Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution (17 page)

“Overcome. It’s a terrible time to be holding the Estates-General,” Johann says, “but there’s no way of postponing it.”

“There would be riots in the streets,” I say with certainty. I tell my brothers about Lafayette’s visit and Camille’s plan to write on next month’s events. Then I tell them of the Marquis de Lafayette’s intention to propose a constitutional monarchy.

Wolfgang pulls a small pamphlet from his sleeve. “Don’t read it here. Put it away and look at it tonight.”

“This is Thomas Paine’s
Common Sense.”
I am shocked. “This is treason.”

“Then all of Paris will hang.”

I look at Johann. “Have you read this?”

He nods. “Everyone has.”

“Not Edmund,” I challenge.

“Even him, though I doubt he’d admit it.”

I look from Wolfgang to Johann. “And?”

My brothers stand. “Let’s talk of this outside,” Wolfgang says.

I tuck the pamphlet into my sleeve, and my brothers lead me onto the Rue de la Surintendance. It is too cold to stand outside, so they take me into the château and we find an empty hall. Versailles is still shocking to me in this way—that a king’s palace can be entered by anyone, even a woman carrying treason up her sleeve. The three of us stand huddled together near a tapestry of Hermes, the god of mischief and thieves.

“Not all Swiss Guards believe in this monarchy,” Wolfgang whispers. “The king is weak.”

“But he was chosen by God—”

“Thomas Paine proposes that all men are equal, both commoners and kings,” Johann says.

I cannot believe I am hearing this. “How can you continue to be part of the Swiss Guard? Who does the king have if not you?”

My brothers put their fingers to their lips. The hall is empty, but there is no telling who may be around the corner.

“I will find some other employment,” Wolfgang says.

I look at Johann. “And you?”

“I have to think of Isabel and Paschal.”

“The king seems to be a good man,” I protest. “His sister is all kindness.”

“But they are kept in the dark about everything,” Johann says. “No one is allowed to mention finances. When the queen asks for ten thousand livres, she is given twenty.”

“That is the fault of the court!” I say.

“And how do you change it?” Wolfgang asks. “It’s greed. The courtiers, the ministers …”

I think of my trip into Paris with Madame Élisabeth, and her expressions of delight over the most ordinary things, in particular the sellers peddling food in the streets. When I explained the realities of the marketplace to her—how bad meat is concealed beneath strong seasonings and the ways in which scales are tampered with—she was scandalized. Nothing good can come of blinding the royal family and then asking them to oversee a kingdom.

Wolfgang tries to lift the tension. “So, any wealthy widows come to the exhibition recently?”

I smile, despite my worry. “No, but I’m sure they would be pleased to no end with your gambling.”

“Then maybe I’ll become a professional cardsharp.” He winks at me and holds out his arm to escort me back to the Grand Commune.

“I am going to stay here. I want to see the Hall of Mirrors again.”

“There won’t be anyone there,” Johann warns, thinking I want to catch some member of the nobility I can model.

“I want to see it in moonlight.”

My brothers don’t question me. They know how inspiration can come in the reflection on a lake or in the slow, steady curl of smoke from a fire. I watch them leave, then make my way through the candlelit halls. I wish I had known Versailles when the queen hosted her masquerades and her ladies came dressed in blue velvets and white silks. I want to imagine the château as it was in happier days.

The palace isn’t entirely empty. I catch giggling servant girls allowing liberties to be taken with them on the stairs, and a young man strumming a lap harp for a woman who will certainly be following him to his chambers. Without the crush of people, the heavy stench of body odor has abated. In the moonlight, the palace is beautiful. A silvery sheen falls across the floors, as though I’m walking on water. Even the cold marble statues look alive. So much care and attention have been taken to make this the most beautiful palace on earth. And really, the price has not been terribly high. Yesterday, Madame Élisabeth told me that in the most extravagant times, the court’s yearly expenditures were only six percent of the national budget. And look at what that six percent has created! This is why the Americans rebelled. They never saw such majesty on their own soil. If they could have seen the rich tapestries and gilded halls that their taxes produced …

I reach the Hall of Mirrors, and the sight is more breathtaking at night than by day. Chandeliers illuminate the marble walls and gilded pilasters, and the entire room is like burnished amber. Only one other person has come to enjoy this vision of light and gold. She is standing in the middle of the hall, as if she is imagining, just as I am, the grand fêtes that took place beneath these painted ceilings. As I approach, she does not turn to me. Probably, she is lost in her various dreams. But as I draw closer, I realize who she must be—the curve of her neck, the width of her shoulders, the sweep of her hair. I have sculpted this person.

Immediately, I stop walking. The queen is utterly alone. I think of all the courtiers who pressed around her when her fortunes were high, and now, without the music and the masquerades, she is surrounded only by ghosts. I am embarrassed to have interrupted such an intimate moment, but as I back away, the wooden floor creaks and the queen abruptly turns. I sink into my lowest curtsy.

“Mademoiselle Grosholtz.”

She has remembered me. Of all the faces she has seen, she has remembered mine. “I did not mean to intrude,” I say. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. I should not have come—”

“I am the one who should not be here. Only foolish old women wish to revisit the conquests of their youth.” She dabs quickly at her eyes, and I wonder if she’s been weeping. “My husband tells me you took Élisabeth to Saint-Sulpice. That was very kind of you.”

