Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution

by Michelle Moran

  My hands go cold. “Then they will come for me.”

  “No,” she says firmly. “Robespierre believes your uncle is a patriot. He would never have asked for his help if he thought otherwise. And if your uncle is a patriot, then so are you.”

  “So it’s guilt or innocence by association.”

  She can see the absurdity in this, just as I can. “It’s like they’re hunting witches,” she says. “Anyone wearing a black-and-white cockade or using an honorary title is suspect. This evening, they are transferring the guillotine to the Place du Carrousel next to the Tuileries Palace.”

  “Are they going to kill everyone who has ever worked in Versailles?”

  “They killed your barker’s family for less.” What is she saying?

  “They killed him because he was fleeing.”

  Her eyes go wide as she realizes that I have not been told. “Oh, Marie—”

  I put down my cup. “What? I will hear it anyway,” I swear. “Why did they kill him?”

  “You should ask your uncle.”

  “He is with Danton.”

  “Then your mother—”

  “Perhaps she has not been told either,” I say angrily.

  “No. She was there when Robespierre …”

  I wait for her to say it.

  “When Robespierre told us that they searched Yachin’s bags and found a handkerchief with the queen’s initials on it.”

  I cover my mouth with my hands.

  “They accused his family of being royalists,” she says quickly. “I’m sorry, Marie. Your mother told me it was a gift. You couldn’t have known …”

  My heart is breaking. A handkerchief! The death of an entire family for a scrap of silk. My throat is burning and my eyes blur.

  Isabel wraps her arms around me. “I know,” she says.

  THAT EVENING, THE Revolutionary Tribunal sends soldiers to our door at eleven. There are no men in the house, so I am the one who must meet them.

  “Is this the residence of Captain Philippe Curtius?” a soldier asks. He has the wrinkled face and thinning hair of a man who is a grandfather many times over. “We are here on a domiciliary visit.”

  Is that what they are calling them? Not organized looting or raids? My mother and Isabel stand behind me. There are fifteen of them and three of us. “Of course,” I say politely. “Would you like to come in?”

  They fill the Salon de Cire with their boots and exclamations of surprise. These men who were once cabinetmakers and grocers now have the right to open private cupboards and sift through chests of clothes. “What is this place?” a young soldier asks.

  His friend slaps his arm. “This is the Salon de Cire. Robespierre comes here.”

  “Oh.” Now there is a new tone of respect. They will not be taking whatever they want.

  “We have come here for weapons,” the older soldier explains.

  “We have two muskets and my uncle’s pistol,” I tell them honestly.

  “And is it true that Robespierre visits this place?”

  “He has been many times. I should like to think he considers us good friends.”

  “Then there is nothing we need from you,” the old soldier says. He takes a last look around, and I know if he had more time he would want to stay. But there are houses to raid and women to defile. “A good night to you, Citizeness.”

  As soon as they are gone, I lock the door. My hands are shaking.

  WE DO NOT reopen the Salon. The mood in the city is too tense, and with every knock on our door I expect to see soldiers from the Revolutionary Tribunal coming to arrest us. Neighbors ask if we have had any news. But we’ve heard nothing except what Curtius told us when he returned. The men volunteering in the Palais-Royal are worried that if they are sent to war, there will be no one to guard the many thousands of prisoners, and the criminals will break free to do with Paris’s women and children as they please.

  “That is the concern?” Jacques Charles asks.

  It is painful for me to see him, but we do not discuss Henri and he does not mention my decision to stay behind. After all, he has chosen to remain here, too, taking his chances with war rather than abandon everything he has built over a lifetime. I find him a chair, and he joins us at our empty caissier’s desk. “Yes. They are more afraid of their own people than of the invading army,” I reply.

  “I blame that on Marat and his good friend Fabre d’Églantine.” Jacques pushes a copy of the Compte Rendu au Peuple Souverain across the desk at me, then wipes his forehead with a handkerchief. The afternoon heat is unbearable. Every day this summer it has been worse.

