Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution

Chapter 30

JULY

22, 1789

Tremble, tyrants, your reign must end!

—ANONYMOUS THREAT TO MARIE ANTOINETTE

IT’S HAPPENING AGAIN. JUST AS HENRI PREDICTED, JUST AS I have dreamed over and over again in my nightmares. Camille comes running into the Salon, pushing past patrons so he can make his way to the caissier’s desk. Before he can say it, I know what’s happening. “It’s a mob!” he exclaims. Lucile is behind him in a muslin gown and a wide straw hat. Her dark curls are askew, and her cheeks are pink.

“They’re coming from the Hôtel de Ville,” she says swiftly. “They are making their way to the Boulevard to find Mesdames Foulon and Berthier.”

Immediately, the people in line begin to talk. Where is the mob? Are they in danger? Should they leave?

“It is nothing to worry about,” Curtius announces. “No reason to abandon your entertainment.” To Yachin, he says, “Mind the caissier’s desk.”

The rest of us follow him into the workshop. He closes the door, and Camille explains.

It began with a rumor that Joseph-François Foulon, the king’s new Minister of Finance, told the starving people of France to eat hay. “And you believe that?” my uncle questions, but Camille shrugs. Either way, he says, the people believed it. And as soon as Foulon heard the rumor, he understood the danger he was in and escaped to the country. But a thousand citizens marched into the village where Foulon was hiding and dragged him back to Paris. The eighty-year-old man was hitched to a cart and told to pull the wagon to the Hôtel de Ville. Someone tied a bale of hay onto his back and crowned his head and neck with thistles. “How do you like hay now?” they shouted.

Tears are rolling down my mother’s cheeks, and she wipes them away with the back of her hand. Foulon lives only a few blocks away, in the house his father built. As the king’s Finance Minister, he might have bought a château. But he has never forgotten his roots on the Boulevard, and there has never been a kindlier, more considerate man. When my mother was sick with fever seven years ago, he found the court doctor, and within a week she was better. Without the care of that good physician, who knows?

“When Foulon finally reached the Hôtel de Ville,” Camille says, “the mob hung him from a lamppost.”

My mother cries out. She can’t hear any more of this.

“Go,” Curtius says gently. “Sit with Yachin.”

We watch her leave, and Camille continues, “When he was dead, the mobs decapitated him. Then they went for his son-in-law, Berthier de Sauvigny. They wanted him because he’s the Intendant of Paris.” That’s right. An administrator for the king. “So they marched to Compiègne and dragged him from his bed. They made him kiss Foulon’s severed head, then dragged him through the streets and beat him as he went. When he could no longer stand, they hung him from the nearest lamppost as well.”

I look at Curtius, whose jaw is clenched. “What about the National Guard?” he demands.

“Members of the National Guard were there.”

“They were part of it?” he exclaims. This is anarchy. When the men who are supposed to protect French citizens are killing them instead, how can there be peace?

“Yes,” Camille confirms. “And now they are bringing Berthier’s head to his wife.”

“No!” Curtius shouts, and Camille steps backward.

“It’s already done,” Lucile says nervously. “They were on their way while we were running to you.”

“So why did you come? Why didn’t you go for Lafayette, or a closer captain of the National Guard?”

“Because now they’re coming here,” Lucile replies, “and they want a wax model.”

I am going to faint.

“Marie.” Lucile rushes to my side and lowers me onto a stool.

“I won’t do it,” I swear. “They can’t make me do it!”

“I will do it,” Curtius says calmly.

“Why?” I scream. “Why should any of us have to?”

“Because the mob is looking for blood,” Curtius replies. “What did Berthier do except serve the king? What did his wife do except marry an honorable man who was willing to provide? If we refuse their request—”

“Then you could be next,” Lucile says fearfully.

The four of us are silent. This is a nightmare. No, it is worse than my nightmares, because we know Foulon and Berthier. We have eaten with them. We have watched Berthier’s children.

“I will make sure the country hears of your service,” Camille says quietly. “In tomorrow’s paper—”

Curtius and I glare at him.

When the mob comes, they are carrying torches and pikes. We close the Salon, and Curtius goes to work. I will not stay to watch.

Instead, I go with my mother to the home of Madame Berthier, where a crowd has already gathered. The night is warm, and the women who are huddled on her doorstep wear light muslin gowns and simple hats. “Madame Berthier has passed to God,” someone says, and the women make the sign of the cross.

“Did they kill her?” my mother asks.

“In a manner of speaking,” the same woman replies. I recognize her face: the thinness of her lips and her close-set eyes. She is someone’s wife. The baker’s? The tailor’s? “When she saw the cruel fate they dealt to her husband, her heart gave out. There was nothing they could do to wake her. She has joined him in heaven.”

We cross the threshold into the parlor, where a priest is intoning the last words of a psalm. The room smells of lavender powder and sage. The body of Madame Berthier is laid on a couch, and candles illuminate her youthful face. A pink cushion rests beneath her head—a perfect match for her gown and the ribbon in her hair. Did she know when she was dressing that this would be the last gown she’d ever wear? Would she have chosen something different if she had known? My mother says a prayer at the foot of the couch, and I kneel beside her, but my lips won’t move. Yesterday, Madame Berthier was alive. Laughing. Breathing. Choosing between hats. I want to stop these morbid thoughts from coming, but my mind won’t be silent. She was only thirty-three years old.

When we return to the Salon, the mobs are gone. Upstairs, Curtius is with Henri and Jacques, and the three of them are drinking. They stand as soon as they see us, and Curtius takes my mother in his arms. She is weeping, telling him about Madame Berthier. How young she was. How kind. How unfortunate. Henri takes me to his chest, but the tears won’t come. Instead, there is fear. What happens next time if Curtius isn’t here and there is only me?

The next morning, Lafayette resigns his command of the National Guard. But without Lafayette, there will be men roaming the streets and murdering, looting, raping with impunity. Even the king will not be safe. For all the Third Estate’s dreams of casting off the monarchy, it was the monarchy and its order that kept us safe. Camille writes about the day when not a single soldier can be seen in the streets. If that day comes, it will arrive with murder and rape at its back. Even the National Assembly can see this, and they beg Lafayette to return.

Reluctantly, Lafayette agrees. Perhaps they showed him Loustalot’s article in today’s Révolutions de Paris. A lawyer, like Camille and Robespierre, Loustalot has found his calling with this Revolution. Curtius hid the paper from me, but when he wasn’t looking I read the account of Foulon’s death. How they stuffed his mouth with hay and dragged his body over the cobblestones. But worse was Loustalot’s account of Berthier’s end: “Already Berthier is no more; his head is nothing more than a mutilated stump separated from his body. A man, O gods, a man, a barbarian tears out his heart from his palpitating viscera. How can I say this? He is avenging himself on a monster …” This is what freedom from the monarchy has brought us. The freedom to kill without consequence. I continue reading

His hands dripping with blood, he goes to offer the heart, still steaming, under the eyes of the men of peace assembled in this august tribunal of humanity. What a horrible scene! Tyrants, cast your eyes on this terrible and revolting spectacle. Shudder and see how you and yours will be treated. This body, so delicate and so refined, bathed in perfumes, is horribly dragged in the mud and over the cobblestones. Despots and ministers, what terrible lessons! Would you have believed the French could have such energy! No, no, your reign is over.… Frenchmen, exterminate your tyrants! Your hatred is revolting, frightful … but you will, at last, be free.