Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution (40 page)

In the arts the way in which an idea is rendered, and the manner in which it is expressed, is much more important than the idea itself
.

—J
ACQUES-
L
OUIS
D
AVID

N
OW THAT THE ROYAL FAMILY IS IN
P
ARIS, THE
N
ATIONAL
Assembly has moved from the Hôtel des Menus in Versailles to the archbishop’s palace on the Île Saint-Louis. Hundreds of deputies have flooded the city looking for residences close to the Seine, and only Robespierre has chosen some dingy third-floor apartment in the Rue de Saintonge.

“He’s had eighteen livres a day since he was made deputy,” I say. “I should think he could afford a place on the first floor.”

“That’s Robespierre. He’ll live on soup and water if it means saving two sous,” my uncle says. He hands me a coat for the new figure of Lafayette.
The National Guard
and
Great Patriots of France
are now complete. All that remains to be done are the figures for
The Jacobin Club
. “It will be a busy salon tonight. If Robespierre is here, everyone will want to come and hear the news.”

He’s right. That evening, friends arrive whom we haven’t seen in months. Even the artist Jacques-Louis David makes an appearance so that he can bask in Robespierre’s presence. His wife, Marguerite, is dressed in a red bonnet that does nothing for her complexion and a white chemise gown that billows around her legs like a loose curtain. “Marie!” she exclaims and embraces me as if we’re the closest of friends. “Did you know that the National Assembly was talking about what we did for weeks? We could be as famous as Rousseau someday. Did you see the articles in the newspaper?”

“No,” I lie. “I’m afraid I didn’t.”

She opens her purse and takes out a clipping. “There we are,” she says eagerly. “Well, not you. But that one there”—she points to a picture of a beautiful woman in Roman dress—“that’s supposed to be me.”

I raise my brows. “How can you tell?”

“Well, obviously … It looks like me.” She puts the clipping away, then takes a seat between her husband and Lucile. Good. Let them listen to her chatter.

“Robespierre!”
A tremendous shout echoes in the salon the moment he arrives. He’s come dressed in a striped nankeen coat of olive green, a matching waistcoat, and a yellow cravat. He must be the last person in Paris still wearing a wig. Camille bounds from his chair and puts his arm around his former schoolmate.

“The voice of the Revolution!” Camille declares. “Three cheers for Robespierre!” Camille steers him to the place of honor at our table, and we listen, riveted, while Robespierre recounts his battles in the National Assembly. And there are many battles to be waged. Who are the true citizens of France? Can they be Austrians who’ve lived here for twenty years? What about Germans? Or better yet, Jews? And who will be given the right to vote?

“I warned the Assembly,” Robespierre says, “that equality is to liberty as the sun is to life. But will they listen? No. They have given the right to vote to active citizens”—he pauses for dramatic effect—“and that is it.”

“So women are to be excluded?” Lucile exclaims.

“As well as any male citizen who doesn’t pay enough taxes under the new laws. An annual sum equal to three days of labor.”

“But that must be half the male population!” Camille shouts angrily.

“Tell that to the Assembly.”

“And the National Guard?” Camille demands. “Have they changed the qualifications?”

“Why do the qualifications need to be changed?” Curtius asks.

Robespierre levels him with his strange green eyes. “Because limiting eligibility to active citizens does not promote equality.”

“So you want equality at any cost?” Henri challenges. “How does that work, allowing noncitizens to join your army?”

“That’s a dangerous proposition,” Curtius warns. “Right now, National Guardsmen have no incentive to pillage or loot. They have money of their own and they earn a small salary. What happens when poor, uneducated men have weapons and authority? You have chaos.”

“Or equality,” Robespierre replies. “Isn’t that what we’re here for?” He looks around the room. “Isn’t that what this Revolution is all about?”

A cheer goes up inside our salon.

“Wait. W-w-where is Marat?” Camille searches the room. “He never misses a Tuesday.”

I look to Curtius, since it’s better that he explain, and everyone follows suit.

“He was arrested on the eighth,” my uncle says, “and sentenced to a month.”

“For what?” Camille cries.

“Inciting rebellion.”

“His paper is no more incendiary than mine!”

There is a tense silence in the room. Then Robespierre says, “We must be careful. These are dangerous times to be a patriot. Who are our friends?” His voice drops low. “But more important, who are our enemies? There are royalists waiting around every corner to slit our throats, men who want to trample our freedoms and raise the king back to his position of supreme authority!”

Is Robespierre kidding? The king is at the mercy of the National Assembly.

“Even our friends at the Jacobin Club are not entirely to be trusted,” Robespierre reveals. “There are hypocrites and corrupted hearts among them. But there is a meeting tonight of great importance. Everyone in this room should come.”

He rises, and Curtius is the first to stand with him.

“We need every good man we can find,” Robespierre says. He looks down at Lucile. “And we also need honorable women in this war. It’s not over. Not until freedom and equality are words engraved into every citizen’s heart!”

More than twenty of us follow him out the door into the evening air. We begin the twenty-minute walk to the former convent of Saint-Jacques, where the Jacobin Club holds its meetings.

“Robespierre!” a woman cries. She lifts her skirts and runs across the street.

Robespierre shrinks away as if she’s a viper. “What are you doing here?”

“You haven’t been to see me. I’ve been writing you letters every day. Every day,” she repeats, and her voice rises. “Why don’t you come to me anymore?”

Even in the dim light of sunset, I can see the color rising in Robespierre’s face. “We are finished,” he says briskly.

“But why?”

He turns his back on her, and our group keeps walking. It’s terrible to see, and the woman can’t accept this. “I’ll do anything,” she cries. “Maximilien, you love me!” She has called him by his first name. “You told me you loved me!”

