Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution (48 page)

“We have come to see Robespierre,” I tell her. She narrows her eyes as she looks at me. Is there jealousy in them?

“What are your names?” she demands.

“Marie Grosholtz, and this is Henri Charles. We have come to deliver a letter.”

She holds out her hand. “I will give to him.”

“If we cannot deliver this to Robespierre himself, we will try another place and time.”

She is not used to being spoken to like this. She hesitates while she considers what to do. “Maximilien,” she calls finally, using his first name. “You have visitors.” She steps to the side. “He is up the stairs. I will take you to him, but only if you are brief.”

I look at Henri and wonder if he is thinking what I am. “We can be brief,” I say.

The three of us climb the stairs, and the young woman pauses before an open door. Inside, Robespierre is hunched over a desk, writing furiously. “Your visitors,” she says.

Robespierre pushes his glasses back on his nose and rises. “Thank you, Éléonore.” It is obvious that he is surprised to see us. “Henri. Marie. What are you doing here?” There is tension in his voice. He is worried that we have come to deliver ill news.

“From Lucile Desmoulins.” I hold out the letter to him, and he takes it.

“Oh.” He sounds relieved. “Please … come inside.”

We enter the small room, with its blue and white curtains and plain wooden bed. There is nothing remarkable about the furniture. Just a pair of tattered chairs, a used mahogany desk, and a broken commode. But it’s the décor that is the most interesting. I exchange a look with Henri, who is having trouble concealing his shock.

Robespierre has papered the walls with every award he has ever received and any honor he has ever been given. Letters, keys, ribbons, cockades—even a dried laurel wreath he wore on the day the Constitution was signed—it is all here. Some of the awards, I am astonished to see, date back to his childhood and are signed by the headmaster who officiated at Camille’s wedding. Robespierre is thirty-four years old! What sort of troubled ego needs to see these affirmations daily?

He unfolds the letter, and we wait while he reads. When he is finished, there are tears in his eyes. “This came from Lucile herself?” he questions.

“She wrote it while I was watching,” I tell him. “She would not let me out of the house without promising that I would take it to you.”

He nods sagely, pushing the glasses back on his nose. “I must go to see my godson,” he says. “I must go to see him right now.”

Whatever Lucile has written has moved him to forgiveness. He follows us down the stairs, and when we part company in the streets, Henri stares at me.

“I know,” I say.

“What sort of man turns his room into a shrine to himself?”

“The kind of man who is terribly insecure,” I tell him. Then I add darkly, “And this is who the revolutionaries believe will deliver them from tyranny.”

Chapter 46

J
ULY
25–A
UGUST
14, 1792

Can you watch, without shuddering in horror
As crime unfurls its banners
Of Carnage and Terror?

—E
XCERPT FROM THE SONG
“T
HE
A
LARM OF THE
P
EOPLE
”

A
T FIRST, IT IS HARD TO HEAR WHAT THE NEWSBOYS ARE
screaming. Then Yachin dashes inside and tells us, “The Duke of Brunswick has issued an ultimatum! Either the monarchy is reinstated or the Austro-Prussian armies are going to march on Paris and treat its citizens with unforgettable vengeance.”

“Unforgettable vengeance?”
I stand behind the desk. “That’s what he said?”

“Those were his exact words.”

“I want you to go home. When the rest of the city hears about this, there will be mobs looting the Palais-Royal, breaking into every shop that carries weapons. And you are an Austrian Jew.”

“Our family is made up of patriots,” he argues.

“The Salon will be closed for the rest of the week. Go home,” I tell him.

As I predicted, thousands of
sans-culottes
tear through the Palais searching for gunpowder and muskets. The next morning, the Assembly issues every citizen in Paris his own ten-foot pike. When the Austrians come, we are to defend ourselves by every means necessary. Cannon, sabers, pistols, knives, even fire and oil if that is all we have.

It is a grim time. There is talk of shutting down the ports, and no one is allowed out of the city without a passport and proof that they are not fleeing to join the émigrés.

Over a Sunday dinner to which the entire family except Edmund has come, Johann confides that Lafayette has drawn up a plan to rescue the royal family. “But the queen refuses to put her life in Lafayette’s hands a second time. She does not wish to be indebted to him any more than she is.”

“That kind of pride will be the end of her,” my mother warns.

“What about the king?” Henri asks.

“Lafayette’s plan calls for four companies of Swiss Guards to take them out of Paris, whatever the cost to the Guard and to the people.”

“There are no better soldiers in France,” Wolfgang says. “Perhaps in all of Europe. A few companies could ride them to safety in two days.”

But the king is concerned about the welfare of his people, and the queen is concerned about how it would all appear. So no action is taken.

O
N THE EIGHTH
of August, Robespierre nearly convinces the Legislative Assembly to arrest Lafayette as a traitor to France. The vote is taken and only narrowly defeated, and when word reaches the American war hero on the front, he flees to Liège.

On the tenth, Henri and I sit together on his steps, watching the stars at two in the morning. I never knew that the city could be so quiet. Perhaps in the Palais-Royal there are cafés open and coffee being served, but with the theaters shut down, the Boulevard du Temple is silent. A rat scurries along the cobblestones, sniffing for garbage left behind by the fish sellers, but the street has already been picked clean by hungry children.

“Lafayette was a rallying point for the soldiers. If he is fleeing to Liège, what will stop the rest of our army from following?” I ask.

