Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution Read online

  By the time I reach Montreuil, I am two hours late. Madame Élisabeth and the Marquise de Bombelles are sitting on the colonnaded porch, watching the princesse’s six dogs leap and play in the grass. When my carriage appears, the little greyhounds come running. “Put them inside,” I hear Madame Élisabeth tell the marquise, and when I descend from the carriage, she says, “Marie! I thought you weren’t going to come.”

  “I am very sorry, Madame. The roads—”

  “Of course. It’s April nineteenth all over again.”

  Her brother’s wedding day. “You remember that?” I’m surprised. “You were only six.”

  “Almost seven,” she corrects. “But I can still recall all of the carriages and people. Thousands of people,” her voice grows distant. “Only they were happy. Happy, and hopeful for the future and a dauphin. My sister-in-law has given France two princes, yet here we are.” Her eyes darken. “It was kind of you to come. My sister-in-law’s dressmaker could not manage it today. Perhaps tomorrow.”

  “Mademoiselle Bertin?”

  She nods, and I want to ask whether she could not or would not. Imagine, being so certain of the queen’s love that you refuse an offer to come to Versailles.

  We enter Montreuil, and I inhale deeply. The servants have placed fresh flowers in the vases—thick bunches of roses and branches of jasmine. We spend the morning and most of the afternoon in the workshop, laughing over de Bombelles’s version of a foot, which might be a very short-fingered hand. There is a visit from young Madame Royale, who has brought her little brother. Madame Élisabeth makes a great fuss over her nephew, giving him pieces of wax to play with and showing him how to fashion a ball. He is four years old, with the sweetest temperament and the roundest eyes. When Madame Royale feels that he’s been too much the center of attention, she takes his hand and announces that it is time for them to go. “I wish to see all the carriages and noblemen,” she tells us. “They are arriving by the hundreds, and Maman says I shall have a new dress for tomorrow, and the day after that, because everyone will be watching me.”

  “I believe that they will be watching your father, the king,” Madame Élisabeth observes.

  “But we will be sitting with the king,” Madame Royale says as she leads her brother toward the door.

  “Vanity can be a sin,” Madame Élisabeth cautions.

  “Oh, it’s not vanity,” Madame Royale promises. “We must all dress according to our station. That is why the Second Estate has been asked to wear white silks and gold vests, and the Third Estate black coats and breeches.”

  “I can tell you,” Madame Élisabeth replies with certainty, “that if the queen could have her way, we would all be wearing muslin and taffeta.”

  Madame Royale wrinkles her nose. “Even commoners?”

  It is as if I am not here. Or perhaps it is because I am here, occupying her aunt’s time, that she is saying these things.

  “Everyone,” Madame Élisabeth repeats.

  Madame Royale thinks on this, then pulls her little brother’s hand and leaves.

  “She is not like her mother,” the marquise remarks.

  “No,” Madame Élisabeth says softly.

  Chapter 15

  MAY 1, 1789

  Don’t be dressed up and don’t wear big hats.

  —MARIE ANTOINETTE,

  INSTRUCTING VISITORS TO THE PETIT TRIANON

  MADAME ÉLISABETH IS TWENTY-FIVE TODAY, AND WE HAVE spent the morning collecting fruit and gathering vegetables from the gardens of Montreuil. I am wearing a soft muslin dress with a wide satin belt and an apron full of rhubarb. If Curtius only knew that, instead of joining her brother in welcoming the Three Estates, the Princesse of France would be picking red currants, he would have kept me in the Salon.

  At seven this morning, a young courtier made his way through the crops to tell us the official greeting had begun. Another came a few minutes ago to let us know it had ended. We’ve learned that the clergy and nobility were met in the Hall of Mirrors, but the representatives of the Third Estate were received in a hall that was far less grand. It was poorly done, and I have no doubt that Camille and Marat will make much of this. If I were braver, I would tell Madame Élisabeth. But among the painted fences and the small, bright fields, I think of my brother Edmund’s warning and place my red currants in a basket.

