Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution (60 page)

We are pushed inside, and the door swings shut behind us. I listen as the guard turns the key in the lock; then there is silence. My mother and I stare into the dimly lit chamber. There are twenty beds and at least fifteen women, all with the same short hairstyle, cut at the neck. One of these girls, dressed in a long chemise gown and tattered slippers, rises from her bed to greet us.

“Welcome to Les Carmes,” she says kindly. “I’m Rose de Beauharnais.”

“You and your husband came to my Salon many years ago,” I say. She is so thin, and her face is so pale. “You both wanted portraits.”

“You
are Marie Grosholtz?”

“And this is my mother, Anna.”

“This is Marie Grosholtz,” Rose announces. “The wax modeler from the Boulevard du Temple.” She directs us to a pair of empty beds.

“Why are you here?”

My mother and I sit across from each other while the women gather around. They are all so young. How did they end up in Les Carmes? “I would not make the death masks of Lucile Desmoulins or Princesse Élisabeth. They were good friends to me, and I would not dishonor them.”

Rose’s eyes fill with tears. “And your mother?” she asks.

“Has the misfortune of being related to me.”

The other women nod understandingly, and one of them puts her arm around Rose’s shoulders. “Don’t cry,” she encourages. But tears are rolling down Rose’s cheeks.

“She weeps whenever someone new is brought to our cell.” The woman smiles. “I am Grace Elliott.”

“The Duc d’Orléans’s mistress,” I say. All of Paris knows who she is.

“His
former
mistress,” she adds quietly. “There were many other women after me, but we always remained friends.”

“Is that why you are here?”

She laughs sadly. “Do any of us really know why we are here?” She looks around, and the women shake their heads. “We are much like your mother. We’ve been imprisoned because of those we’re related to, or those we’ve slept with. Rose’s husband was arrested two months ago, and they came for her next. They were both sent here.”

“To Les Carmes?” I exclaim. “There are men here?”

Everyone laughs, and a blond woman steps forward. “My dear, you have come to the most exciting prison in Paris. Every morning the soldiers arrive with the carts and the jailer reads out the names of those bound for the guillotine. But each day you survive is another day of freedom.”

I don’t understand.

“Louise is talking about sexual escapades,” Grace explains.

I study the blond woman’s face in the candlelight. I have seen her before. “Louise Contat?” I ask. “The actress from the Comédie-Française?”

She makes a little bow. “I may be climbing the scaffold soon,” she says, “but ’tis only a change of theaters.” All the women snicker except Rose, who looks as though she may faint. “Tomorrow, we’ll all get up and wait for the lists, and when that is over we’ll go and find our men.”

“Most of us have someone,” Grace explains. “Even Rose, when she isn’t crying.”

My mother and I look to Rose, who says unabashedly, “My husband has found Delphine de Custine, and they are a far better match than we ever were. I have found Lazare Hoche. That is what Louise means by freedom. And if you become pregnant, there is a ten-month stay of execution.”

A soft murmur fills the room. I think of Henri in London and the life we might have had. By now, he surely will have found someone else. My eyes fill with tears.

Rose instructs me to lie down and get some sleep. “Is there anyone you have left?” she asks.

“My husband,” my mother says, though of course they are not married. “Plus my daughter-in-law and grandchild.”

“I am sure they will visit.”

“Is that allowed?” my mother asks.

“If they are willing to pay. My children used to come with Fortune.”

I frown and Grace explains. “Her pug dog. But it’s not allowed anymore. She should not tell you these things. Even if they come, it will be dangerous for them. Do not hope for it.”

“And tomorrow?” I ask. “What will happen?”

“Whether or not your names are called, they will cut your hair. Then, if you are not bound for the carts, you are free to do as you please. Once a week, they allow us a newspaper.”

My entire life has revolved around news. When it’s happening, where it’s being made, whom it’s being made by. But the news now will be here, in the corridors of Les Carmes. “How long have you been imprisoned?”

“Five months,” Grace replies.

I am stunned. “And they have not called your name?”

“Sophie has been in here for seven.”

“So there is hope,” my mother whispers.

Grace gives her a smile that once won the hearts of men like the Duc d’Orléans and the Prince of Wales. “There is always hope.”

Chapter 61

M
AY
1794

The antechamber of the guillotine
.

—A
NONYMOUS REFERENCE TO
L
ES
C
ARMES

I
CANNOT SLEEP
. A
FTER THE CANDLES ARE BLOWN OUT
, I
LISTEN
to the rats scurrying across the floors. Somewhere on the other side of the room, a woman is weeping softly. For all their brave faces, everyone is afraid. Tomorrow, the carts will come, and there is no telling whose beds will be empty by night. There are seventeen of us in this chamber. Will we all die at the same time? Or will they take us one by one?

When the sun rises, I look across at my mother and can see that she has not slept either. Because our beds are so close, I am able to reach out and take her hand. “Do you have regrets?” I whisper in German.

She closes her eyes, and I imagine that she is picturing Paschal. How he screamed when we were taken away and begged his mother to bring us back.
“Grand-mère!”
he cried.
“Tatie
, don’t go!” I had planned for our arrest in a dozen different ways, but I had not planned for what we should do if the soldiers came and Paschal was still awake. My mother opens her eyes, and her voice is firm. “No,” she says. “I have no regrets.”