Not only has she remembered me, but she knows what I’ve been doing in Montreuil. “The entire nation is praying for the dauphin. He is the hope of France.”

“Yes,” she says vaguely, as if in a fog. “Yes,” she says more firmly. “He is.”

We stare at each other in the candlelight. She has lost weight since she came to the Boulevard du Temple. There are new angles in her face and less fullness beneath her jaw.

“It is a beautiful view out of that window.” She points down the hall, and a handkerchief flutters to the ground from her sleeve. I pick up the little square of silk and see that it’s embroidered with her coat of arms as well as her initials. The cloth is lighter than anything I’ve ever held. There is a small rip in the corner, and she sees that I have noticed it. I hold it out to her.

“Keep it.” She smiles. “Let it be a reminder that nothing in this world can last.”

“Even pain,” I reply.

This time, the smile reaches her eyes. “Yes, that’s true.”

When she is gone, I walk to the place where she was standing and look down the hall. There is nothing to see but golden parquet floors, stretching on to what seems like eternity. And in the gilded mirrors, instead of noblemen dancing the minuet, there is only me.

Chapter 12

A
PRIL
12, 1789

My blood boils in my veins against the so-called fathers of the country
.

—J
EAN
-P
AUL
M
ARAT

“T
HE QUEEN’S HANDKERCHIEF
?”
MY MOTHER EXCLAIMS IN
G
ERMAN
. We are standing in the workshop, where Curtius has finished the body of the corpulent Marquis de Sade. Tomorrow, we will put the entire figure on display. She holds the silk square up to the afternoon light.

“We can use this,” my uncle announces. “It can be
The Farewell Handkerchief
!”

I reach out and take the handkerchief back. “This isn’t for exhibition.”

“But everything is for exhibition,” my mother says, puzzled.

“This is a present for Yachin,” I reply, surprising myself.

I go outside and find our barker. We are advertising the model of Sainte-Amaranthe today. I hold out the embroidered handkerchief, and he puts down his sign and wrinkles his nose. Then he runs his small fingers over the coat of arms and looks up at me with wide eyes. “The
queen’s
?”

I nod. “I met her in the Hall of Mirrors.”

He wraps his arms around my waist. “Thank you, Marie. Thank you, thank you! Wait until Maman sees this. I’ll keep it with me always. This is the best gift I have ever received!”

“You can show it to your mother now if you’d like.”

He is beside himself with joy. He rushes down the street so quickly that he nearly runs into the butcher.

“That was very kind of you.” Henri has been sitting on the steps, washing a basket full of glass vials. He has not bothered tying his long hair back, so it hangs in his face, curling about his lapels. “Did Her Majesty really give it to you?”

“Yes. It dropped from her sleeve and she told me to keep it.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t want it for the Salon.”

“I … I couldn’t. We were in the Hall of Mirrors together,” I confide. “She was weeping.”

“The dauphin,” he says quietly.

I sit next to him on the stairs. His hands are colored with dye, probably from staining the samples he places beneath his microscope. Though spring is here, the air is still crisp. “Yes.” I say sadly. “His health is growing worse.”

O
N THE TWENTY-EIGHTH
of April, just as we are opening the Salon for business, Yachin comes running.

“Not enough exercise lately?” Curtius asks. He is painting the trim outside the window while I wash the steps.

Yachin holds his chest and gasps for breath. “Monsieur Réveillon,” he says, and breathes deep. “Monsieur Réveillon—they are attacking him!”

Curtius lays down his brush and I put aside the mop. “What do you mean?” my uncle asks.

“My mother heard it from the butcher that a group of men are marching toward his factory in the Porte Saint-Antoine. They intend to tear it down.”

I look to my uncle. “It has to be a mistake,” he says. He replaces the lid on the paint and stands. “Monsieur Réveillon is a good man. We’ve done business with him for fifteen years.” He disappears inside and returns with his coat.

“Where are you going?” I exclaim.

“To help Réveillon.”

“But what can you do?”

He doesn’t answer.

This morning, little business gets done. I sit with my mother at the
caissier’s
desk in the front of the Salon, and we watch the handsome Thuret clock, a gift from my uncle’s first patron. If a mob has reached Réveillon’s gates, what hope does Curtius have of helping him? What can he do but put himself in danger? My mother asks every customer what he’s heard. Nothing. Always nothing.

“Go to Henri,” she says, at last. “He is a showman. Gossip is his job.”

I go next door, but only to please her. Henri is sitting at his own
caissier
’s desk. Two women hover over him, showing him something. A snuffbox, I believe. One smells of orange blossom, the other of rose, and both are wearing hats over their towering
poufs
.

“Marie!” Henri says as soon as he sees me. “Did you hear?” He rises, and the women look disappointed.

“About Réveillon?”

“Yes. They have torn the factory apart.”

I gasp. “But Curtius is there!”

“What do you mean?”

“He went to help him this morning and he hasn’t come back.”

Henri finds his brother and asks him to watch over the desk. Orange Blossom and Rose narrow their eyes at me.
You’re not his type anyway
, I want to say. Henri is a bachelor, and if he ever decides to marry, it will not be to a woman with a fanciful hat. It will be to a woman who understands his passion for science. We hurry back to the Salon, where I tell my mother that Henri has news.