Madame Tussaud

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 Conde 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 Opera, the Comedie. 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, Emilie, 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 Conde 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.

“As do you, Madame.… You are still next to Madame du Barry,” Curtius flatters her. “My two sleeping beauties.”

“I thought you would have found a younger woman,” Madame Sainte-Amaranthe replies, dangling her fish on the line. “I am surprised you keep it.”

My uncle takes the bait. “Madame, I could search the faces of a thousand women and never find one who is your equal.”

It is a credit to my mother that she is still wearing her most welcoming smile. She understands that wealthy women of a particular age, after a lifetime of bartering their beauty, do not know any other way of interacting with men. Now that Madame has assuaged her ego, she turns to her children. “Emilie, Louis, I would like you to meet Dr. Curtius.” My uncle bows again. “Madame Grosholtz.” My mother continues to smile. “And her daughter, Mademoiselle Grosholtz.”

“Please, call me Marie,” I say.

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Louis replies. He is as delicately framed and beautiful as his older sister. “Will it be possible for my mother and me to watch while you make Emilie’s sculpture?” he asks graciously. She has brought them up well.

“Of course,” my uncle says. “These chairs are for you.” My mother has taken our best seats from upstairs and arranged them at the far end of the workshop, near the fire. “Madame Grosholtz will fetch us some drinks while Marie begins. When the head is finished, I will work on the rest of the model.”

Curtius rarely sculpts faces anymore, mostly because there is too much to do entertaining guests and fashioning miniatures for our Curiosity Shop.

“Have you brought clothes?” I ask Emilie, directing her to a stool across from my worktable.

“My mother has them. Will you be putting the model in the Salon?”

“If you approve of it,” I tell her and fetch my caliper.

“Oh, there is nothing I’d like more!” she says while I measure her face. “But what I really want is for Francois Elleviou to see it.”

“The singer?” I ask.

“You have heard of him?” she exclaims.

Like all young people, she cannot believe that someone as old as I am might have heard of Francois Elleviou. “He is something of a sensation,” I say wryly. “I’m certain most of Paris has heard his name.”

“My mother hadn’t. Not until I begged her to invite him to our salon.”

I want to say that it is my job to be well informed, that people don’t come to an exhibition to see figures that are of no interest. Instead, I reply, “Then she knows who he is now.”

Emilie smiles, and I notice that both of her cheeks are dimpled. They are too charming not to include in the sculpture. “She certainly does. He is courting me.” Before I can reply she says, “There is a man in the doorway!”

I turn, and there is Robespierre. Yachin must have sent him back. I cannot fathom what he might want. As I cross the room, I wipe my hands on my apron. “Monsieur Robespierre. What a delightful surprise.”

“I do not mean to interrupt,” he says quickly. “I happened to be passing and thought to deliver a message to your uncle in person.”

I point to the back of the workshop, where Madame Sainte-Amaranthe is in danger of exposing her bosom. She is showing my uncle something on her feet, perhaps a new gold buckle. Robespierre makes a great performance of disapproving. “You have guests,” he says with distaste.

“Allow me to introduce Madame Sainte-Amaranthe and her daughter, Emilie.”

He looks at Emilie, perched on her stool like a Grecian goddess. There are few women who can live up to such hyperbole. I have seen only two: the queen’s dearest friend, the Princesse de Lamballe, who was as pale and flawless as a diamond when I saw her over ten years ago at Versailles, and now Emilie.

“She is fourteen,” I tell him, “and this is her first sitting.”

Robespierre makes the briefest of bows, then hurries across the workshop to greet my uncle. I feel sorry for him. It’s not his arrogance that keeps him from engaging with women, but a lack of self-confidence.

I return to the clay model and take up my caliper to be sure that I have the nose just right.

“Who is that?” Emilie whispers.

“Robespierre. A lawyer from Arras.”

“Does he always wear green spectacles?”

“Yes. He does not see well.”

“Like the king. I’ve heard that the corners of all his furniture are rounded in case he should run into them.”

But I am stopped from replying by something else extraordinary. A courtier in the king’s livery has been shown in by Yachin. The workshop falls silent as the man holds out a letter for me. “Mademoiselle Grosholtz?”

“Yes.” I study the man’s powdered wig, his silk stockings, his blue livery. Even the nail on his smallest left finger, grown long so that he may scratch on King Louis’s doors—no one is allowed to knock but the queen— indicates his status.

“A request from Madame Elisabeth, sister to His Majesty King Louis the Sixteenth.”