The barber arrives and, after locking the door behind him, announces that he is here to prepare Anna and Marie Grosholtz. He cuts our hair short for the guillotine. When the job is done, he asks if there is anyone we might like to leave it to.

“I left mine to my daughter,” Rose says from her bed. “It will be her inheritance.”

I do not want my nephew to remember me by my death, and I shake my head. The barber looks to my mother, who is just as vehement. The old man shrugs. He sweeps our long hair into a bag, and I wonder if it is destined to be used on a wax head someday. But I refuse to cry.

“When they first cut off my hair, I wept all day,” Rose admits.

“It is only hair,” I tell her. “It will grow back.”

“If you have enough time! The carts are coming right now. It could be me, or you, or—”

“Stop that,” Grace snaps, and I think Rose will die of fear before they take her to the guillotine.

“Twenty-one,” Rose says. Her voice rises. “To die at twenty-one?”

“Or forty,” Grace retorts. “Or fourteen. There is a boy in here who is thirteen years old. ‘Kill them all, and God will know His own,’ ” she says. “That is their motto.”

There is the sound of a key turning in the lock, and many of the women stand from their beds. Rose whispers, “It’s time.”

“The carts are here!” the jailer shouts before he leaves us to open the next door in the hall. Hundreds of prisoners fill the corridors, and we join the crowd as they make their way to a giant hall where the monks must have gathered to eat. My mother and I sit next to Rose and Grace. There are at least eight hundred people here. “How many names do they call each day?” I ask Rose.

“Three. Sometimes four.”

“Then your chances of being called are only one out of two hundred,” I tell her.

She stares at me with her wide, dark eyes.

“I spent a good amount of time counting money and balancing books,” I say. I want to tell her,
At least you weren’t arrested by Robespierre
himself. He didn’t stare at you and say that only Saint Denis could save your life now
. Then I think of Madame Royale living alone in the Tuileries Palace. I heard that, after Madame Élisabeth’s death, they separated Marie-Thérèse from her brother, and that the soldiers were treating young Louis-Charles with particular cruelty. Whatever Madame Royale’s deeds against me were, and only God truly knows them, I am willing to forgive her. Today, if my name is called, I will go with a clean heart.

I search the hall for familiar faces. There are just as many men as women, both old and young,
culottes
and
sans-culottes
. A young man seats himself next to me, and I am struck by how similar to Henri he appears. He catches me staring and asks, “You are new here?”

“Last night.”

“I’m sorry,” he says with genuine sympathy. “They do this on purpose,” he reveals. “Gather everyone and make them wait. It’s a sad spectacle,” he adds critically.

The chief jailer appears with a list in his hands. Immediately, the entire room is silent. I can see the way he makes us wait, searching the hall and letting his gaze rest on particular prisoners, who immediately bury their heads in their hands. “Today’s list,” he says slowly, “has eight people.”

“Eight
?” Rose turns to me. “What are our chances now?”

“One in a hundred.”

My mother makes the sign of the cross, and the chief jailer begins to read. He pauses after each name, searching for the victim so he may see the reaction. When he reaches the end of the list and we have not been called, I am suddenly elated. We have survived! Our first day in Les Carmes and we will live to see another.

But there are devastating cries across the room as loved ones are parted and must make their good-byes. At once, I feel terrible guilt for my joy. A woman is forcibly parted from her husband as she is begging him to look after their daughter. I cover my eyes with my hand, and the man next to me says gently, “Don’t sit at the front tomorrow. When you sit in the back, there’s almost nothing you can hear. It’s better that way.”

I lower my hand. “So then why are you up here?”

He smiles. “Because I saw you.”

I know I’m blushing, and I realize I should introduce myself. But is it possible to court this way in a prison? “I am Marie Grosholtz,” I reply.

He takes my hand and kisses it tenderly. “I am François Tussaud.”

O
NCE THE HALL
is cleared of the condemned, the prisoners are given carafes of dirty water and bowls of soup.

“We can go outside,” François suggests. “If we leave now, we might find a bench.”

I look to my mother. “Go,” she says. I follow François into a little herb garden where we are allowed to sit on the wooden benches. There are guards posted along the wall, grateful for the chance to stand in the sunshine rather than inside, among the latrine buckets and bloodied floors.

“So you were born in Strasbourg,” François guesses. He must hear my accent.

“Yes, but I remember almost nothing of it,” I say.

“Like Mâcon. That’s where my people are from. But they moved to Lyon when I was four, and all I can remember are the water mills.”

I think of Marie Antoinette’s Hameau, with its pots of lilacs and clusters of hyacinths. The water mill was Madame Élisabeth’s favorite place in Versailles. Is someone still feeding the sheep and milking the cows, or has the Convention abandoned the rustic sanctuary to the honeysuckle and ivy? “But Lyon must be much like Mâcon,” I say, picturing the thriving city between Paris and Marseille. “The cities are close.”

“Yes. It was. Of course, now there is almost nothing left of it.”

I tell him about the Salon de Cire, and he tells me he was an engineer. “So we were both builders,” he says. “Except now there’s nothing to build in Lyon.”

“Why? What happened?” I ask.

I can see that the memory pains him. “It was a massacre,” he reveals. “The city refused to support the Committee of Public Safety and wanted a return to the Constitution of ’Ninety-one. It was civil war. The papers in Paris never reported it?”