Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution

Chapter 48

AUGUST

29, 1792–S

EPTEMBER

2, 1792

The vessel of the Revolution can arrive in port only on a sea reddened with torrents of blood.

—LOUIS ANTOINE DE SAINT-JUST, REVOLUTIONARY AND LAWYER

“MARIE.” SOMEONE IS SHAKING MY SHOULDER. “MARIE, WAKE up. It’s already eight.”

I open my eyes and see Henri’s face in the fresh morning light. His long hair curls around his naked shoulders, and his chest is covered with a blanket.

I rush from the bed, and the two of us find our clothes. I watch in the mirror as Henri pulls on a pair of striped brown trousers. Every showman in Paris is now a sans-culotte. The only benefit that I can see is that it’s easier to dress. He waits while I slip on a white chemise gown and helps to tie the blue ribbon in the back. Then he sits on the bed. “Marie,” he begins, and I can hear from his voice that this will not be light conversation. “You were almost killed yesterday.”

I come here to escape the world, not be reminded about it.

“We had the chance to escape. And now the chance has come again. A chemist has offered Jacques a passage to London on a ship that’s supposedly bound for Rouen. He isn’t going. But I am. I want you to come with me. The mobs have taken your brothers. They have taken Yachin, and they will take your family if we don’t escape.”

For the past two weeks we have slept together as husband and wife. “Stay,” I say desperately. “I will marry you. I want to marry you.”

But Henri is firm. “Then marry me in London.”

“And risk crossing the Channel?”

“Wolfgang made it safely. You have heard from him. Marie, the Austrians are coming, and when they’re at the walls, what do you think this city will be like?” He stands from the bed. “Come with me.”

“And do what? Be what when we get there? Beggars?”

“Showmen.”

And start all over? Without a house, without a place to exhibit? “What about your laboratory?” I ask. “What about your planisphere clock?”

“It will be here. Jacques will take care of it. And if it’s all destroyed, then there will be others.”

“My mother and Curtius will never leave.”

“Then they will have each other. As well as Isabel and Paschal. But if they stay, death is the risk they are taking. Is it one you’re willing to take? There are things I still wish to accomplish in this life. I have no intention of meeting my end here. Aren’t there things you still wish to do?” he presses.

I think of Johann and Edmund, who will never have the chance to pursue their dreams. “Of course. But if the ship is leaving tonight,” I tell him, “there is no time to pack. No time for anything—”

“There will never be a perfect time. You can’t plan this out like a tableau. Either you love me enough to leave or you don’t.”

I think of my family, of the Salon. “Henri, I’m sorry …”

There is devastation in his eyes. “Me too.”

ISABEL SITS ON my bed and holds me while I weep, deep, racking, uncontrollable sobs. She pushes the hair away from my face and whispers that my uncle doesn’t know what to do for me and that my mother is beside herself with grief. A small figure stands in the doorway, hesitant to come in, but Isabel beckons him forward. Paschal climbs into my lap. He puts a tiny hand on my cheek. “Be happy, Tatie.” Paschal calls me by the affectionate word for aunt, but I am afraid I may never be happy again.

“You chose this,” Isabel reminds me softly. “You could have gone.”

I look at her through my tears, unsure I’ve heard right. “Would you leave?”

“My place is with your mother. But you have an entire life ahead of you. A man who would be your husband. You chose this,” she repeats.

For the rest of the morning, I stay in my chamber with Henri’s letter. “When you are ready to live in London,” he wrote, “come and find me. However long it takes, I will be waiting.” I read the words over and over again, and when the pages are so stained with tears that the ink begins to run, I let them dry by the window and cry myself to sleep.

I am being crushed by the heat of the afternoon when a voice wakes me. “Marie?” Isabel knocks on the door. When I don’t answer, she turns the knob and lets herself in. She sets a tray on the table beside me. There’s a pot of coffee, and the scent fills the room. “The Prussians have taken Longwy,” she says. “All the Imperial army needs to do now is cross the Marne Valley and the road to Paris is stretched out before them.”

I sit up in my bed and move to stand, but Isabel holds out her hand. “Curtius is already gone. He left this morning while you were sleeping. Eat.”

