Madame Tussaud

AUTHOR’S

NOTE

THE YEAR IS 1788, AND QUEEN MARIE ANTOINETTE’S POPULARITY is on the decline. Food shortages are widespread throughout her kingdom, caused in large part by the unpredictable weather, which has destroyed most harvests, leaving the French to look to other countries for help. Now, the coldest winter in living memory has settled in, and unless food is found quickly, many thousands will perish.

The quotations at the beginning of most chapters have been excerpted from scandal sheets, newspapers, and speakers contemporary to the time, while each character in this book is based on a person who lived—and in many cases died—during France’s Revolution. All of the major events in this novel took place.