  “Translate please,” my mother says, and I read d’Églantine’s words for her in German:

  Once more, citizens, to arms! May all France bristle with pikes, bayonets, cannon, and daggers so that everyone shall be a soldier; let us clear the ranks of these vile slaves of tyranny. In the towns let the blood of traitors be the first to be spilled … so that in advancing to meet the common enemy, we leave nothing behind to disquiet us.

  Jacques hands me a placard. “Marat has stopped publishing his L’Ami du Peuple and has begun posting these.” It is a single paper designed to look like an official proclamation. Now, he can post his hateful words on every lamppost in the city.

  I read it and look up in horror. “He is encouraging citizens to go to the Abbey of Saint-Germain and run a sword through the priests.” My mother crosses herself, and I do not tell her what else it says. Marat is asking citizens to kill not only men of God but the hundred and fifty Swiss officers who survived the tenth of August as well.

  My mother turns over Marat’s placard. On the back, he has published the names of fifty prisoners considered dangerous enemies of the patrie. “A death list,” she whispers.

  For the first time in many days, I think of Madame Élisabeth and the rest of the royal family in the Temple. What will Marat scream for the mobs to do if the Imperial army makes its way to Paris?

  That evening, I wait up in the salon for Curtius to come home. I can hear his boots on the stairs, his breathing as he makes his way to the landing, then his exclamation of surprise as he sees the glow of a candle burning. “Marie?” he calls. He peers around the door, and I can see how tired he is. There are circles beneath his eyes, and his lids are heavy. He is fifty-five, an age when most men are retired and enjoying their grandchildren. He takes a seat across from me at the table, and I pour him a cup of tea. “I thought you might need this.”

  He takes a long sip and sighs. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “I was wondering what’s going to happen with the royal family,” I admit.

  He puts down his cup. “I know you have grown attached to Madame Élisabeth. But if the Austrians arrive, the Tribunal doesn’t plan to hold them as hostages.”

  “So is that who is controlling this country now? The Tribunal?”

  “Or the Jacobins. Or the Assembly. Or possibly Danton and the Minister of the Interior. No one knows. Antoine Santerre certainly doesn’t, and he has been made the new Commander in Chief of the National Guard.” Curtius makes a face. “Apparently, he’s a brewer.”

  This is a world turned upside down. They have given the keys of the palace to its servants, and now we all look to them to make things right. “And the king? Will he have power again?”

  “Not if the Assembly can help it. And certainly not if they should see what the Empress of Russia has written in response to these events.” He begins to quote Catherine the Great, “Kings ought to go their own way without worrying about the cries of the people, as the moon goes on its course without being stopped by the cries of dogs.”

  “That’s the kind of talk that began this Revolution!”

  Curtius finishes his tea. “Exactly. And this dog is tired, Marie. You should find some sleep as well. Perhaps we’ll reopen the Salon tomorrow.”

  Chapter 49

  SEPTEMBER 2, 1792

  Terror is the order of the day.

  —ANONYMOUS

 
BUT THERE IS NO REOPENING THE SALON. THERE ARE RIOTS in the Palais-Royal demanding that more soldiers be sent to guard the prisons, and when Robespierre arrives, fidgeting with his glasses and in search of my uncle, I tell him, “He is recruiting volunteers.”

  “But I need him here!” Robespierre exclaims. He looks past me to the caissier’s desk, where Isabel is teaching Paschal how to write tickets.

  “Would you like to come inside?” I ask. “My mother is making lunch.”

  “There’s no chance I can eat,” he replies. But he comes inside and begins to pace.

  Isabel exchanges a look with me, and I shake my head. Robespierre is to be humored. If he wishes to pace, we must let him. “Is there something I can help you with instead?” I ask.

  “It’s going to be a massacre! Curtius—”

  My uncle bursts through the door as if summoned by the heavens. “They are killing the priests in the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés!” He looks at Robespierre. “What are you going to do? The mobs are moving from prison to prison!”

