Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution (2 page)

Marie Antoinette: Queen of France

Comte d’Artois: Youngest brother of King Louis XVI

Baron de Besenval: Commander of the Swiss Guard; father of Abrielle de Besenval

Henri Charles: Inventor, balloonist, and showman

Jacques Charles: Mathematician, inventor, and balloonist

Philippe Curtius: Wax modeler and showman

Georges Danton: Revolutionary and journalist

Jacques-Louis David: Painter

Camille Desmoulins: Lawyer and revolutionary journalist

Lucile Duplessis: Young revolutionary engaged to Camille Desmoulins

Princesse Élisabeth: Sister of King Louis XVI

Anna Grosholtz: Mother of Marie Grosholtz

Edmund Grosholtz: Marie’s eldest brother and captain in the Swiss Guard

Isabel Grosholtz: Wife of Johann Grosholtz and mother of Paschal

Johann Grosholtz: Marie’s second-eldest brother and soldier in the Swiss Guard

Marie Grosholtz: Curtius’s “niece”; wax modeler and show-woman

Wolfgang Grosholtz: Marie’s youngest brother and soldier in the Swiss Guard

Thomas Jefferson: American ambassador to France

Marquis de Lafayette: French aristocrat and American Revolutionary War hero

Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun: Popular female painter employed by the queen

Louis-Charles: The dauphin; first son of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

Louis-Joseph: Second son of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

Louis the XVI: King of France

Jean-Paul Marat: Swiss lawyer and journalist

Comte de Mirabeau: Revolutionary and journalist

Duc d’Orléans: Cousin of King Louis XVI who later changes his name to Philippe Égalité

Comte de Provence: Eldest brother of King Louis XVI

Maximilien Robespierre: Lawyer from Arras, revolutionary

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Philosopher and writer

Marquis de Sade: Criminal and writer

Princesse Marie-Thérèse: Daughter of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

A
UTHOR’S
N
OTE

T
HE YEAR IS 1788, AND
Q
UEEN
M
ARIE
A
NTOINETTE’S POPULARITY
is on the decline. Food shortages are widespread throughout her kingdom, caused in large part by the unpredictable weather, which has destroyed most harvests, leaving the French to look to other countries for help. Now, the coldest winter in living memory has settled in, and unless food is found quickly, many thousands will perish.

The quotations at the beginning of most chapters have been excerpted from scandal sheets, newspapers, and speakers contemporary to the time, while each character in this book is based on a person who lived—and in many cases died—during France’s Revolution. All of the major events in this novel took place.

Prologue

L
ONDON

1812

W
HEN SHE WALKS THROUGH THE DOOR OF MY EXHIBITION
, everything disappears: the sound of the rain against the windows, the wax models, the customers, even the children. This is a face I have not seen in twenty-one years, and immediately I step back, wondering whether I have conjured her from my past.

“What is it?” Henri asks. He has seen my eyes widen and follows my gaze to the figure near the door. The woman is in her sixties, but there is something about her—her clothes, her walk, perhaps her French features—that sets her apart. “Do you know her?”

“I—I’m not sure,” I say. But this is a lie. Even after so many years, there is no mistaking those hands. They shaped a queen’s destiny and enraged a nation. At once, my years at the court of Versailles are as near to me as though they had happened yesterday, and I am no longer standing in my London exhibition but in a great mirrored hall watching the courtiers in their fine silk
culottes
and diamond aigrettes. I can smell the jasmine from the queen’s private gardens and hear the laughter in the king’s marble chambers.

“Who is she?” Henri asks.

This time I whisper, “I believe it is Rose Bertin.”

Henri stares. “Marie Antoinette’s
dressmaker
?”

I nod at him. “Yes.”

The woman crosses the room, and it is only when she is directly in front of us that I am certain about who she is. She is dressed in a pelisse fashionable among women half her age, and the feather in her hat is an extraordinary shade of blue. Outside, a young man is waiting at her coach. Passersby will suspect that he is her son, but anyone who has ever been acquainted with her will know better.

“Marie, do you remember me?” she asks.

I hesitate, letting the weight of our pasts hang between us for a moment. Then I reply, “You know I never forget a face, Rose.”

“
Mon Dieu
. You haven’t changed at all! Your voice, your eyes—” She glances down at my dress, cotton in plain black. “Your sense of style.”

“Your unbelievable pretentiousness.”

Rose gives a throaty laugh. “What? Did you think I would lose that with my looks?”

I smile, since Rose was never a beauty.

“And is this—”

“Henri Charles.”

“Henri,”
she repeats with real affection, and perhaps she is remembering the first time they met, in the Salon de Cire. “Did Marie ever tell you how she survived our Revolution after you and I left? For twenty years, I have wanted to know that story …”

My breath comes quick, and there’s a tightness in my chest. Who would want to remember that now? We are in London, a world away from Versailles. I look at Henri, who is honest when he says, “I doubt anyone has ever learned the half of it, Madame.”

Chapter 1

P
ARIS

D
ECEMBER
12, 1788

A
LTHOUGH IT IS MID-DECEMBER AND EVERYONE WITH SENSE
is huddled near a fire, more than two dozen women are pressed together in Rose Bertin’s shop, Le Grand Mogol. They are heating themselves by the handsome bronze lamps, but I do not go inside. These are women of powdered
poufs
and ermine cloaks, whereas I am a woman of ribbons and wool. So I wait on the street while they shop in the warmth of the queen’s favorite store. I watch from outside as a girl picks out a showy pink hat. It’s too pale for her skin, but her mother nods and Rose Bertin claps her hands eagerly. She will not be so eager when she notices me. I have come here every month for a year with the same request. But this time I am certain Rose will agree, for I am prepared to offer her something that only princes and murderers possess. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.

I stamp my feet on the slick cobblestones of the Rue Saint-Honoré. My breath appears as a white fog in the morning air. This is the harshest winter in memory, and it has come on the heels of a poor summer harvest. Thousands will die in Paris, some of the cold, others of starvation. The king and queen have gifted the city as much firewood as they can spare from Versailles. In thanks, the people have built an obelisk made entirely of snow; it is the only monument they can afford. I look down the street, expecting to see the fish sellers at their carts. But even the merchants have fled the cold, leaving nothing but the stink of the sea behind them.

When the last customer exits Le Grand Mogol, I hurry inside. I shake the rain from my cloak and inhale the warm scent of cinnamon from the fire. As always, I am in awe of what Rose Bertin has accomplished in such a small space. Wide, gilded mirrors give the impression that the shop is larger than it really is, and the candles flickering from the chandeliers cast a burnished glow across the oil paintings and embroidered settees. It’s like entering a comtesse’s salon, and this is the effect we have tried for in my uncle’s museum. Intimate rooms where the nobility will not feel out of place. Although I could never afford the bonnets on these shelves—let alone the silk dresses of robin’s-egg blue or apple green—I come here to see the new styles so that I can copy them later. After all, that is our exhibition’s greatest attraction. Women who are too poor to travel to Versailles can see the royal family in wax, each of them wearing the latest fashions.

“Madame?” I venture, closing the door behind me.

Rose Bertin turns, and her high-pitched welcome tells me that she expects another woman in ermine. When I emerge from the shadows in wool, her voice drops. “Mademoiselle Grosholtz,” she says, disappointed. “I gave you my answer last month.” She crosses her arms over her chest. Everything about Rose Bertin is large. Her hips, her hair, the satin bows that cascade down the sides of her dress.