Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution (50 page)

She sits across from me in the workshop, sorting glass eyes by color while I finish the model of Rochambeau. From the moment she arrived, she has kept herself busy. Cooking, cleaning, sorting, arranging, playing with Paschal. I suspect this comes from not wanting time to think. “It is very kind of you to help my mother the way you do,” I tell her.

She looks up at me, and every emotion registers on her face. I imagine the tableau I would create of her.
The Butcher’s Daughter
, I’d call it. And people would recognize simply from the width of her mouth and the set of her eyes that she is strong, earnest, a hard worker. “It is the least I can do,” she says. “Your mother and Curtius have been kind to take us in.”

I put down my paintbrush. “Of course. You are family.”

“Not all families are as generous,” she remarks. “So when do you reopen the Salon?”

“When men like Marat and Danton are no longer in power. My brother warned me,” I tell her. “Edmund said that we would be planting the seeds of anarchy.”

“Marie, you cannot blame yourself.”

“We were part of it!”

“Then every citizen who ever put on a tricolor cockade was part of it. This is your business. My father butchered lambs for a living. Some were our pets. But that was his work.”

I think of the royal family, imprisoned now in the medieval fortress known as the Temple, and wonder if Madame Élisabeth has remained so resilient. Everyone who was found with them in the Tuileries that night was sent to La Force prison, including the beautiful Princesse de Lamballe. How do you live knowing you have caused other people’s misery?

“You must reopen the Salon,” Isabel says. “Johann always believed in this. He believed in you.
My little sister
was all he would talk about.” I search her face for the lie. “It’s true. When he wasn’t talking about Paschal or the Swiss, he was talking about you. Whatever happened in that courtyard, Marie, he died a happy man.”

She didn’t see the corpses. She doesn’t understand …

“I know that they were slaughtered,” she whispers. “But I’ve seen animals die, and death is quick. What is important is the happiness that came before it.”

T
HAT EVENING
, I speak with my mother and Curtius in the kitchen. Though it’s Tuesday night, there will be no salon. I doubt there will ever be gatherings in our house again. I join them at the small table where my mother would normally be preparing food for our guests. Instead, she and Curtius are entertaining Paschal.

“Marie!” my nephew exclaims. He is a lovely child, with dark curls and expressive eyes.

“What do you have here, Paschal? Hot chocolate?”

“Do you want some?” he asks.

“No, thank you,” I say. “But perhaps you can go and find your mother. Tell her we will be having coffee soon.” Paschal slips out the door. I turn to my mother. “Isabel believes we should reopen the Salon.”

“I don’t have the time for that right now. Paschal—”

“Can sit with you at the
caissier
’s desk. Maman, Johann and Edmund are dead. But two of your children are still alive, and you have two grandchildren, one of whom is here. I understand that you are still grieving. But we will always be grieving. So what do we do? Let the rest of our lives turn to dust because evil exists and has stolen something from us?” Her lower lip trembles, but I continue. “What do you wish to teach Paschal?” I ask her. “Strength or weakness? I know what you taught me, and it was always strength.”

“Anna,” Curtius begins, “Marie is right.”

There are tears in her eyes, but there is also resolve.

Though it is not a joyful event, we reopen the Salon with new figures of the generals Luckner and Rochambeau, and Paris has not forgotten us. The lines are as long as they have always been, filled with jostling children and
sans-culottes
. My mother and Isabel sit at the
caissier
’s desk with an excited Paschal between them. I show Isabel the books and how to write a ticket. “Is it always like this?” she asks me. She is impressed. “No wonder …”

No wonder Johann was so proud
.

I am expecting the model of Rochambeau to be the greatest draw. I hear women in line wondering aloud what he’ll look like, and men guessing that he will be tall, as all generals ought to be. But it’s the model of Lafayette that causes the greatest stir. It begins with one man remarking loudly that a traitor like Lafayette should not be displayed. Then a group of
sans-culottes
begin shouting to the other patrons to come and see.

“It’s true. A model of Lafayette!” I hear someone cry.

“Why would they display an enemy of the
patrie
?”

“Because they speak German, just like the queen!”

I rise from the desk and hurry into the workshop, where Curtius is modeling soldiers. “They are about to riot in the Salon,” I cry, “over the model of Lafayette!”

He follows me out the door, and the crowd around Lafayette’s figure has grown even larger. Women are tearing at his clothes, and a man has taken out his dagger to scratch at the waxen face. My mother and Isabel are at the door, trying to keep people from pushing inside. In a moment, it will be a stampede.

“I am responsible for this model!” Curtius shouts, but no one can hear him. He stands on the desk in
Jefferson’s Study
, where the figure of Lafayette is conferring with the ambassador. “I am responsible for this model!” he shouts again, and this time the angry patrons stop to listen. “And as its creator,” he lies …

I hold my breath. As its creator what?

