Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution (46 page)

“A guillotine,” Robespierre informs us at our Tuesday salon.

Lucile frowns. “And what exactly is a
guillotine
?” she asks.

“I …” Robespierre hesitates. “Perhaps …” Lucile is seven months pregnant, and obviously this is not something he hopes for her to know. But she persists, and he is forced to explain. “It is a device built by Dr. Guillotin,” he says. “A wooden contraption that will make for a swift death whether the criminal is rich or poor.”

Ah, so that is why the Assembly has adopted this. Whereas before, noblemen were beheaded with the ax and commoners were hanged, now there is to be equality in death as well as life.

“But how does it work?” The scientist in Jacques wants to know.

Robespierre shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “There are two high pieces of wood and a board in the middle where the criminal lies.”

“Facedown?” Camille asks.

“Yes.” Robespierre is not comfortable talking about death, I realize. “There is a blade at the top with a rope attached. When the executioner lets go of the rope, the blade comes down and the criminal is executed.”

“Decapitation?” my mother cries.

“Apparently so,” Jacques says.

“Tomorrow,” Robespierre continues, “the guillotine will be erected outside the Hôtel de Ville at the Place de Grève. We are executing a criminal, and that is something every patriot should be concerned about. I hope you will all be there.”

“At an execution?” I ask.

“It is a matter of the nation’s security,” Robespierre replies.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Henri and Jacques join our family in hiring a coach bound for the Place de Grève. “I have never been to an execution,” I admit.

“Never?” Jacques asks. “But they’re everywhere—”

“Yes. And I’ve tried to avoid them.”

“When the blade is about to fall,” Curtius promises, “you can look away.”

“Who is the criminal?” my mother wants to know.

“A killer named Pelletier,” Curtius replies. “He will be either very lucky or very unfortunate today.”

I had not thought of this. What if this guillotine should fail? What if dying by the blade is slower and more painful than dying by the ax? This is a show staged to convince the populace that the war will be won and vengeance will be swift. But I do not want to see it. I don’t care how it may vouch for our patriotism or how many Jacobins will see us and know that we are friends. When the coach stops before the Place de Grève, my palms are damp.

“Don’t worry,” Henri says. “There will be so many people, it will be impossible to see anything anyway.”

But when Robespierre notices we have come, we are given places in front of the scaffold.

“Have you ever seen so many tricolor cockades?” he asks eagerly. He is not expecting an answer, and I don’t give him one. Thousands of people have come to witness this first execution by guillotine. Some in the crowd are carrying children on their shoulders, and women are selling roses like they do outside of theaters. Every guardsman in Paris must be here today. I search for Wolfgang among the phalanx of soldiers dressed in blue and red.

“Do you see him?” my mother asks.

“No. But then he could be anywhere,” I tell her.

The drums begin to roll, and an expectant hush falls over the square. The sound of hooves echoes over the cobblestones, and the guards clear the way for a pair of horses carrying a man in an open wagon. He is perhaps twenty-four, with a dirty face and a dark red shirt provided to him by the executioner. I wonder whether he killed out of self-defense or something more sinister.

Someone in the crowd shouts, “There is the murderer!” and abuse assails him from every side. A woman throws a heavy stone at his head, and it misses by only the breadth of a hand. The guards around the scaffold begin to laugh. Tomorrow, many of them will be leaving for war, so today they’ll get their entertainment where they can.

“I don’t want to see this.” I shake my head. Henri puts his arm around my shoulders. When Robespierre looks in our direction, I see the line along his jaw tighten.

The victim is led onto the wooden scaffold. I can see he is surprised that the machine has been painted red. He looks up at the heavy blade, and if his hands were not bound behind his back, he would probably shield his eyes from the sun on the metal. The executioner leads him to the board, and Pelletier doesn’t fight as he’s instructed to lie down. He is facing the wicker basket that will receive his head, and his neck is held in place by a wooden lunette. After a few moments, he will never have another thought. Whatever hopes and dreams he once had will be finished. Although this is when I should be closing my eyes, I can’t look away as the drumroll intensifies and the executioner releases the rope.

It is over in a second. The moment the blade falls, Pelletier’s head is separated from his body, and the spray of blood is disguised by the color of the guillotine. The executioner bends down to retrieve Pelletier’s severed head from the basket, but as he holds it by the hair for the crowds to see, there are angry cries.

“Is that it?”

“Bring back the wheel!”
someone shouts.

The executioner has done his job too well, and the audience isn’t satisfied. The gallows at least provided twitching and slow death by strangulation.

“The people want what is good, but they do not always see it,” Robespierre says. It is a phrase of Rousseau’s. “They wish to see criminals punished,” he adds, excusing their behavior.

Or they are simply barbarians, I think.

The next day, it is guillotine madness. Customers flood into the Salon asking whether the guillotine Curtius has built for the window is available in miniature for purchase.

“You would like to buy a miniature guillotine?” I repeat.

A tall woman in a lavender gown giggles. Her curls hang in clusters on either side of her head, and her necklace is made up of a large Bastille rock with the word
Liberté
engraved in diamonds. “I would like it for my table,” she admits.

Her companion adds, “Think how surprised guests would be if we brought it out to slice the cucumbers!”