  “What are you going to do?” Robespierre cries. “You are the National Guard.” He looks as though he may faint. “We must stop this.” Now he is tearing at his cravat. “What can the National Guard do?”

  “Men like Danton and Marat have called for an uprising, and now they have it.” My uncle is brutally honest. “We are a group of men with muskets and pistols and no real leadership. We can do nothing to stop this!”

  Isabel sends Paschal to his room, and my mother appears with sauerkraut and cold beef. But no one has the stomach to eat.

  “I can’t go outside,” Robespierre worries. He begins to pace again. “Find out what is happening,” he begs. “See if they will listen to you!”

  For two hours after Curtius leaves, we watch Robespierre move back and forth. One moment he is hopeful, shouting, “We will win this war and liberty will prevail!” The next moment he is railing against the queen and her Austrian allies. Then there is a rumbling in the distance, and Robespierre stops pacing.

  It is the sound of a mob moving down the Boulevard du Temple.

  “Go upstairs and join Paschal,” I tell Isabel. She is gone before the pounding on the door begins.

  “Don’t open it!” Robespierre exclaims. “They could be assassins.” The pounding continues, and sweat begins to glisten on his forehead. I go to the window and open the curtain. “In the name of liberty,” someone shouts, “open the door!”

  “Do it,” my mother says in German, “or they will beat it down!”

  “What is she saying?” Robespierre demands. He is practically gasping for air.

  “That we must let them inside.”

  His eyes go wide, and he pats down his wig.

  “You should sit,” I tell him, and he takes a chair at the caissier’s desk. I open the door and steel myself for whatever horror they have brought for me. A young man separates himself from the mob and holds up a head for everyone to see. Oh, God. I stagger backward.

  “I am Jean Nicholas, and I have come with the head of the Princesse de Lamballe!”

  Immediately, I recoil. The queen’s dearest friend, her closest confidante. When everyone else fled from the palace, the Princesse de Lamballe remained. Robespierre rushes to the door, and the crowds cheer. “Is that her?” he asks swiftly.

  I don’t want to look. But I must. I would know her face anywhere. The paleness of her skin, the blue of her eyes, the symmetry of her features. She was the envy of every woman at court. They have taken her head and speared it on a pike. The mobs begin to laugh as Jean lifts the pike in the air so that her curls bob up and down. Then he grabs the crown of the princesse’s hair and pulls it from the pole.

  “Citizeness Grosholtz.” He thrusts the head at me. “Will you do us the honor of a mask?”

  “Where did this come from?” Robespierre demands.

  “La Force prison,” Jean Nicholas says loudly. He is obviously the leader of this mob, for they grow silent to listen to him speak. “Today, we have done a great service to the patrie by ridding Paris of its traitorous priests and whores!”

  “I cannot watch this.” Robespierre flees back into the house, and I am left alone with the mob. Jean Nicholas is still holding out the head. He will kill me if I refuse it. I think of Isabel’s words. I have chosen this, and now I must do my duty. I hold out my hands and can feel the presence of my mother behind me. “I will get the plaster,” she whispers.

  I take the head, and my stomach clenches. It smells of powder and blood. Her eyes are open, fixed on whatever horror was in front of her when she was murdered. And her neck—her long, elegant neck—has been severed as if with an ax. The guillotine’s cut is swift and clean. This … this is a butcher’s work. I sit on the steps. There is a restlessness in the crowd. My mother appears, and they watch her tie my apron. Now there is excitement. I am a performer dancing with death for their pleasure. Here, let me entertain you. I press the plaster against the princesse’s face. I expect her to cry out and resist. But there is nothing left of her personality. I wonder what they have done with her body.

  “Aren’t you interested in how this came to be?” Jean asks.

  I know what is best for me, and so I lie. “Of course. Did you raid each of the prisons?”

