovered?” I ask quietly.

  “There is talk that a man recognized the king’s face from a fifty-livre-assignat,” Rose says, then closes her eyes. The early assignats were printed with the image of King Louis. Now they carry only symbols of the Revolution. “It could be rumor, but if I know the king, it will be true.”

  “But why would he show his face?” my mother asks.

  Rose opens her eyes. “Because he’s a fool!” she says in exasperation. “Because he wanted to stop and dine at an inn along the way. They should have kept Fersen,” she says. “They should never have separated from him. Of course, the king’s brother the Comte de Provence has escaped and is probably at Koblenz by now.”

  “With the Comte d’Artois?” I ask.

  “Yes. The pair of them should enjoy that,” she says bitterly. “Nothing to do but make trouble in their uncle’s city while Antoinette and the king are prisoners here.” She looks at me. “Curtius is close with Lafayette, and he is the one who signed the order for their arrest. So what does he say will become of them?”

  I wish she spoke German. Then I could tell her what my uncle learned yesterday without worrying who might overhear. As it is, I say as softly as I can, “They will probably take them back to the Tuileries and keep them under guard. My guess is they will force the king to sign the new Constitution.”

  “And the queen?”

  The news will not be as good for her. Especially not when the people discover that her family was making for Montmédy, so close to her brother’s empire. “They are talking about sending her to a convent and finding the king a new wife.”

  My mother exhales. “You cannot break up a marriage sanctified by God,” she says in German.

  “God does not rule here anymore. It is the National Assembly,” I say. I don’t tell her that the Assembly has already mentioned the Duc d’Orléans’s daughter as a possible replacement.

  “And do you think this is likely to happen?” Rose asks.

  “If it doesn’t, then there is talk of trying her for adultery.”

  “Leopold will save her,” Rose says fervently.

  My mother crosses herself. “He must.”

  Chapter 41

  SEPTEMBER 14, 1791

  THE KING HAS SIGNED THE CONSTITUTION INTO LAW THIS morning. France is to be a constitutional monarchy, with an assembly that will share power with the king. A hundred years from now, perhaps even five hundred, this will be a day remembered by the people of France, possibly by people across the world. The rejoicing in the streets has already begun. Henri and Jacques are to launch a balloon over the Champ-de-Mars announcing an end to the Revolution.

  At sunset, we ride to the Champ-de-Mars, where people are already filling the stands. Two months ago, this was the scene of a massacre. A group of angry citizens, gathered to sign a petition to overthrow the king, became unruly. Lafayette appeared with his National Guard, and when the petitioners began throwing stones at the soldiers, shots were fired. Thirty men were killed, and Marat’s L’Ami du Peuple called it the Champ-de-Mars Massacre. The papers turned against Lafayette. And when it emerged that the queen had slipped past him on the night the royal family escaped, men like Robespierre started to speak openly against him.

  But today, the crowds are joyful. Jacques has brought the wicker basket and the balloon, and both have been arranged in the grassy center of the stadium so that thousands of people can watch it take flight. Henri asks if my mother and I would like to hang tricolor ribbons from the gondola, and while we’re helping, a woman comes up to Henri and asks, “Are you one of the Charles brothers?”

  “I am,” he says.

  She claps her hands. “Then this must be the Charlière!” She looks up at the giant gold balloon—a color chosen in my honor—then back at Henri. “I am a great admirer of men of science.”

  Henri grins. “Are you?”

  “Oh yes.” She is dressed in a revealing chemise gown with a fetching bonnet of blue and white.

  “Well, perhaps you can express your admiration to Jacques. My brother enjoys speaking with devotees.”

  She looks at Jacques, with his heavy jowls and protruding belly. “I think I would prefer to speak with you.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says kindly. “We are busy here, and my fiancée is the extremely jealous type.”

  “Henri!” I exclaim.

  He laughs. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  The young woman studies me with a critical eye, then turns on her heel.

  “Your fame precedes you,” I say.

  He sighs. “Just another day for the Charles brothers.”

  “Or at least Henri Charles,” I whisper. I wonder how many times this happens to him in his exhibition. If we were married, then I suppose I would know. “Tell me about the balloon,” I say.

  “What? Are you an admirer as well?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Well, what do you want to know?”

  “Explain to us the difference between using hot air and hydrogen,” Wolfgang says.

  “Wolfgang!” My brother has arrived with Curtius and Abrielle. “What are you doing here?”

  “What—captains aren’t allowed to watch the festivities?” My brother and I embrace while my mother rushes to take Michael from Abrielle. My little nephew shrieks with delight. It has been eight weeks since we’ve seen him. We live only twenty minutes away, but the work in the Salon never stops. He is all big cheeks and wispy blond hair. He wraps his chubby arms around his grandmother’s neck, and everyone prais
es him for looking like his parents.

  “When will he walk?” I ask Abrielle.

  “Oh, not until November or December I should think.”

  I know nothing about children, and even less about how they learn to walk and talk.

  “Don’t look so worried.” She laughs. “You’ll learn all about children once you are pregnant. It’s the only thing anyone will want to talk to you about.”

  Two years ago, she was sitting in the queen’s rooms fending off the attention of every man in attendance. Now, she is dressed in a simple chemise gown with ribbon instead of pearls for her neck. “So does it bore you?” I ask.

  “I was afraid it would be lonely.” She looks at Michael, bouncing happily on my mother’s hip, and adds, “But I was wrong. Motherhood is not at all what I expected.”

  “For the good,” I say hopefully.

  “Oh yes. But it never stops.” She adds, “There is always something to do or to buy. He grows so quickly. Every month he needs new clothes.”

  It must cost a fortune. How do they afford it? Even now that we are part of every Catalog of Amusements, we barely take in enough to pay for the wax, the costumes, the wigs, the accessories, plus food for our small family and our own clothing.

  “But it’s simply a matter of economy,” Abrielle says, as if reading my thoughts, and I am impressed at how she has grown up. At no time during these past two years has her father tried to see her. Yet she has made do with what she has.

  “I wish I could learn to be more like you,” I admit.

  She is puzzled. “I have never met anyone better at economizing. You could convince the king to pay for his own crown.”

  I laugh. Then we turn to Wolfgang and Curtius, who are listening to Henri. “So there are limits to hot air,” Henri is saying. “When the air cools, the balloon is forced to descend.”