Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution (8 page)

“Oh, you won’t see her,” Henri promises. “But you will hear her.”

My cheeks flush again. “Of course.”

“Tomorrow at seven in the morning then,” he says, and he is looking at me.

After I see Henri to the door, I go upstairs to search for Curtius. I am angry with him. When does he think I will have time to prepare for a sitting if I am listening to some invisible girl? No doubt the mechanics of the show will be interesting—everything that Henri does defies logic. But there is nothing interesting about being unprepared. I stalk through the salon and stop as I’m about to enter the kitchen. Next to the unwashed pots and pans, Curtius has his arms around my mother, and they are sharing a tender moment. He is whispering something in her ear, and she is giggling. They are young again in the way they love each other. For a moment, I am tempted to interrupt. Then I turn around.

I will have to remember to be angry with him tomorrow.

Chapter 6

F
EBRUARY
4, 1789

The contagious example of the Duc d’Orléans [is ruinous]
.

—M
ADAME
C
AMPAN
,
FIRST LADY-IN-WAITING TO
M
ARIE
A
NTOINETTE

A
LTHOUGH
I
SHOULD BE LAYING OUT CALIPERS AND BOWLS
of plaster, I am standing in Henri’s workshop surrounded by the most curious instruments of science. Because I have been so busy with the Salon, I have not been here for several months—perhaps even a year, I realize with shock—and in that time much has changed. Placed haphazardly on the long wooden countertops are gadgets I have never seen before, and in between them are clear tubes filled with bubbling liquid. Everything looks new, but then that is the nature of science. Whereas wax will be the same in two hundred years, science changes daily.

Like the house that we rent, Henri’s home with his brother, Jacques, has been divided into three parts. On the first floor is a vast auditorium with a sprawling workshop behind it, while upstairs are large chambers off a long hall and a kitchen. For me, the workshop is the most soothing. I imagine this is how Henri feels as well. It is probably a place where he can shut out the incessant noise of the Boulevard and concentrate on something quiet. While the crowds outside may never stop, art and science will go at your own pace. Even when an exhibition has gone poorly, I find peace in retiring to the back of my workshop to be among the tools of my trade.

At a table on the far side of the room, Jacques Charles is scribbling furiously. Above him hangs the formula for which he is known,
v
₁
/
t
₁
=
v
₂
/t
_2.
The volume of a gas at constant pressure increases linearly with the absolute temperature of the gas
. This is how Henri initially explained it to me. His words had confounded me for days until I returned and he showed me the experiment that resulted in the equation. He took a deflated silk balloon and held it over a lighted candle. The silk envelope twitched and flickered upward from his outstretched fingers. Heat expanded air, air filled the balloon, then the balloon went up. Magic, and not magic at all.

When Jacques Charles lifts his head and greets us, I refrain from asking him what he is working on. My business is with Madame Sainte-Amaranthe and her daughter, and the fewer questions I ask, the sooner I will be able to return to the Salon. Still, I wonder when he will launch his next balloon. A model of the one launched in the Tuileries Gardens hangs next to the formula above his head. It is an exact replica, from its wicker gondola to its valve-and-ballast system. Nearly half a million people had been there to see it off, and because our family were special guests of the Charles brothers, we were granted a place in the front row across from the queen and her
ménage
. The queen had dressed her ladies in loose, flowing
lévites
, pink and yellow to coordinate with the color of the balloon. Matching scarves were tied around their waists, and their pink bonnets were identical. Only the queen herself stood out, in a
lévite
and bonnet of the purest white. I look around the workshop and realize what is missing. “The plaque from the queen,” I say. “Commemorating your flight. What happened to it?”

Henri exchanges a look with his brother. Although fifteen years separate them, in some ways they are strikingly similar. I can see their kinship now in the way they both lower their eyes. “We thought it prudent to put it away,” Henri explains, “in case anyone should wish to tour our laboratory.”

“It could be a major draw to your exhibition!” I look at Curtius to see if he agrees, but he is silent.

“Do you know why the people were respectful during Their Majesties’ visit to your Salon?” Henri asks. “Because bread and firewood were passed out in their names all along the Boulevard du Temple that morning.”

So the king and queen are savvy. They know that a peaceful outing in Paris requires a donation to the local poor. “I don’t see why that means you should take down her gift.”

“If she had not placated the people, they would have stood at your doors shouting ‘Down with
The Austrian.
’ ”

I don’t believe it. “They’ve been coming in droves to see what she’s seen.”

“This week,” he points out. “What about next week? Or the week after that?”

“She isn’t popular,” my uncle says quietly, and this is the first I’ve heard him speak against her. “We should listen carefully to what’s happening. There may come a time when the Duc is more popular than the king.”

“The
Duc d’Orléans
?” I exclaim. The man who stumbles into his coach too drunk to sit upright every Tuesday night? The man who has publicly humiliated his wife by installing his mistress as governess, giving her the right to educate his children despite the Duchesse d’Orléans’s pleas to raise her own sons and daughters?

“He has sold art from his estate worth more than eight million livres,” Jacques says. He stands next to his brother. “He is using the money to buy bread and firewood for the poor.”

“And the peasants have begun calling him Father Charity,” Henri adds flatly.

“So he thinks to win the crown through a popularity contest?” I demand.