  “We began at the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés,” he boasts, “where three hundred priests were sent back to God.” The mob laughs, and I concentrate on the princesse. The dead have fewer horrors for me now than the living. “Then we went on to La Salpêtrière and Bicêtre.” Bicêtre is a prison for children and religious men. “When our work there was done, we discovered the Princesse de Lamballe in La Force.”

  I remove the plaster, and my mother helps me pour beeswax into the hardened mold. I will not hear him. If I ignore him, it will all go away.

  “Her last words were ‘God save the queen!’ even as they were tearing off her clothes.” He laughs. He is a madman.

  “I am finished.” I give him the head and the terrible death mask. He wants a blond wig and paint for her eyes. “I have a wig, but no more paint.”

  He searches my face, to see if I am another lying aristocrat. But he can watch me all day. I know how to command my features. “A wig will be fine,” he says at last.

  My mother fetches the hair we once used for Madame du Barry. Her model is hidden now, along with anyone who cannot be safely called a patriot. I fit the golden curls onto the princesse’s wax head, and Jean Nicholas lifts his hat to me.

  “To the Temple!” he shouts. And the mob echoes his cry.

  When Curtius returns, we learn how the Princesse de Lamballe met her savage end. “They cut off her breasts and tore out her heart,” he says quietly, and I am glad that Isabel and Paschal are upstairs. “But her death came swiftly compared with the prostitutes in La Force.”

  “Enough,” Robespierre pleads. “Enough! I must go,” he says weakly.

  Curtius and I stare at him. These are his mobs, his country, his “liberty.” This is the violence he summoned by encouraging the masses to rise up against their king. What did he think would happen? Did he imagine we would all be planting liberty trees and singing songs?

  He pauses at the door. “And there is nothing the National Guard can do?” he asks Curtius.

  “Many soldiers are part of the rampaging mobs. They have guns and powder, and there is nothing to stop them.”

  Their passions forge their fetters, I think. I remember this line from Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, and the night Henri read the pamphlet to me. I think of Henri now, walking the streets of London, and my heart aches. I can still feel the warmth of his skin against mine and smell the scent of almond oil from his hair. But I am thankful he isn’t here to see this.

  THE NEXT MORNING, the Assembly begins distributing free wine. “A bottle for each patriot!” We lock our doors, and Curtius does not report to the Palais-Royal. By the end of the weekend, fourteen thousand prisoners have been killed. Thousands of women and child
ren are among them.

  Chapter 50

  SEPTEMBER 21, 1792–JANUARY 17, 1793

  The Nation has condemned the king who oppressed it.

  —MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE

  WE HAVE A NEW GOVERNMENT. THIS ONE IS CALLED THE National Convention, and its members have sworn to defend the patrie and keep its citizens safe. Robespierre, Danton, Marat, and Camille have all been elected. And the Marquis de Sade, newly released from his asylum and calling himself Citizen Sade, has been made a member as well. These are the men who shall build a “New France,” and on the twenty-first of September, their first act is to abolish the monarchy.

  The proclamation is read on every major street corner in Paris. I am in the workshop preparing a National Convention tableau when Isabel shouts for me to come. Immediately, I join her at the door and listen.

  “From this day forward,” the crier shouts, “the king shall be known as Citizen Capet. Anyone who is interested in the day’s executions can read the list here.” The boy holds up a newspaper, and a few timid citizens creep forward to buy one.

  “What does it mean?” Paschal whispers. We are a city of furtive glances now. The patrons who buy tickets for the Salon do so in silence. No one wishes to bring unwanted attention to themselves. The only place where you are allowed to speak openly and cheer is the Place du Carrousel, when the guillotine falls.

  “It means the king is no longer a king,” Isabel explains. She returns with Paschal to the caissier’s desk, and I can see he is confused. He takes a seat in a chair that is much too big for him and furrows his tiny brow.

  “But why?” he asks.

  “Because that is what the National Convention has declared,” his mother says.

  “And now the National Convention is king?”