Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution (37 page)

“That all depends on what
best
means. Thick strands of pearls, or happiness and love?” We go to the theater box where I’ll be dining, and my brother looks down at the golden figure of Abrielle. I shouldn’t have mentioned the baron. This is supposed to be a happy night for him. “Go and enjoy yourself,” I say. “Just don’t drink too much.”

“I cut my wine with water now.”

I raise my brows. “Sacrifices like these can’t go unnoticed. Not if there’s truly a God in heaven.”

He laughs. “I’ll come back up when dinner’s over.”

“Do you know whom I’m sitting with?” The box is set for two.

“Someone you know,” he says mysteriously.

I take my seat, and when Wolfgang disappears, a familiar figure takes his place.

“Marie Grosholtz.” Rose smiles. She is dressed in a gown of violet silk de chine with painted bouquets of lilacs across the petticoat. Small purple gems decorate her bodice, and I wonder if they’re crystal or real amethysts. “It seems the court doesn’t know what to do with either of us, and so we meet again.” She arranges herself on the velvet seat. “I saw all three of your brothers. Quite a handsome trio.”

“Are you surprised?”

“Not really. But Wolfgang …” She snaps her fan closed and reaches for the wine. “Now
there
is a handsome man. I suppose that he’s taken?”

My God. She’s forty-two years old. Does she really invite such young men to her bed? “Yes,” I say at once. “Very much taken.”

“What a shame. Although, if I had to guess, she is someone who is quite out of his reach.”

I stare at her. How does she know this?

“He was making eyes at the Baron de Besenval’s daughter, and I very much doubt she’s resisted his charms.”

“That is not for public knowledge,” I say.

“I was young once, Marie. And though it’s hard to believe, there was a man I loved whose father believed he was too good for me. Today, that family is buried in debt. I’ll bet they wish they’d considered me now.” Rose takes a long sip of her wine. “He died seven years ago on a ship to England. Would I want him if he were still alive?” She takes a moment to consider. “Yes. But that’s how the heart is. Stubborn and foolish.” She draws my eyes to the pretty figure of Abrielle. “Will she really leave her father and all that comes with him just for love?”

“Perhaps Besenval can be convinced …”

Rose gives me a hard look. “If you love your brother, tell him to let her go. That, or get her with child—”

I inhale sharply. “He would never do that.”

“Such accidents happen,” she says lightly. “And then the baron will really have to choose. His grandchildren or his pride …”

There is a great fanfare of trumpets, and everyone turns.

“Is it the king?” I lean over the box to see.

“And the queen,” Rose says. “Her mourning has come to an end, and tonight she’s making a statement. Look what I’ve created.”

The queen is a vision of blue and white. From the feathers in her hair to the stunning turquoise at her neck, there is nothing on her person that suggests she supports the revolutionary cause. Neither the little dauphin nor Madame Royale wears any red. They are a handsome family, and as soon as they appear, a cheer goes up inside the Château Opéra.

“Vive le roi!”
someone shouts, and the cry is echoed through the room.

The orchestra strikes up the stirring aria
“O Richard, O Mon Roi,”
about a minstrel who is loyal to his king, and suddenly women are passing out black and white cockades. I see the queen raise a handkerchief to her eyes, and even the king is deeply moved. I wish that Madame Élisabeth was here to see this.

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING
the curtains of my bed are pushed aside, and the bright light startles me. When my eyes adjust, the worried face of the Marquise de Bombelles comes into focus. “The princesse needs you.”

I push away my covers. “I’m not late for modeling?”

“No. It has nothing to do with that.” She watches me get undressed, then calls for a woman to help me with my hair and hurry me into my gown.

“So what’s wrong?” The princesse normally rises at eight, and the clock reads seven.

The marquise begins worrying the lace ends of her fichu. “Every morning for the past two weeks, a servant has been collecting newspapers for the princesse. This morning …” Her eyes fill with tears. “Well, this morning … It’s terrible, Marie. Come into the salon and see.”

We hurry through the halls, and a solemn pair of guards open the doors with gloved hands. Madame Élisabeth has half a dozen newspapers spread across the table in front of her. I recognize Marat’s title among the six. As we cross the room, the sleepy greyhounds curled around the princesse’s feet lift their heads from their paws. When they see that it’s us, they return to their dreams. Wordlessly, Madame Élisabeth hands me a paper.

It’s Camille’s
Révolutions de France
. He’s turned an innocent banquet into a dangerous plot to bring down the National Assembly. Camille claims the banquet carried on until dawn as soldiers swore to defeat the Assembly’s revolutionaries and hang them from lampposts. He talks about the wine and the women’s powdered
poufs
, and says the tricolor cockade was tossed on the floor and trampled underfoot. “Just as the king plans to do to our new liberties.”

“He wasn’t even there!” I say. I pick up Marat’s
L’Ami du Peuple
. The same lies. Only in his, the queen tramples the tricolor herself. And then, on the bottom of the first page, Marat has drawn up a list of names, royalists who should be punished with death for betraying the cause of the common people. That a journalist is able to publish an article encouraging murder means that whatever the illusion the National Assembly has portrayed, however many guardsmen it has recruited for Lafayette, this is anarchy. I inhale slowly. What Madame Élisabeth needs to see is calm. “Have you shown these to the king’s ministers?” I ask evenly.