“I sentence Lafayette to the guillotine!”

It is madness. Shouting, applauding, whooping madness. The men pick up the figure of Lafayette and follow Curtius to the window, where he drags his wooden replica of the guillotine onto the street. Outside, the crowds start singing
“La Marseillaise,”
and the women begin waving their cockades in the air.

Henri steps from the door of his exhibition and comes to stand at my side. “More publicity?” he asks.

“No,” I whisper, sick with dread. “It was this or they would have killed us.”

He studies my face to see if I am jesting. Then I take his hand and close my eyes.

Chapter 48

A
UGUST
29, 1792–S
EPTEMBER
2, 1792

The vessel of the Revolution can arrive in port only on a sea reddened with torrents of blood
.

—L
OUIS
A
NTOINE DE
S
AINT-
J
UST, REVOLUTIONARY AND LAWYER

“M
ARIE.
” S
OMEONE IS SHAKING MY SHOULDER.
“M
ARIE, WAKE
up. It’s already eight.”

I open my eyes and see Henri’s face in the fresh morning light. His long hair curls around his naked shoulders, and his chest is covered with a blanket.

I rush from the bed, and the two of us find our clothes. I watch in the mirror as Henri pulls on a pair of striped brown trousers. Every showman in Paris is now a
sans-culotte
. The only benefit that I can see is that it’s easier to dress. He waits while I slip on a white chemise gown and helps to tie the blue ribbon in the back. Then he sits on the bed. “Marie,” he begins, and I can hear from his voice that this will not be light conversation. “You were almost killed yesterday.”

I come here to escape the world, not be reminded about it.

“We had the chance to escape. And now the chance has come again. A chemist has offered Jacques a passage to London on a ship that’s supposedly bound for Rouen. He isn’t going. But I am. I want you to come with me. The mobs have taken your brothers. They have taken Yachin, and they will take your family if we don’t escape.”

For the past two weeks we have slept together as husband and wife. “Stay,” I say desperately. “I will marry you. I
want
to marry you.”

But Henri is firm. “Then marry me in London.”

“And risk crossing the Channel?”

“Wolfgang made it safely. You have heard from him. Marie, the Austrians are coming, and when they’re at the walls, what do you think this city will be like?” He stands from the bed. “Come with me.”

“And do what? Be what when we get there? Beggars?”

“Showmen.”

And start all over? Without a house, without a place to exhibit? “What about your laboratory?” I ask. “What about your planisphere clock?”

“It will be here. Jacques will take care of it. And if it’s all destroyed, then there will be others.”

“My mother and Curtius will never leave.”

“Then they will have each other. As well as Isabel and Paschal. But if they stay, death is the risk they are taking. Is it one you’re willing to take? There are things I still wish to accomplish in this life. I have no intention of meeting my end here. Aren’t there things you still wish to do?” he presses.

I think of Johann and Edmund, who will never have the chance to pursue their dreams. “Of course. But if the ship is leaving tonight,” I tell him, “there is no time to pack. No time for anything—”

“There will never be a perfect time. You can’t plan this out like a tableau. Either you love me enough to leave or you don’t.”

I think of my family, of the Salon. “Henri, I’m sorry …”

There is devastation in his eyes. “Me too.”

I
SABEL SITS ON
my bed and holds me while I weep, deep, racking, uncontrollable sobs. She pushes the hair away from my face and whispers that my uncle doesn’t know what to do for me and that my mother is beside herself with grief. A small figure stands in the doorway, hesitant to come in, but Isabel beckons him forward. Paschal climbs into my lap. He puts a tiny hand on my cheek. “Be happy,
Tatie.”
Paschal calls me by the affectionate word for
aunt
, but I am afraid I may never be happy again.

“You chose this,” Isabel reminds me softly. “You could have gone.”

I look at her through my tears, unsure I’ve heard right. “Would you leave?”

“My place is with your mother. But you have an entire life ahead of you. A man who would be your husband. You chose this,” she repeats.

For the rest of the morning, I stay in my chamber with Henri’s letter. “When you are ready to live in London,” he wrote, “come and find me. However long it takes, I will be waiting.” I read the words over and over again, and when the pages are so stained with tears that the ink begins to run, I let them dry by the window and cry myself to sleep.

I am being crushed by the heat of the afternoon when a voice wakes me. “Marie?” Isabel knocks on the door. When I don’t answer, she turns the knob and lets herself in. She sets a tray on the table beside me. There’s a pot of coffee, and the scent fills the room. “The Prussians have taken Longwy,” she says. “All the Imperial army needs to do now is cross the Marne Valley and the road to Paris is stretched out before them.”

I sit up in my bed and move to stand, but Isabel holds out her hand. “Curtius is already gone. He left this morning while you were sleeping. Eat.”