Madame Tussaud

“About Reveillon?”

“Yes. They have torn the factory apart.”

I gasp. “But Curtius is there!”

“What do you mean?”

“He went to help him this morning and he hasn’t come back.”

Henri finds his brother and asks him to watch over the desk. Orange Blossom and Rose narrow their eyes at me. You’re not his type anyway, I want to say. Henri is a bachelor, and if he ever decides to marry, it will not be to a woman with a fanciful hat. It will be to a woman who understands his passion for science. We hurry back to the Salon, where I tell my mother that Henri has news.

“You see?” she says to me in German. To Henri, she whispers, “What is it?”

“It’s only talk,” he begins, but my mother waves this away. Henri leans forward so that our patrons won’t overhear. “Five thousand workers gathered outside of Reveillon’s shop this morning. They were armed with shovels and clubs.” My mother crosses herself. “The rioters destroyed the factory, then turned toward Reveillon’s house.”

The door of the Salon opens, and my uncle appears. His coat is torn. His culottes are splattered with mud. He sees that we have been waiting for word and holds up his hands, as if to defend himself. “I had no idea. No idea it would be so violent.”

My mother rushes forward to take his coat. I tell Yachin to mind the desk, and the three of us follow Curtius up the stairs. We sit at my mother’s wooden table. “It is gone. His house, his factory—as if a storm swept through and took everything,” Curtius says. “There was a rumor that Reveillon planned to cut wages. Thousands of men were at the gates of the factory when I arrived, and none of them were Reveillon’s workers.” He tells us the Duchesse d’Orleans appeared, demanding entry. Because Reveillon had no other choice, he did as he was told and let her in. The men flooded through, destroying everything they came across. “What they didn’t burn, they stole,” he tells us. “Tapestries, books, lidded vases, tables—all his family’s treasures either broken or carried away. They smashed the windows and cut down the trees. Destruction simply for destruction’s sake.”

“What of Reveillon and his family?” my mother asks.

“They escaped over the garden wall. When the Gardes Francaises arrived, the rioters climbed onto the rooftops and began to hurl tiles at the king’s men. So the Gardes fired into the crowd. Five hundred are dead, at least.”

Henri shakes his head, and I realize that the stains on my uncle’s culottes are not dirt, but blood.

“When I left,” Curtius says, “the mob was growing, and hundreds were making their way toward the archbishop’s palace at Vincennes. A man bragged that he had stopped the carriage of the Duc de Luynes and forced him to shout, ‘Long live the Third Estate!’ They’ll be rioting until nightfall,” Curtius predicts, “unless the king sends more soldiers.”

“Reveillon employed nearly four hundred people,” Henri says. “He’s been elected to represent his district next month. Who would start a rumor that he planned to cut wages?”

Curtius spreads his hands. “When the Gardes Francaises searched the dead, they found six-franc pieces on them.”

The four of us are silent, all thinking the same thing. Finally, it is Henri who says, “So they were paid.”

There is only one man with both the desire and the funds to destroy Reveillon. The Duc d’Orleans. The same man who sent his estranged wife to insist that Reveillon open the gates.

THE EVENING’S SALON is joyful. It is as if great wealth has been created rather than lost with the burning of Reveillon’s house and factory. Camille brags that not only has Reveillon’s manor, Titonville, been burned to the ground, but the saltpeter works belonging to Reveillon’s good friend Hanriot have also been destroyed.

“It is the first step,” Lucile says passionately, “in letting the elites understand that we will no longer tolerate this great division of wealth. And wait until everyone makes their way to the Estates-General tomorrow!”

I wonder what her father would think of this outburst against privilege. If not for his wealth, she would not be wearing those pretty pearls around her neck or the gold watch at her waist.

“Robespierre and I will be traveling together tomorrow morning,” Camille announces. “And you, Marat?”

“If there is space in your carriage, I would be happy to come,” Marat replies.

“Then w-we all go together!” Camille exclaims.

But Robespierre clenches his jaw. For as dirty and disheveled as Marat keeps himself, Robespierre is equally fastidious. His green-tinted glasses are polished to a sheen; his silk jacket and matching waistcoat are perfectly creased. Not even Rose Bertin could find something to complain about in his attire. “I believe,” he says in a slow, deliberate voice, “the space in our carriage was given to the Comte de Mirabeau.” He does not wish to lower himself by riding in the same carriage as Marat.

Camille hesitates, then looks across the table to the Duc. “I thought—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Marat says. “I can make my own way.”

There is an awkward moment before the Duc says, “I suspect that this will be the last time we shall meet in Curtius’s salon until the business of the Estates-General is over.” He raises his brandy, and his gold rings clink against the glass. “To Curtius and his generous family. May we all return here next month in triumph.”

While everyone raises their glasses, Marat demands, “Will you be voting to abolish all exemptions from taxes due to privilege and rank?”

The Duc lowers his glasses, and everyone at the table holds their breath. “Yes. But this convocation must do more than ease the tax burden of the Third Estate. It must recognize the Third Estate as the driving force behind this nation. As the heart and body that gives life to the powerful beast that is France.”

“Exactly!” Camille exclaims.

The diamond in the Duc’s cravat catches the candlelight. “Now that the three estates have drafted their cahiers and presented them to the king, he must take action. The lettres de cachet must be abolished. Offices sold by the state to raise money must be abolished. And the corvee must be abolished. What gives one man the right to command another man to work for him without pay?”

“It’s modern slavery!” Marat shouts. “The corvee must be the first to go.”

The Duc smiles. “And all citizens must be equal before the law.” There are eager murmurs around the table. “Even now,” the Duc says quietly, so that we know this is a great secret he is about to divulge, “the Marquis de Lafayette is drafting a declaration with help from the American ambassador, Thomas Jefferson. He is calling it the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, and we shall present it to the king.”

“And if the king won’t agree to it?” Marat challenges.

“Then perhaps we will have to find a king who will.”

When we have shown our guests down the stairs and locked the door, I turn to my uncle. “It must have been the Duc’s money that destroyed Reveillon.”

“He wants the crown,” Curtius agrees. He takes a candle from the wall, and I follow him up the stairs. When we reach the landing, he faces me. “Look at what Thomas Jefferson managed for America. There’s no telling what both he and Lafayette might do in France. We should call on him tomorrow, before he leaves for Versailles.”

“What do you think the king should do?” I ask him.

“He should force the nobility to bear the tax burden, just as we do.”

“That’s right!” my mother yells from the kitchen, elbow-deep in dishwater.

“They will refuse,” I predict.

“Then he must force them. He is king. And he must give consideration to the grievances listed in the Third Estate’s cahiers. But I doubt he will do either. He is afraid of the nobility. When they shout, he will cower.”

“Do you believe the nobles will follow the Duc’s lead?”

“The Duc has no intention of being their leader. He has seen where the real power lies.”

Chapter 13