  The Marquise de Bombelles has dressed for the day in dark green muslin and a wide straw hat, which complements her features. “I am done,” she announces proudly. “The rhubarb is finished.”

  Madame Élisabeth looks up at the sky. “It’s only midday. Let’s collect milk from the Hameau. We have never taken Marie to see it.”

  The marquise frowns, but it is Madame Élisabeth’s birthday, and the three of us are driven by berline to the Hameau. As we ride, Madame Élisabeth says, “This is the queen’s little farm. It was a gift from my brother, and there is nothing anywhere in the world quite like it.”

  “Oh, it’s more than a farm,” the marquise adds. “It’s an entire”—she searches for the right word—“world. The Prince de Condé had one built at Chantilly, but this …”

  I cannot see how a farm can be like an entire world until the berline arrives. On the far edge of a pond, an entire peasants’ village has been constructed, complete with a farmhouse, flourmill, cowshed, and working dairy. I am given a tour of nearly every building, from the half-timbered cottages with their newly thatched roofs to the charming water mill with its great splashing wheel. At every window, lilacs and hyacinths have been arranged in white vases, cheering up the façades of the small brick cottages. But it’s the Laiterie, two sandstone pavilions nestled in the trees where the queen’s well-groomed cows provide fresh milk and butter for Her Majesty at the Trianon, that is the most impressive.

  We walk up the stairs and into an antechamber with a towering dome. Everything is the color of ivory: the ceiling, the walls, and the tall, rounded niches where large pieces of white Sèvres china, monogrammed in blue with the queen’s initials, have been placed. Beyond this, a pair of wooden doors opens up into a grotto, where a marble sculpture of the nymph Amalthea rests among the overhanging rocks. This room is as cool and dim as the antechamber is light. Fountains chill porcelain milk pails with Roman designs, and stepping closer, I can see what the artist has done. He—or she—has taken scenes from the newly discovered city of Pompeii and used them for inspiration. There is a milk churn painted with Mercury stealing the herds of Admetus, an amphora decorated with an image of Jupiter, and milk buckets adorned with the shepherd’s god, Pan. This is life as Rousseau imagined it. Rustic, charming, peaceful … and expensive.

  A laiterie this beautiful could exist only here. Where else in the world would a shepherdess name her cows Brunette and Blanchette and adorn their necks with collars of lavender? In what other dairy could you see a classical grotto with imitation wood pails made of Sèvres porcelain? I wish I had brought paper and ink with me, but memory will have to suffice.

  The marquise says, “Only those who have been invited by the queen are welcome here.”

  I stop walking. “Were we invited?”

  “Any guest of Madame Élisabeth is welcome,” she replies, her face tight, and I wonder how welcome I truly am. “Tonight at seven,” she continues, “the queen is hosting a fête for Madame Élisabeth. She wishes her guests to dress in red. Have you brought a dress in that color?”

  There’s the pink for Tuesday, and the blue for Monday. “Yes,” I realize. “I have red.”

  “Good. If the members of the Estates-General can celebrate, then so can we.”

  In the privacy of my room, I laugh. A celebration for the king’s sister, and I am invited! I put on the red taffeta gown. With my lace fichu and a red ribbon in my hair, I stand in front of the glass. If I saw this woman on the street, would I feel compelled to model her? She has good cheekbones and lovely dark hair. The chin is a bit strong, but with the right necklace, she might be mistaken for a comtesse. I think of Jeanne de Valois giving
herself such a title and grin. No, there would be no mistaking me for a comtesse. I am too excited!

  But what if I should forget the honors? There are so many. A princesse, for example, may kiss the king on both cheeks, but a noble is allowed only one. Members of the Third Estate, like myself, must simply curtsy and bow. I must remember not to cross my legs. And I must glide. Glide, like the queen herself, across the floors of Montreuil. I powder my hair and use my swan’s down puff—a gift from Henri many years ago—to lighten my cheeks. My mother, as always, has thought of everything. Toothpicks, brushes, eaux de propreté, lavender oil, and orange blossom perfume. There are half a dozen pairs of gloves and fans to choose from, and I bless my mother’s foresight as I pick out the gloves that have been perfumed à la mode de Provence.

