Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution

Chapter 63

JULY

28, 1794

Welcome, day of delivery [July 27]

You have come to purify a bloody land.

—HYMN TO JULY 27

“HE HAS BEEN ARRESTED!” SOMEONE IS SHOUTING. “ROBESPIERRE has been arrested!”

We scramble from our beds into the hall, where a guard is standing at the top of the stairs with the keys of the prison clenched in his hand. “Follow me!” he cries.

The sound of a thousand prisoners hurrying up the stairs echoes above our cell. It is just after dawn, but everyone is awake. There is laughing and crying. We can hear men cheering from the great room. We follow the other prisoners up the steps into the hall, and inside it is chaos. Soldiers from outside the prison have arrived with kindling for the fireplace, and they are burning the chief jailer’s records, paper by paper. François finds the guard who has been so generous as to lose at most games of poker and asks him what’s happening.

“They arrested Robespierre last night,” the guard says. “The National Convention has charged him with being a tyrant.”

The irony of this is not lost of any of us.

“When he realized they were coming for him,” the guard adds, “he attempted to shoot himself.” He smiles. “All he succeeded in doing was shattering his jaw. They are taking him to the Place de la Révolution. They are to guillotine him this morning along with all of his accomplices.”

As the news spreads, there are shouts of relief and tears of joy. But at noon, when word comes that Robespierre is dead, there is a startled silence.

It is real. The Terror is over.

A soldier stands at the front of the hall and announces that we are all free. Throughout the room, men and women are crying. I embrace my mother, and we weep into each other’s arms. I think of all the people we shall live to see again. Curtius, Paschal, Isabel … Edmund.

Next to me, François caresses my cheek. His eyes are red and his hands are trembling. “Madame Tussaud, will you escort me to freedom?” He takes me by the arm, and I am filled with the most immense gratitude I have ever known.

God, it seems, exists even in Les Carmes.