Madame Tussaud

the subject had never done a sitting with me.

Unfortunately, there is no one to be seen in here. The chapel is small, and the pews are crowded with farmworkers and servants from the chateau. It is of no use to the Salon. I look over to study the princesse’s face while the rest of the chapel is deep in prayer and am surprised to see that she is staring at me.

“You do not attend vespers at home?” she whispers.

I flush. “No. Only Sunday’s Mass.”

She nods gently. “God appreciates seeing His flock whenever they come in, even if it’s only once a week. Whenever I cannot steady my mind,” she adds, “I think of the people of France, suffering without blankets in the bitter cold and tucking in their children at night without food. Perhaps, if you find that your mind is restless, you can pray for our people.”

I bow my head, humbled by the princesse’s request. There is no one in France with such a kind heart, and certainly her brother cannot be so different. The Duc d’Orleans must be a terrible man to whisper scandal about these people.

Chapter 9

APRIL

3, 1789

Man’s natural character is to imitate: that of the sensitive man is to resemble as closely as possible the person whom he loves. It is only by imitating the vices of others that I have earned my misfortunes.

—MARQUIS DE SADE

THERE ARE MOLTEN WAX AND ROWS OF CALIPERS, PLASTER molds, and oil paints in small glass jars. Someone has laid out every necessity so that the princesse will not have to do it herself. It is our first day in the palace workshop, and as I watch Madame Elisabeth tie the Marquise de Bombelles’s apron into a bow, it is so reminiscent of home that immediately I am at ease. Madame Elisabeth turns to me, and I see that blond curls have escaped from her bonnet. They put me in mind of Charles Perrault’s story “Little Red Riding Hood.”

“We will start with something simple,” I tell her. The longer I stay in Montreuil, the more molds I will be able to take back to the Salon. So first it will be fruit. When she has mastered that, we shall go on to larger objects. Then, after several months, we will begin faces. I imagine she will want to model her brother and possibly her niece, Madame Royale. If I am very lucky, we shall model them live. “Fruit,” I say, “is very easy to create.”

“Yes,” Madame Elisabeth agrees. “We have done fruit. And flowers in vases.”

I am shocked. “Madame knows the basics of wax modeling?”

“Oh yes,” the marquise says. “She is very good at flowers. But it is faces and bodies she wishes to do.”

“Then you know about calipers and plaster molds?”

“Certainly,” Madame Elisabeth replies. Then she adds, “We would not have called upon someone of such talent to waste time with fruit.”

Then perhaps I will have a new figure for the Salon before the month is out! “Then we will proceed to sculpting faces in clay,” I reply.

“Whose face does Madame wish to begin with?” The king, I wish her to say; the king. There are hardly any angles on his face. Just round, wide planes as easy to mold as an apple.

The princesse turns to the marquise. “Angelique, what do you think?”

“Perhaps the face of our Lord Jesus Christ?”

I am sure my heart stops in my chest.

“I was thinking Saint Cecilia,” the princesse admits. “But it is far more appropriate to begin with our Lord. We can do Cecilia next.”

I am forced to appear jolly as a servant fetches a portrait of Christ, but this is a catastrophe. People pay to see princesses and kings, not the faces of saints! Those can be seen in any church in France. As we wait, the princesse elaborates on which saints she would like to model in the future: Saint Cyprian, who was beheaded with a sword. And Saint Sebastian, who was stoned to death. Plus a tableau of Saint Potamiaena, an Alexandrian slave boiled alive after refusing the advances of her licentious master. It is all very gruesome. Even worse, I think, than our Cavern of Great Thieves. The princesse would like to take her finished models to the Churches of Saint- Genevieve and Saint-Sulpice in Paris. If this is all we are to do, attend Mass and model saints, I must find a way to salvage my time here. Perhaps we can do a different kind of tableau, like The Saints and Their Slaughter. I will have to ask Curtius what he thinks.

WHEN THE CARRIAGE returns me to the Boulevard du Temple, I am shocked by how dull the buildings appear. Many are in desperate need of paint, and none have the cheerful look of Madame Elisabeth’s golden orangerie. I have been gone for only four days, but already I have become accustomed to the grandeur of Montreuil.

As the driver stops in front of the Salon de Cire, Yachin puts down his sign. The kippah he is wearing is black today, the same color as his curls. When he first came to us I asked him why he wore the little hat, and he told me that it was a tradition among the Jews, a sign of respect for God. It has not been easy for Yachin’s family to be foreigners in this country. Only two years ago our king overturned Louis XIV’s law that forbade the exercise of any religion outside the Catholic faith. But this Edict of Tolerance has not granted Jews the right to citizenship. Perhaps the Estates-General will change this as well.

As I open the door, Yachin offers me his hand. “You’re back already?” he exclaims when I step out.

“I am a tutor from Thursday to Sunday. So tell me,” I say quickly, before my mother and Curtius can come outside. They will have heard the horses and carriage even from the workshop in the back of the house. “How was business?”

“There were thirty-five people yesterday. At least.”

Thirty-five times twelve sous is four hundred and twenty. That’s good. Very good. “And drunks pissing in our urns?”

“None,” he promises. “So did you bring me something? Did you see the queen? What about the king? Is the chateau as big as it is in paintings?”

“No, no, no, and yes,” I reply. My mother and Curtius come out, dressed in work clothes. My mother embraces me, then pulls back to look at my face. In four days, I am certain I have not changed, but she shakes her head. “Already you are getting thin.”

“I eat every meal.”

“I don’t care!” She raises a finger. “I can see from your face.” She points to my cheekbones, which have always been high, then to my collarbone above the lace fichu.

“Let her be.” Curtius smiles. He pays the driver, then embraces me warmly. “You look the same to me.”

Inside, I search the rooms for any sign of change. But everything is the same. My mother and Curtius follow me into the workshop so I can inspect a pair of headless bodies dressed in muslin gowns. Curtius has completed the two figures of Emilie Sainte-Amaranthe. One will go home with Emilie today, and the other will be placed next to her mother and our sleeping model of du Barry. I study the hands and feet, then examine the chests to be sure that the faces I began two months ago will be the same color. It is a long process to create a complete figure. It takes two weeks to perfect the clay model of any head, then another week to create the mold. Once the mold is ready, it is a week before a wax head is finished. Already then, a month has passed. By the time the hair and teeth are added and a custom body is built, two months have gone by. Today, when Emilie comes to claim her model, she will be very pleased. The head and body are a perfect match. All I need do is join the two.

“This is good,” I tell Curtius. “Exceptional.”

“Now let’s hear about Versailles!” my mother exclaims. She hurries up the stairs, and Curtius and I follow and sit at the table. She brings us coffee and asks eagerly, “So what is it like? How does our king live? Are there hundreds of servants?”

I describe the richness of the palace to her. The marble halls, the sweeping stairs, the English gardens that