I look at the dishes she has prepared for me and cannot imagine ever having an appetite again. “Henri left just in time,” I realize. “Another day and it might have been too late.”

“If God wills it, then you will join him in London.”

“But I’ve missed my chance.” I can hear in my own voice that I am growing hysterical. “He is in a different country and may never return!”

Isabel pours a cup of coffee and hands it to me. “Try not to think like that,” she suggests.

I look into her face, so steady and earnest. “Why can’t I be like you?”

“A widow with a son who will never know his father?”

My God, I am selfish. She has lost her husband, the father of her child, and she is waiting on me while I mourn the loss of a man I refused to follow. I put down the coffee and take her hands. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Isabel.”

“Sometimes I can hear his laughter,” she whispers, sitting on the edge of my bed. “In my sleep mostly. But also if Paschal is overjoyed. So that is my duty now. To keep Johann laughing through Paschal.”

I am humbled by her goodness, and I will do my duty as she has done hers. I have stayed in Paris for my family and the Salon. I must honor them both. Although my appetite is gone, I do my best with the salad. “I don’t hear any noise downstairs,” I worry.

“That’s because the Salon is closed. Every man in Paris has gone to the Palais to volunteer. Robespierre came this morning to ask if Curtius would help Danton recruit.”

“Danton?” The same man who called for the massacre of the Swiss Guards? “And he went?”

“What could he do?” she asks. “He has set up a Revolutionary Tribunal to find royalists and arrest them. Last night, they arrested eight hundred citizens. He told us they have taken all the priests who refused to swear an oath to the Constitution and locked them in the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. There will be more arrests today. They are searching for anyone who ever served in the king’s household.”

My hands go cold. “Then they will come for me.”

“No,” she says firmly. “Robespierre believes your uncle is a patriot. He would never have asked for his help if he thought otherwise. And if your uncle is a patriot, then so are you.”

“So it’s guilt or innocence by association.”

She can see the absurdity in this, just as I can. “It’s like they’re hunting witches,” she says. “Anyone wearing a black-and-white cockade or using an honorary title is suspect. This evening, they are transferring the guillotine to the Place du Carrousel next to the Tuileries Palace.”

“Are they going to kill everyone who has ever worked in Versailles?”

“They killed your barker’s family for less.” What is she saying?

“They killed him because he was fleeing.”

Her eyes go wide as she realizes that I have not been told. “Oh, Marie—”

I put down my cup. “What? I will hear it anyway,” I swear. “Why did they kill him?”

“You should ask your uncle.”

“He is with Danton.”

“Then your mother—”

“Perhaps she has not been told either,” I say angrily.

“No. She was there when Robespierre …”

I wait for her to say it.

“When Robespierre told us that they searched Yachin’s bags and found a handkerchief with the queen’s initials on it.”

I cover my mouth with my hands.

“They accused his family of being royalists,” she says quickly. “I’m sorry, Marie. Your mother told me it was a gift. You couldn’t have known …”

My heart is breaking. A handkerchief! The death of an entire family for a scrap of silk. My throat is burning and my eyes blur.

Isabel wraps her arms around me. “I know,” she says.

THAT EVENING, THE Revolutionary Tribunal sends soldiers to our door at eleven. There are no men in the house, so I am the one who must meet them.

“Is this the residence of Captain Philippe Curtius?” a soldier asks. He has the wrinkled face and thinning hair of a man who is a grandfather many times over. “We are here on a domiciliary visit.”

Is that what they are calling them? Not organized looting or raids? My mother and Isabel stand behind me. There are fifteen of them and three of us. “Of course,” I say politely. “Would you like to come in?”

They fill the Salon de Cire with their boots and exclamations of surprise. These men who were once cabinetmakers and grocers now have the right to open private cupboards and sift through chests of clothes. “What is this place?” a young soldier asks.

His friend slaps his arm. “This is the Salon de Cire. Robespierre comes here.”

“Oh.” Now there is a new tone of respect. They will not be taking whatever they want.

“We have come here for weapons,” the older soldier explains.

“We have two muskets and my uncle’s pistol,” I tell them honestly.

“And is it true that Robespierre visits this place?”