Everyone around me nods.
To displace a king. It is unthinkable
.

“Come. Let’s hear the Invisible Girl,” Curtius says. “That is a far more cheerful subject.”

But as we cross the workshop, I can’t stop thinking about the Duc, imagining him on the king’s throne, wearing the king’s crown. And who would be his queen? His mistress, Mary Nesbitt, whose origin can be traced to a wheelbarrow according to the scandal sheets? Or perhaps it would be Grace Elliott, London’s finest courtesan? And what would become of his wife, the beautiful and neglected Duchesse d’Orléans? I am so obviously disturbed by this prospect that Curtius puts his arm around my shoulder and says, “It will be fine. We didn’t come here to speak politics.” It is a reminder that I must look interested and enjoy the entertainment.

Henri hesitates before the door to the auditorium. “We can do this another time.”

“No,” I say. “I wish to see it. I don’t want to be the only one in Paris who hasn’t met the Invisible Girl.”

Curtius smiles at me. It is important to him that we keep on good terms with the Charles brothers, and Henri in particular, who has been like another son to him, fixing our mechanics, painting our walls, helping build our tableaux. We enter the auditorium, with its hundreds of seats and darkly painted walls. At the far end of the stage, a large box has been suspended from the ceiling. A giant horn has been affixed to the box. Henri waves us toward the stage, and I put my ear to the horn.

“That is a lovely green dress you have on,” someone says from the other side of the horn.

I jump back. “Where is she?” I look around. “How did she know?”

Henri laughs. “Can’t you figure it out?”

I am intrigued despite myself. Curtius puts his ear to the horn, and I hear a young woman’s voice tell him that his brown gloves are extremely elegant. Somehow, she can both see us and project her voice through the box. But she can’t be inside the box, for it is too small to accommodate a person. “She’s behind the stage,” my uncle says, “and there’s a peephole somewhere.”

“Close, but not quite.”

I listen again, and this time the girl compliments my green purse. I study the wall in front of me, then run my hands over its smooth surface. There is no hidden opening. I look up, and there, craftily disguised by a hanging lamp, is a peephole. “She’s up there!” I exclaim. Henri watches me with open fascination. “She’s looking down on us. And the mouthpiece of the horn … you have extended it all the way up to the attic.”

“You are the first person to guess it.”

It’s incredibly ingenious. “It will make you a million livres!” I say.

“Is that all you think about?” Henri laughs, but there is earnestness in his question. “Curtius, you have raised a coldhearted entrepreneur. The only thing money is good for, Marie, is buying time. The time to do the things you like.”

I often forget that exhibitions are a secondary passion for him. His first love is the laboratory, but as the more versatile brother, he has taken on the role of provider. It is only in his spare time that he is able to join Jacques among the gadgets and glass tubes. “Well, think of all the time a million livres could buy,” I say. “You could construct an entire
fleet
of balloons.”

“If that ever happens, I shall name one
Marie
in your honor.” His dark eyes are studying mine.

Suddenly, I feel warm. “And will I get to choose the color?” I tease.

“Certainly. Which color would you like?”

I take a moment. And then it comes to me. “Gold.”

I
AM LATE
for my sitting with Madame Sainte-Amaranthe’s daughter. As Curtius and I rush through the door, my mother clucks her tongue disapprovingly. “They will be here in twenty minutes!”

“Then let them wait,” Curtius says.

“Madame Sainte-Amaranthe?” my mother and I shriek. She is one of the most powerful women in Paris. Men would sell their children to be invited to her Thursday evening salons and give up their wives to be a part of her exclusive gambling club, Cinquante. She has been mistress to the Prince de Condé and the Vicomte de Pons, and there is loud talk that the vicomte is the father of her two children. She has her own box at the Italiens, the Opéra, the Comédie. This is not a woman accustomed to waiting.

“It will be good for her,” Curtius says wryly. “A new experience.”

“Or perhaps she will leave, and that will be a new experience for us,” I tell him.

We enter the workshop, and I see that my mother has done her best to prepare for the sitting, anticipating our needs. “The plaster!” I ask. “Where is the plaster?”

“Right in front of you,” my mother says calmly.

I am flustered. I haven’t even readied the clay. And I am sure Madame Sainte-Amaranthe will not wish to have plaster applied directly to her daughter’s face. That means the wax mold must be made from a sculpture. It takes a quiet mind to sculpt, not one filled with strange contraptions and horns.
The Invisible Girl!
I scowl at Curtius, who is directing my mother on how to rearrange certain items. I have barely calmed my mind when Yachin announces the Sainte-Amaranthe family, then takes it upon himself to escort them personally through the Salon and into the workshop. I see why at once. He is only two years younger than Madame’s daughter, Émilie, and at fourteen she is already a stunning beauty. She has come in a dress of long white gauze threaded through with silver.

“Thank you, Yachin.” But our barker cannot take his eyes from her. “You may go now,” I say. I am surprised he is able to walk away without tripping over himself.

Madame Sainte-Amaranthe gives a little laugh that I hope Yachin cannot hear. “My daughter has this effect on men.” She turns a dazzling smile to Curtius, and it is clear that she thinks she still has this effect as well. Many years ago, when the Prince de Condé requested a nude of his mistress, my uncle made two. One went to the prince’s boudoir; the other lies scantily clad in our Salon.