  When I reach the double doors to Madame’s salon, an usher in the king’s livery hands me a red and green mask. “For inside, Mademoiselle. The queen has decided that Madame Élisabeth must guess the identity of every guest who enters. For each one she gets right, the queen will donate fifty livres to the Church of Saint-Sulpice.” I can hear the laughter from inside the salon. How many people are in there? Fifty? A hundred?

  I put the mask up to my face, and the doors swing open. I am alone. Completely alone before two hundred of the queen’s most favored guests. They are sitting around tables on stools and padded cushions. That is part of the honors. As Rose Bertin told me while correcting our exhibit, only the king and queen are allowed fauteuils, or chairs with arms. The rest of the king’s family simply have chairs with elaborate backs. The duchesses have been given tabourets, or padded stools, but all others remain standing. I assume that, when it is time for food to be served, folding chairs will be brought out. There is an intake of breath as I step forward.

  I hear someone murmur, “Certainly not any baroness.”

  “Look at her neck. Only a ribbon.”

  “The Princesse de Lamballe has only a ribbon.”

  I know that Madame Élisabeth will not be fooled. She sits in the middle of the room, flanked by the queen and the Marquise de Bombelles. She is wearing one of the most lavish gowns I have seen since coming to Versailles—a satin robe à la française in the deepest shade of carmine and trimmed with pearls. Suddenly, I realize that I am underdressed. A year’s worth of savings from the Salon de Cire could not buy a gown comparable to hers. When she says, “Mademoiselle Grosholtz,” I lower the mask and there is much applause. I curtsy as low as my dress will allow.

  It is a sea of red. Red silks, red muslins, red taffetas, red velvets. The rich materials capture the candlelight, and I notice another woman studying the picture the fabrics create. She smiles at me, two members of the Third Estate masquerading for a night as members of Versailles.

  “So your gamble worked,” Rose Bertin says.

  “I believe it was your gamble as well,” I reply. I am glad to see her.

  She offers me a seat on her little couch, and I take it. “How long has it been?” she asks.

  “Three months.” I take a glass of white wine that’s offered to me and turn away the oysters. I must not appear greedy. “But a great deal has changed since then.”

  Rose places her fan between us so that no one may read our lips. “And every day it becomes more like a rats’ nest. Have you been to the palace this week?”

  “We rode by this morning, but we didn’t go inside.”

  “Crawling,” she says, “with men you wouldn’t admit to the Salon de Cire. Men without any money at all. They blame the queen for everything. The rain, the wind, the bad harvest …”

  I think of Robespierre, who came to Curtius to borrow a coat before he left. For all of his fine wigs and embroidered waistcoats, he could not afford a jacket with tails. I am ashamed to be speaking this way at the queen’s own fête. “Perhaps she can do something to change their minds.”

  Rose gives me a long look. “You run a show. How do you sell a foreign queen to a people determined to believe the worst? I have tried myself. And failed. She was the ruler of style as well as France. Now look.”

  Across the salon, Marie Antoinette is attended by half a dozen women. She is wearing satin gloves and a pouf studded with pearls. She is flawless.

  “Nothing unique. Nothing original. Every woman in Europe wanted to follow her once. I could dress her in burlap and the Duchess of Devonshire would follow. She has given up her elaborate wardrobe, and still they hate her. I am useless here.”

  The queen was Rose Bertin’s living doll. Who else could dress herself at noon and see a hundred likenesses by noon the next day?

  “And now they think they can live without a queen. There is talk,” she whispers, “that the Estates-General will call for a constitutional monarchy.”

  I glance over my shoulder, but the other guests are all laughing and enjoying the chance to eat pâté de foie gras.

  “I know that men visit your salon each Tuesday night. It’s not a secret. And everyone knows that your uncle is close with Orléans.”

  “It’s a relationship of convenience,” I say. “We have no love for him.”

  “But what does the Duc believe?” she asks. “Will they propose a constitution?”