“I’m sure they’re poring over the papers as we speak. I can’t eat, I can’t think …” She stands, and the dogs scamper from their comfortable positions. “Marie, you should go.”

“Madame—”

“I’m not a fool,” she says firmly. “Every hour you spend with me here is an hour you aren’t working at your Salon.” She reaches out and takes my hands. “Thank you for coming this week. I have already called a carriage for you.”

I look at the marquise. Then I look back at the papers assembled on the table. “Is there anything I can do?”

I’m surprised when Madame Élisabeth says, “Yes. If you know of these men, if you ever see them in Paris, will you tell them the truth?”

I feel my cheeks grow hot with shame. “Yes. I will do that,” I say.

Chapter 33

O
CTOBER
5, 1789

Hang the aristocrats from on high!
Oh, it’ll be okay, be okay, be okay
.
The aristocrats, we’ll hang ’em all
.

—E
XCERPT FROM THE REVOLUTIONARY SONG
“Ç
A
I
RA
”

B
UT BEFORE
I
CAN CONFRONT EITHER
M
ARAT OR
C
AMILLE
, all of Paris loses its mind. On the fifth of October, as my mother is putting the morning coffee to boil, the tocsin in the Church of Saint-Merri begins to ring. When the sound grows louder and more persistent, we hurry down the stairs. Outside, the neighbors are emerging from their houses despite the pouring rain. Henri is already on the steps with Jacques. He kisses my cheek briefly, then whispers, “Stay calm.”

“What’s the news?” my uncle asks them.

“A mob of women, more than five thousand strong, are coming from the Rue Saint-Bernard,” Jacques says.

I glance at Henri. “My God, not here?”

“No,” Jacques tells us. “They’re making for Versailles.”

We stand on our steps and listen as the tocsin of Notre-Damedes-Blancs-Manteaux begins to ring. Henri takes my hand, and we stand together as the women approach. Nearly all are carrying pikes and knives. Some have muskets, and they raise the polished guns above their heads each time someone shouts,
“When will there be bread?”
I can see from their ragged dresses that these women are
poissardes
. Market women. They have come from the quay where they’ve been selling fish. They are hungry looking and were probably easy to rile.

“What do they think they’re going to do?” I whisper.

“Stand at the gates and harass the guards,” Henri guesses.

Already my brothers and the Royal Flanders Regiment are going to be tested. Curtius steps into the crowd and speaks with a man who seems to be leading the women. The conversation is brief.

When Curtius returns, his face is grave. “That man was one of the
Vainqueurs
of the Bastille. He says the women have been growing more violent each day that Lafayette has been gone.”

“Where did he go?” Jacques shields his eyes from the rain with his hand.

“To the port of Le Havre to bid Jefferson farewell. Now that he’s returned, he’s gathering twenty thousand Guardsmen to march with the women and keep them from violence.

“Are you going to answer the call?” Henri asks. The tocsin of Saint-Merri is still ringing.

“I don’t have a choice.”

I
T IS TEN
the next morning before Curtius returns. Henri and Jacques arrived at seven. We closed the Salon and have been listening to the newsboys shout the latest events. If their sources are correct, it’s a catastrophe for the king. My uncle’s clothes are stiff with mud, and his hair is soaked. Henri takes his jacket while I remove his boots. He is too tired to speak, so we follow him up the stairs and watch while he eats.

Curtius cradles a cup of coffee in his large hands. There are circles beneath his eyes so deep they look black. “Yesterday morning,” he recounts, “the National Guardsmen marched without Lafayette’s approval. Twenty-five thousand people descended on Versailles, and Lafayette might as well have been their prisoner. He sent a messenger ahead to warn the royal family so that when the mob arrived, the guards would be ready. I didn’t see Wolfgang or Johann, but Edmund was there. There were thousands of soldiers. Every man in the Swiss Guard and the Flanders Regiment. When the
poissardes
realized there would be no getting into the palace, they went to the Salle des Menus Plaisirs and pleaded their case with the National Assembly. They believe the monarchy wants to rid France of commoners by killing them with hunger.”

“That’s
ridiculous.”
Jacques is indignant. “Without the Third Estate, there are no taxes to maintain a palace, no revenue to run a kingdom!”

“These are simple people,” Curtius explains. “The women have been reading Marat’s
L’Ami du Peuple
and listening to the revolutionaries in the Palais-Royal.”

“They should have those revolutionaries arrested for inciting rebellion,” Henri says, and Jacques agrees.

“The king has already given orders,” Curtius says, “for the Duc d’Orléans to be sent to England. But this is bigger than the Duc. Bigger than any one person.” The curtains in the room breathe in and out. The storm hasn’t passed, and the rain is still falling in heavy sheets. “I should think that whatever the king does now,” Curtius continues, “it’s simply too late.”