Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution

Chapter 53

JANUARY

31, 1793

I shall be an autocrat, that’s my trade; and the good Lord will forgive me, that’s His.

—CATHERINE THE GREAT

EVERY COUNTRY ON EARTH HAS TURNED AGAINST US. ENGLAND, Russia, Holland, Austria. When their monarchs hear of King Louis’s murder, they unite in their horror and condemnation.

Empress Catherine the Great has declared mourning for all of Russia, and in England the prime minister, William Pitt, has called the king’s death “the foulest and most atrocious deed which the history of the world” has ever seen. I can find nothing in the papers to indicate what America’s President Washington believes. Perhaps he is neutral. But whatever he feels, we have made more enemies than we can fight.

On the first of February, the Convention declares war on both England and the Dutch Republic. Curtius says this is a preemptive strike, that England would declare war on us anyway. But I think it is pride. The hulking figure of Georges Danton stands before the Convention and swears that the limits of France will someday reach “the ocean, the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees.” When I ask my uncle what he thinks of this, he closes his eyes and shakes his head.

I imagine Wolfgang and Henri reading this news, and I wonder what will happen to them now. What will happen to us all? Their letters have stopped. Nothing arrives in or leaves from Paris except for soldiers. At night, the patrols go from house to house, searching for weapons, powder, illegal flour. Anyone caught hoarding is sent to prison. Then on the fifth of October, to cheer the populace, we are given a new calendar. From this day forward, no one is to celebrate the Catholic festivals or use the calendar that dates from Christ’s birth. “We are a nation of thinkers,” Danton declares, “and as such, we shall celebrate the glorious rationalism that has brought us to such liberty.”

Not a single journalist in all of Paris dares to point out that our new liberty has imprisoned us within the city. That our dead are buried the same day they die—in mass graves—because there is no longer room and even gravediggers are not allowed outside the city gates. And so we all must pretend to embrace this new calendar. Those who do not use it are branded enemies of the patrie.

“Repeat the names,” my mother instructs, and we listen while Paschal recites the names of the months.

“Vintage, Fog, Frost, Snow, Rain …” He hesitates on the sixth month.

“Wind,” she says helpfully. We are all sitting at the caissier’s desk, and it is very important he get this right.

“Wind,” he repeats after her. “Seed, Blossoms, M-Mead—”

“Meadows,” I say.

“Meadows, Harvesting, Heat, and Fruit.”

Isabel claps. “Very good.”

“And what year is this?” my mother asks.

Paschal frowns. “Seventeen ninety-three?”

“No,” Isabel says forcefully. “It is Year Two.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“The first year began on September twenty-second, seventeen ninety-two.” The day France declared itself the First Republic.

“But how?” He doesn’t see how he could have been alive before time began.

“That is the decree of the Convention,” she explains.

“But it doesn’t make sense.” He is frustrated.

“It doesn’t have to,” I tell him. “You must simply learn the rules and obey.”

“Is that what liberty means?” he asks earnestly.

The three of us are silent.

“No,” I say. “That is what tyranny means,” but I don’t explain.

Paschal repeats the names of the months again, but we do not ask him to memorize the fruits, animals, and minerals associated with each day. Now that the Convention has declared the Church an enemy of the patrie, no day shall ever be associated with a saint again. Instead, on the twenty-second of September, we are to all praise the grape. On the fifteenth of March we must remember the tuna. The twenty-second of April is reserved for the fern, and we shall not forget the onion on the twenty-first of June. In a similar fashion, all Christian holidays have now been abolished. Despite the fact that the Jacobins have called Jesus our world’s first sans-culotte, we are to celebrate the glorious attributes of the canine instead of Christ’s birthday on the twenty-fifth of December. But these are things that are impossible to explain to an eight-year-old child.

On October 21, however, Paschal’s questions are impossible to avoid. The street criers are shouting that the Cult of Reason is now to replace Catholicism and that the first celebration will be held tonight in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in praise of the Goddess of Reason.

“Who is the Goddess of Reason?” Paschal asks. “Is she real?”

My mother clenches her jaw. “No. She is blasphemy.”

“Maman!” I exclaim. There are patrons in the Salon, and we are sitting at the caissier’s desk.

“I don’t care!” she shouts.

“Yes. You do.”

There are tears in her eyes. I leave the desk to buy a newspaper, and when I return, I read it to her in German. She must understand the seriousness of this. All deaths, marriages, and births are now to be registered under the civil registration law and not in the Church. And all saints and images of worship are to be taken down. Only statues of Citizen Jesus may remain. Synagogues have been closed down, and Jews who wear their peyos long must cut them off. From this day forward, all churches will be turned into Temples of Reason, and any person found harboring priests or rabbis will be killed.

My mother is silent, listening.

“What is it, Grand-mère? Is it very bad news?”

My mother takes Paschal’s hand in hers. “Yes. May God help us,” she whispers.