  I owe Rose the truth. After all, it’s no secret, just as she says. And it was her gamble that placed me here. “Yes,” I reply, but very quietly. “And they have drafted a declaration so we can be like England.”

  “A country too weak even to hold on to its colonies?” We both look at Madame Élisabeth, who is reaching for her sister-in-law’s hand. “They are too good,” Rose says. “That is their problem. Another king would send soldiers to arrest the Duc and execute him. Anyone who dissented would follow.”

  Chapter 16

  MAY 3, 1789

  The hallways, the courtyards, even the buildings and corridors are all filled with urine and fecal matter.

  —JEAN-LOUIS FARGEON,

  PERFUMER TO THE COURT OF VERSAILLES

  ON SUNDAY, AFTER PRAYERS, I’M ALLOWED TO VISIT MY brothers. Wolfgang meets me at the door of the Grand Commune, under its triangular pediment and carved cherubini. The hall beyond us is empty, but come night, it will be filled with the hundreds of representatives who have come to Versailles.

  “Where are Edmund and Johann?” I ask.

  “They couldn’t get away. You have no idea what it’s like in the palace. Hundreds of people, and who knows what any of them are carrying. The doors are open at all hours, and cats have taken over the halls. I saw a pig yesterday—”

  “In the château?”

  “It’s a zoo.” We begin to walk, and I notice that his black shoes and silver buckles are new. “No more Sundays off until the Estates-General is finished.”

  “But then how did you get here?”

  “I’ve become somewhat friendly with my commander, the Baron de Besenval,” he confesses. “I’ve been making it my mission to impress him.”

  This isn’t like Wolfgang. “Are you in debt?”

  We reach a small fountain and sit on the ledge. “It’s his daughter.”

  I study his face. “You’re not serious? He’s a baron! What does Edmund say?”

  “Oh, Edmund doesn’t know,” he answers quickly. “He can’t know. Not until I’ve convinced the baron I’m suitable for Abrielle. She is such a kind woman, Marie. And beautiful. With a face like that of the Princesse de Lamballe—only sweeter. I’ve been exemplary these past few weeks. And Besenval has taken notice.”

  “He’ll want to marry her off to someone with a title,” I warn. “And if she’s as pretty as you say, then someone with a fortune.”

  His shoulders sag. “I met her last year at a celebration her father hosted. I thought I would forget about her. Then I saw her again last month in the palace. There really is no one like her, Marie. I wouldn’t pursue this if she didn’t want me as well. I see her at every Sunday Mass, and on Tuesdays we meet in the Château Opéra. No one uses it anymore.”

  Like Camille and Lucile, a pair of lovers determ
ined to decide their own fate. “And what does she tell her father?”

  “There are seven hundred rooms in the palace. You could set a dog loose and never find him again.”

  So he doesn’t know. “And how old is she?”

  “Twenty-three.” He adds defensively, “She’s not a child.”

  “But she’s Besenval’s child.”

  “Yes.” He stands. “Which is why I must get back. He gave me leave to see you, but only to wish you well. I heard the queen held a masquerade in Montreuil last night,” he remarks.

  “Not a proper one with costumes, but there were masks.”

  “You were there?” he exclaims.

  “I was invited by the princesse.”

  “I wish I could hear all about it. You will have to write to me, and I will tell you how it’s progressing with Abrielle.”

  “Be careful,” I say. “If her father discovers you—”

  “Then both he and Edmund will want my head.” He holds out his gloved hand, and I take it. “Don’t worry.” He winks. “I don’t plan on being caught.”

  “Someone will talk.”

  “You are the only one who knows.”

  “And you don’t think she’s told half a dozen of her friends?”

  “No. She can keep a confidence.”

  As we make our way toward the palace, I try to imagine my brother with a title, and giggle. “Baron Wolfgang,” I whisper.

  He grins. “And really, who wouldn’t want me for a son?”

  “It all depends,” I tease him. “Do you plan on gambling away the dowry?”

  Suddenly, he becomes serious. “I haven’t gambled in six weeks. Honestly, Marie, I want this more than anything. Write to me. I want to know everything you hear this month. In the palace … on the Boulevard …”