Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution

Chapter 41

SEPTEMBER

14, 1791

THE KING HAS SIGNED THE CONSTITUTION INTO LAW THIS morning. France is to be a constitutional monarchy, with an assembly that will share power with the king. A hundred years from now, perhaps even five hundred, this will be a day remembered by the people of France, possibly by people across the world. The rejoicing in the streets has already begun. Henri and Jacques are to launch a balloon over the Champ-de-Mars announcing an end to the Revolution.

At sunset, we ride to the Champ-de-Mars, where people are already filling the stands. Two months ago, this was the scene of a massacre. A group of angry citizens, gathered to sign a petition to overthrow the king, became unruly. Lafayette appeared with his National Guard, and when the petitioners began throwing stones at the soldiers, shots were fired. Thirty men were killed, and Marat’s L’Ami du Peuple called it the Champ-de-Mars Massacre. The papers turned against Lafayette. And when it emerged that the queen had slipped past him on the night the royal family escaped, men like Robespierre started to speak openly against him.

But today, the crowds are joyful. Jacques has brought the wicker basket and the balloon, and both have been arranged in the grassy center of the stadium so that thousands of people can watch it take flight. Henri asks if my mother and I would like to hang tricolor ribbons from the gondola, and while we’re helping, a woman comes up to Henri and asks, “Are you one of the Charles brothers?”

“I am,” he says.

She claps her hands. “Then this must be the Charlière!” She looks up at the giant gold balloon—a color chosen in my honor—then back at Henri. “I am a great admirer of men of science.”

Henri grins. “Are you?”

“Oh yes.” She is dressed in a revealing chemise gown with a fetching bonnet of blue and white.

“Well, perhaps you can express your admiration to Jacques. My brother enjoys speaking with devotees.”

She looks at Jacques, with his heavy jowls and protruding belly. “I think I would prefer to speak with you.”

“I’m sorry,” he says kindly. “We are busy here, and my fiancée is the extremely jealous type.”

“Henri!” I exclaim.

He laughs. “If you’ll excuse me.”

The young woman studies me with a critical eye, then turns on her heel.

“Your fame precedes you,” I say.

He sighs. “Just another day for the Charles brothers.”

“Or at least Henri Charles,” I whisper. I wonder how many times this happens to him in his exhibition. If we were married, then I suppose I would know. “Tell me about the balloon,” I say.

“What? Are you an admirer as well?”

“Very much so.”

“Well, what do you want to know?”

“Explain to us the difference between using hot air and hydrogen,” Wolfgang says.

“Wolfgang!” My brother has arrived with Curtius and Abrielle. “What are you doing here?”

“What—captains aren’t allowed to watch the festivities?” My brother and I embrace while my mother rushes to take Michael from Abrielle. My little nephew shrieks with delight. It has been eight weeks since we’ve seen him. We live only twenty minutes away, but the work in the Salon never stops. He is all big cheeks and wispy blond hair. He wraps his chubby arms around his grandmother’s neck, and everyone praises him for looking like his parents.

“When will he walk?” I ask Abrielle.

“Oh, not until November or December I should think.”

I know nothing about children, and even less about how they learn to walk and talk.

“Don’t look so worried.” She laughs. “You’ll learn all about children once you are pregnant. It’s the only thing anyone will want to talk to you about.”

Two years ago, she was sitting in the queen’s rooms fending off the attention of every man in attendance. Now, she is dressed in a simple chemise gown with ribbon instead of pearls for her neck. “So does it bore you?” I ask.

“I was afraid it would be lonely.” She looks at Michael, bouncing happily on my mother’s hip, and adds, “But I was wrong. Motherhood is not at all what I expected.”

“For the good,” I say hopefully.

“Oh yes. But it never stops.” She adds, “There is always something to do or to buy. He grows so quickly. Every month he needs new clothes.”

It must cost a fortune. How do they afford it? Even now that we are part of every Catalog of Amusements, we barely take in enough to pay for the wax, the costumes, the wigs, the accessories, plus food for our small family and our own clothing.

“But it’s simply a matter of economy,” Abrielle says, as if reading my thoughts, and I am impressed at how she has grown up. At no time during these past two years has her father tried to see her. Yet she has made do with what she has.

“I wish I could learn to be more like you,” I admit.

She is puzzled. “I have never met anyone better at economizing. You could convince the king to pay for his own crown.”

I laugh. Then we turn to Wolfgang and Curtius, who are listening to Henri. “So there are limits to hot air,” Henri is saying. “When the air cools, the balloon is forced to descend.”

Curtius crooks his finger at me, and I follow him to the edge of the grass, where Jacques is tampering with his altimeter, away from all the noise and excitement. “A letter,” he says, taking an envelope from his jacket. “From the American ambassador, Gouverneur Morris, to George Washington.”

He hands it to me, and I can see that it is not the original. “How did you get this?”

“It was intercepted this morning and translated into French,” he tells me.

It begins with a salutation and a brief note on how happy Gouverneur Morris is to be in Washington’s favor. Then he continues with the important news of the day:

The king has at length, as you will have seen, accepted the new Constitution, and been in consequence liberated from his arrest. It is a general and almost universal conviction that this Constitution is inexecutable. The makers to a man condemn it.…

You doubtless recollect that the now expiring Assembly was convened to arrange the finances, and you will perhaps be surprised to learn that after consuming church property to the amount of one hundred million sterling, they leave this department much worse than they found it.… The aristocrats who are gone and going in great numbers to join the refugee princes believe sincerely in a coalition of the powers of Europe to reinstate their sovereign in his ancient authorities.…

The Prince de Condé has requested that all French gentlemen capable of actual service will immediately repair to the standard of royalty beyond the Rhine or rather on the banks of that river. To the troops mentioned in this note are added by the counterrevolutionists here 15,000 Hessians and 16,000 French refugees, so that exclusive of what the emperor may bring forward, they muster an army, on paper, of 100,000 men.

A panic wells up inside me that is hard to suppress. “A hundred thousand men?”

“This is not the end,” Curtius warns. “Gouverneur Morris was one of the authors of America’s Constitution. He doesn’t believe our Constitution has been written to last. If that is true, and an army is being mustered by the emperor on his sister’s behalf … We must be sure the royal family knows we are still with them. Visit Madame Élisabeth in the Tuileries soon. They are under guard, but I can arrange for a pass.”

“What are we?” I ask, hopelessness in my voice. “Royalists? Revolutionaries?”

“Survivalists,” he replies.