“The Assembly hasn’t thought of this. They are listening to Robespierre and taking advice from Camille and Danton.
Danton,”
he repeats, and I think of the model in our most popular tableau featuring the heavy-browed assemblyman. “What do these lawyers know about war? They’re simply going after anyone who believes in a monarchy now.”

I am about to reply when the sound of a church bell drowns out my voice. The two o’clock hour has already been rung. Why are there bells? “My God,” I say, as I realize what’s happening. “They are sounding the tocsin!” Have the foreign armies arrived? Are we to be invaded?

We open the door to Henri’s house, and Jacques is hurrying down the stairs. By the time we enter our Salon, my mother and Curtius are already downstairs. Curtius is half-dressed in his captain’s uniform, and the four of us stand in fearful silence as he slips on his boots and calls for his belt. “If I don’t return, I want you to keep this door locked and the curtains closed. Find our muskets and take out every weapon.”

My mother embraces him once, and then he is gone. We lock the door, and outside the only sound is the constant ringing of the bells. Jacques and Henri have found and loaded our muskets. We stand frozen for at least twenty minutes. Then there is a pounding at the door. Henri takes up a musket and shouts, “Who is it?”

“Curtius!”

My mother opens the door, and my uncle hurries back inside. He has brought Wolfgang, Michael, and Abrielle. Their faces are pale. Whatever it is, it cannot be good news. “They have stormed the Tuileries,” Curtius says gravely, “and the monarchy has fallen.”

Jacques, who is surprised by very little, asks, “And the Imperial army—”

“Is not here. This is chaos of a different kind,” my uncle replies. “Members of the Jacobin Club gave the signal this morning at the Hôtel de Ville, and thousands answered the call. The mobs marched on the Tuileries, and the palace has fallen.”

Wolfgang presses his lips together, as if he’s afraid of what he is about to say. Then he tells my mother, “The Swiss Guards are waging battle as we speak.”

I hurry to my mother’s side and help her into the nearest chair. The ringing of the bells has not stopped, and Wolfgang’s son begins to cry. His ears must be traumatized by the sound, and Abrielle bounces him on her hip. “Shhh,” she coos into Michael’s ear. We hear a heavy pounding on the door. This time, it is Curtius who answers it.

“Are you Captain Philippe Curtius?” a man’s voice asks.

Next to me, Abrielle sucks in her breath. “Papa.”

The baron sees her and steps inside. “Abrielle!” He looks down at the child in her arms, and the emotion is too much for him. He blinks rapidly. “Is this … is this my grandson?” he asks. His voice breaks with emotion, and Abrielle begins to cry.

“Yes. This is Michael Louis.”

The baron holds out his arms to him, but Michael only cries louder in fear.

“He is afraid,” Abrielle says. “The ringing of the bells—”

“Of course.” The words remind the baron of why he’s come. He looks around at the eight of us in the dimly lit room, and when he finds Wolfgang’s face in the candlelight, he says, “You must come with me.”

My mother stands. “Wolfgang is not going anywhere!”

“Madame, the mobs are massacring every Swiss Guard they find.” My mother covers her mouth in shock. “Inside the palace or outside. I am offering him a chance at escape. To London. Your entire family may come.” He looks to his daughter and grandson. “You are my heir,” he says. “And someday, Michael Louis will be a baron as well.”

“They have banished all titles,” Abrielle says. Her cheeks are wet with tears.

“Not in England. There is a boat waiting for us. Those of you who wish to come will have to leave everything behind.”

“I cannot leave,” Curtius says. “My life is here. But Wolfgang, you must go—”

“I am a National Guardsman!”

“But you were once a Swiss Guard,” the baron warns.

“What about Johann and Edmund?” Wolfgang asks.

The baron shakes his head. “I don’t know. The royal family has taken shelter with the Assembly in the Manège. The king left no orders, so the Guards are defending the walls of the palace. But there are twenty thousand armed men.”

Abrielle whispers, “How did you escape?”

“I was in the Manège drafting a petition.” He closes his eyes briefly, and I can see how much this pains him. These are his men, and tonight he has had to choose between family and duty. “If any of our brothers make it out alive, it will be because they have dressed like
sans-culottes
and fled.”

No one in the Salon says a word. Surely God will watch over Edmund and Johann. They are good men. He will not take them from us now.

“When does the boat leave?” Wolfgang asks.

“In an hour. The queen’s dressmaker is to sail with us—”

“Rose Bertin?” I confirm.

The baron nods. “She has left the keys to her shop with an assistant. Many of the Jews are fleeing as well. The mobs are burning their houses.”

“Yachin.”
My mother clutches the rosary around her neck and whispers a prayer. There will be a great deal of praying tonight.

“I thought they closed the ports,” Henri says.

“We are on a ship carrying arms supposedly bound for Le Havre,” the baron explains.

My uncle looks at me. “Marie, go.”

“And leave you?” I panic. “And leave Maman?”

“You and Henri can begin a new life.”

“And when all of this is over,” Henri says, “we can return.”

But who knows when all of this will end? I think of the Salon. Of all of our hard work. And then I think of Maman left alone with only wax figures for company. “No … I … I cannot.”

“Marie—”

“Henri, I cannot! Not without my family.”

“Not without your family, or not without your models?” he asks cruelly. “Wolfgang is leaving—”