“He has been many times. I should like to think he considers us good friends.”

“Then there is nothing we need from you,” the old soldier says. He takes a last look around, and I know if he had more time he would want to stay. But there are houses to raid and women to defile. “A good night to you, Citizeness.”

As soon as they are gone, I lock the door. My hands are shaking.

WE DO NOT reopen the Salon. The mood in the city is too tense, and with every knock on our door I expect to see soldiers from the Revolutionary Tribunal coming to arrest us. Neighbors ask if we have had any news. But we’ve heard nothing except what Curtius told us when he returned. The men volunteering in the Palais-Royal are worried that if they are sent to war, there will be no one to guard the many thousands of prisoners, and the criminals will break free to do with Paris’s women and children as they please.

“That is the concern?” Jacques Charles asks.

It is painful for me to see him, but we do not discuss Henri and he does not mention my decision to stay behind. After all, he has chosen to remain here, too, taking his chances with war rather than abandon everything he has built over a lifetime. I find him a chair, and he joins us at our empty caissier’s desk. “Yes. They are more afraid of their own people than of the invading army,” I reply.

“I blame that on Marat and his good friend Fabre d’Églantine.” Jacques pushes a copy of the Compte Rendu au Peuple Souverain across the desk at me, then wipes his forehead with a handkerchief. The afternoon heat is unbearable. Every day this summer it has been worse.

“Translate please,” my mother says, and I read d’Églantine’s words for her in German:

Once more, citizens, to arms! May all France bristle with pikes, bayonets, cannon, and daggers so that everyone shall be a soldier; let us clear the ranks of these vile slaves of tyranny. In the towns let the blood of traitors be the first to be spilled … so that in advancing to meet the common enemy, we leave nothing behind to disquiet us.

Jacques hands me a placard. “Marat has stopped publishing his L’Ami du Peuple and has begun posting these.” It is a single paper designed to look like an official proclamation. Now, he can post his hateful words on every lamppost in the city.

I read it and look up in horror. “He is encouraging citizens to go to the Abbey of Saint-Germain and run a sword through the priests.” My mother crosses herself, and I do not tell her what else it says. Marat is asking citizens to kill not only men of God but the hundred and fifty Swiss officers who survived the tenth of August as well.

My mother turns over Marat’s placard. On the back, he has published the names of fifty prisoners considered dangerous enemies of the patrie. “A death list,” she whispers.

For the first time in many days, I think of Madame Élisabeth and the rest of the royal family in the Temple. What will Marat scream for the mobs to do if the Imperial army makes its way to Paris?

That evening, I wait up in the salon for Curtius to come home. I can hear his boots on the stairs, his breathing as he makes his way to the landing, then his exclamation of surprise as he sees the glow of a candle burning. “Marie?” he calls. He peers around the door, and I can see how tired he is. There are circles beneath his eyes, and his lids are heavy. He is fifty-five, an age when most men are retired and enjoying their grandchildren. He takes a seat across from me at the table, and I pour him a cup of tea. “I thought you might need this.”

He takes a long sip and sighs. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“I was wondering what’s going to happen with the royal family,” I admit.

He puts down his cup. “I know you have grown attached to Madame Élisabeth. But if the Austrians arrive, the Tribunal doesn’t plan to hold them as hostages.”

“So is that who is controlling this country now? The Tribunal?”

“Or the Jacobins. Or the Assembly. Or possibly Danton and the Minister of the Interior. No one knows. Antoine Santerre certainly doesn’t, and he has been made the new Commander in Chief of the National Guard.” Curtius makes a face. “Apparently, he’s a brewer.”

This is a world turned upside down. They have given the keys of the palace to its servants, and now we all look to them to make things right. “And the king? Will he have power again?”

“Not if the Assembly can help it. And certainly not if they should see what the Empress of Russia has written in response to these events.” He begins to quote Catherine the Great, “Kings ought to go their own way without worrying about the cries of the people, as the moon goes on its course without being stopped by the cries of dogs.”

“That’s the kind of talk that began this Revolution!”

Curtius finishes his tea. “Exactly. And this dog is tired, Marie. You should find some sleep as well. Perhaps we’ll reopen the Salon tomorrow.”