“Or better yet, the bread, now that the harvest is coming!”

The pair of them laugh.

“It would be at least thirty livres-assignats,” I warn them.

Lavender dismisses my concern with a wave. “It would be worth it to see their faces!” she gushes.

When he returns home, I ask Curtius what he thinks.

“If our customers want guillotines, then that’s what they’ll get. I can take this week off and teach Yachin how to assemble them.”

The next morning, the pair of them are out in the courtyard, sanding toy guillotines to amuse the rich.

Chapter 44

J
UNE
19, 1792

The rest of the world lives on in vain

And roars, calling us to fight
.

—E
XCERPT FROM THE SONG
“L
A
M
ARSEILLAISE
”

A
LL ACROSS
E
UROPE, WORD IS SPREADING THAT TWO-THIRDS
of France’s officers have fled rather than take their chances against the Holy Roman Empire. In the city of Lille, soldiers murdered their own general for losing a battle against the Austrians. But Jacques Brissot, the new president of the Legislative Assembly, has a plan to spread liberty throughout Europe at whatever the cost, however many men must die.

“Liberty cannot come without a price!” Camille exclaims at our Tuesday salon.

Robespierre rises from his seat. “Last week you were against the war, but now that Georges Danton is shouting about freeing oppressed people abroad, suddenly you’re ready to risk everything we’ve worked for?”

Lucile puts her hand on Camille’s arm. “Why don’t we let Wolfgang speak?”

Everyone turns to my brother in his captain’s uniform and red cravat. Neither he nor Curtius has been sent abroad, but that may change.

“So what do the guardsmen think?” Robespierre asks. “Not what you want us to
believe
they think, but what they’re actually
saying.”

“That there is hope,” Wolfgang replies cautiously, “but only because three heroes of the American War have been made generals and sent off to fight.” Lafayette has gone to Reims, while Rochambeau is in Belgium and Luckner is in Alsace. “I’m not sure how many men believe this war is winnable.”

Curtius agrees. “With the Prussians sending Austria their troops, it will be only a matter of time before they invade. The king has vetoed a proposal that would post twenty thousand guardsmen all around Paris. Why do you think this is?”

“To clear the way for the Austrians,” Camille exclaims, “as they come marching in!”

“We should send the queen to a convent and try the king for treachery,” Robespierre suggests. The Duc d’Orléans, who has only recently rejoined our salon, gives the loudest cheer.

The next morning, when I reach the Tuileries, I am shocked to find the king and queen whispering with Madame Élisabeth in her workshop. Immediately, I turn away to give them privacy, but as I reach for the door the queen exclaims, “Please, stay.” She is dressed in black for the death of her second brother, Emperor Leopold, and I admire her nerve to wear mourning clothes despite the express orders of the Assembly.

Although it is not permitted anymore, I curtsy. There are no guards to see me.

“We are talking about the commotion outside,” Madame Élisabeth says, stepping away from the windows where, clearly, something is happening below.

“I didn’t see any commotion,” I tell her, and the three of them exchange looks.

“Nothing?” the king questions. “No men making for the palace?”

“Or groups of women in red caps?” the queen worries. This is the new fashion in Paris. Red Phrygian caps like the hats worn in ancient Rome as a sign of liberty. True patriots are now sporting everything Roman. Men’s hair is straight and unpowdered, like that of Brutus, who was the killer of a tyrant. And women wear long chemise dresses in white like the Vestal Virgins, the keepers of Rome’s flame. In the Jacobin Club, there are as many busts of Romans as there are of Frenchmen.

“No,” I tell them. “Nothing like that. The streets have been calm.”

But there is clearly a storm brewing below. The queen looks nervously over her shoulder at the shuttered windows, and the king explains, “They want to plant a liberty tree in the middle of the royal gardens.”

I don’t understand. “Who does, Your Majesty?”

“A group of agitated citizens—”

“A
mob
!” the queen exclaims. Her color is high, and even though she is using a fan to conceal it, she is clearly sweating. “They are enraged at being denied the chance to plant their tree in the last garden of France where monarchy still grows.”

“You saw nothing on your way to the Tuileries?” the princesse confirms.

“Madame, if there is anyone coming—” But my words are cut off by the sound of a gate crashing against its post and someone crying, “God save the king! They’re storming the Tuileries!”

The four of us rush to the windows, and Madame Élisabeth opens the shutters. Across the courtyard, thousands of angry men armed with sabers and pikes are making for the palace. Many are shouting, “Death to the royals!”

“They are going to kill us!” the queen cries.

The doors of the workshop swing open, and a dozen Swiss Guards hurry inside. Both Edmund and the Baron de Besenval are among them, but Edmund does his best not to look at me. Even as a child, my oldest brother was unyielding. He will not change now. “Your Majesties!” the baron cries, breaking the ban on using honorifics. “Hide yourselves at once.”

“In separate rooms,” adds Edmund. “If His Majesty will agree, we will take him now to the Salon de l’Oeil-de-Boeuf.”

The king has tears in his eyes. “It is better this way,” he tells his wife and sister. They embrace him, and their parting is swift. The mobs are so close that I can distinguish the words of
“La Marseillaise,”
a song Parisians have adopted as their war cry.