“Keep walking,” Robespierre says through clenched teeth.

“Don’t leave!” she screams and falls on her knees. Such public humiliation is too much to bear. I turn my face away, and when we round the corner, her voice is drowned out by the sounds of the carriages. I look at Robespierre, who is flushed with embarrassment. I had no idea that Rousseau’s most avid believer and disciple kept a woman in Paris. She must be a terrible inconvenience to him now that he preaches about hypocrisy and corruption.

We reach the Rue Saint-Honoré and enter the old monastery. We pass through the damp, candlelit rooms into the great hall, where the monks once dined.

“The Jacobins are our next exhibit,” I whisper to Henri.

He looks at me askance. Hundreds of candles are burning in tall candelabra, casting a golden light across the old walls and wooden floors. In the public galleries, where there are just as many women as men, all are proudly wearing tricolor cockades. Only Club members, like Camille and Robespierre, are allowed to sit in the center of the hall. I motion for Curtius to sit next to me so that we can discuss which members would make the best models, and he points to a figure in the center of the hall. “Anne-Joseph Théroigne.”

She’s dressed in the uniform of the National Guard, with pants and a vest and a jaunty black hat that rests on top of a head of full, dark hair. She’s my age, perhaps a little younger, and her eyes dart about the room, as if eager for someone to challenge her right to sit among the men.

“She asked to join the Club when it was meeting in Versailles, and they honored her request to become a member after hearing what she did on the fifth,” Curtius tells me. I learn she rode bareback alongside the
poissardes
, spurring them onward in their march toward Versailles. When they arrived, she took a pistol and fired it in the air, encouraging the men to join their female counterparts in beating down the gates. “She was part Amazon,” he admits, “part Helen of Troy in her beauty.”

I look across the hall at her again. The speaker has taken his place at the podium, and she sits forward in her seat. She’s certainly one we’ll want to model. But before I can take out a quill to sketch, I’m distracted by the words of the speaker.

“For as long as anyone in this room can remember, what institution has grown richer while the poor have grown poorer?”

“The monarchy!” someone shouts.

“We all know about the monarchy. But what else?” When no one answers he thunders, “The Church! We must deliver the Church the same fatal blow we will deliver to the aristocrats who bleed this nation. Not next year, not next week, but today!”

The Club members rise to their feet in applause, and most people in the galleries stand as well. But Henri and I remain seated. “Who does he think feeds the poor?” I exclaim. “Where does he think women go who are cast out because they’re pregnant or unwanted? These men aren’t content to just destroy the monarchy. They want to destroy God and charity as well.”

“And I think I know what will take its place,” Henri replies.

The National Assembly.

Chapter 36

D
ECEMBER
25, 1789

We don’t have any more nobles or priests
.
Oh, it’ll be okay, be okay, be okay
.
Equality will reign everywhere
.

—E
XCERPT FROM THE REVOLUTIONARY SONG
“Ç
A
I
RA
”

D
ESPITE THE DECREES THAT HAVE STRIPPED THE
C
HURCH
of its property in order to use it as backing for the Assembly’s assignats—a new paper currency we’re all to use now instead of livres or sous—the French have not forgotten Noël. The churches are filled with rosy-cheeked worshipers willing to brave the cold in order to honor Christ’s birth. I look down the pew at my brothers, and they both smile back at me. Our entire family is here except Edmund. So while we’re eating Bayonne ham and drinking wine, enjoying the company of Johann’s wife, Isabel, and their little son, Paschal, he’ll be stalking the halls of the Tuileries, ingratiating himself with Besenval. A lonely choice.

When the sermon’s finished, Paschal exclaims, “It’s time to eat!”

Everyone around us laughs, even the old, humorless women who come here every day. My mother bends down to pick him up, and he rides contentedly on her hip.

“It must be nice for you to have so much of your family here,” Henri says, taking my arm.

Since the king’s flight from Versailles, my brothers have moved to Paris. Last month, Johann found a handsome apartment with a salon that has a sweeping view of the Seine. “Yes. My mother is very happy, too,” I say. “Of course, she misses Edmund.”

“Has he written?”

I shake my head. A rare dusting of snow covered the ground while we were at Mass, and now flakes have settled on the rim of Henri’s hat. He’s let his hair grow longer this winter, and there’s a soft stubble shadowing his chin. Between the work at his exhibit and his attentions to me, he’s had little time to visit the barber. I look around at the people I love most in this world, and my heart feels close to bursting. On every street, nativity scenes are nestled in shop windows, and painted
santons
hang from lampposts and doors. “This is going to be a very good year,” I predict. Yesterday, Curtius spoke with Lafayette and told him of his intention to resign in twelve months.

Henri squeezes my arm meaningfully. “Yes, I think it will.”

We enter the house, and the lingering scent of cooked ham fills the hall.

It’s the merriest gathering we’ve had in many years, with food, and laughter, and wine from Bordeaux. Jacques has challenged Isabel, the daughter of a butcher, to name all the parts of a cow. I have always liked Isabel. I remember the day my brother married her, and how he never let go of her hand, not even to stand before the altar. She has plain gray eyes, but a beautiful smile. And her laugh. It is deep and throaty, full of the greatest
joie de vivre
, and it’s completely infectious. She’s still naming the parts when the sound of a horse and carriage echoes outside, followed by a sharp knock on the door. The conversation stops while we look at one another.

“I’ll get it,” Wolfgang says at once. He hurries from the table, and I look to my mother. Perhaps it is Edmund. Perhaps he’s had a change of heart. But it’s a woman’s light footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later Wolfgang appears with the baron’s daughter, Abrielle. Johann passes a meaningful look to Isabel. Did they know she’d be coming?