Madame Tussaud

charms.”

“That is not for public knowledge,” I say.

“I was young once, Marie. And though it’s hard to believe, there was a man I loved whose father believed he was too good for me. Today, that family is buried in debt. I’ll bet they wish they’d considered me now.” Rose takes a long sip of her wine. “He died seven years ago on a ship to England. Would I want him if he were still alive?” She takes a moment to consider. “Yes. But that’s how the heart is. Stubborn and foolish.” She draws my eyes to the pretty figure of Abrielle. “Will she really leave her father and all that comes with him just for love?”

“Perhaps Besenval can be convinced …”

Rose gives me a hard look. “If you love your brother, tell him to let her go. That, or get her with child—”

I inhale sharply. “He would never do that.”

“Such accidents happen,” she says lightly. “And then the baron will really have to choose. His grandchildren or his pride …”

There is a great fanfare of trumpets, and everyone turns.

“Is it the king?” I lean over the box to see.

“And the queen,” Rose says. “Her mourning has come to an end, and tonight she’s making a statement. Look what I’ve created.”

The queen is a vision of blue and white. From the feathers in her hair to the stunning turquoise at her neck, there is nothing on her person that suggests she supports the revolutionary cause. Neither the little dauphin nor Madame Royale wears any red. They are a handsome family, and as soon as they appear, a cheer goes up inside the Chateau Opera.

“Vive le roi!” someone shouts, and the cry is echoed through the room.

The orchestra strikes up the stirring aria “O Richard, O Mon Roi,” about a minstrel who is loyal to his king, and suddenly women are passing out black and white cockades. I see the queen raise a handkerchief to her eyes, and even the king is deeply moved. I wish that Madame Elisabeth was here to see this.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING the curtains of my bed are pushed aside, and the bright light startles me. When my eyes adjust, the worried face of the Marquise de Bombelles comes into focus. “The princesse needs you.”

I push away my covers. “I’m not late for modeling?”

“No. It has nothing to do with that.” She watches me get undressed, then calls for a woman to help me with my hair and hurry me into my gown.

“So what’s wrong?” The princesse normally rises at eight, and the clock reads seven.

The marquise begins worrying the lace ends of her fichu. “Every morning for the past two weeks, a servant has been collecting newspapers for the princesse. This morning …” Her eyes fill with tears. “Well, this morning … It’s terrible, Marie. Come into the salon and see.”

We hurry through the halls, and a solemn pair of guards open the doors with gloved hands. Madame Elisabeth has half a dozen newspapers spread across the table in front of her. I recognize Marat’s title among the six. As we cross the room, the sleepy greyhounds curled around the princesse’s feet lift their heads from their paws. When they see that it’s us, they return to their dreams. Wordlessly, Madame Elisabeth hands me a paper.

It’s Camille’s Revolutions de France. He’s turned an innocent banquet into a dangerous plot to bring down the National Assembly. Camille claims the banquet carried on until dawn as soldiers swore to defeat the Assembly’s revolutionaries and hang them from lampposts. He talks about the wine and the women’s powdered poufs, and says the tricolor cockade was tossed on the floor and trampled underfoot. “Just as the king plans to do to our new liberties.”

“He wasn’t even there!” I say. I pick up Marat’s L’Ami du Peuple. The same lies. Only in his, the queen tramples the tricolor herself. And then, on the bottom of the first page, Marat has drawn up a list of names, royalists who should be punished with death for betraying the cause of the common people. That a journalist is able to publish an article encouraging murder means that whatever the illusion the National Assembly has portrayed, however many guardsmen it has recruited for Lafayette, this is anarchy. I inhale slowly. What Madame Elisabeth needs to see is calm. “Have you shown these to the king’s ministers?” I ask evenly.

“I’m sure they’re poring over the papers as we speak. I can’t eat, I can’t think …” She stands, and the dogs scamper from their comfortable positions. “Marie, you should go.”

“Madame—”

“I’m not a fool,” she says firmly. “Every hour you spend with me here is an hour you aren’t working at your Salon.” She reaches out and takes my hands. “Thank you for coming this week. I have already called a carriage for you.”

I look at the marquise. Then I look back at the papers assembled on the table. “Is there anything I can do?”

I’m surprised when Madame Elisabeth says, “Yes. If you know of these men, if you ever see them in Paris, will you tell them the truth?”

I feel my cheeks grow hot with shame. “Yes. I will do that,” I say.

Chapter 33

OCTOBER

5, 1789

Hang the aristocrats from on high!

Oh, it’ll be okay, be okay, be okay.

The aristocrats, we’ll hang ’em all.

—EXCERPT FROM THE REVOLUTIONARY SONG “CA IRA”

BUT BEFORE I CAN CONFRONT EITHER MARAT OR CAMILLE, all of Paris loses its mind. On the fifth of October, as my mother is putting the morning coffee to boil, the tocsin in the Church of Saint-Merri begins to ring. When the sound grows louder and more persistent, we hurry down the stairs. Outside, the neighbors are emerging from their houses despite the pouring rain. Henri is already on the steps with Jacques. He kisses my cheek briefly, then whispers, “Stay calm.”

“What’s the news?” my uncle asks them.

“A mob of women, more than five thousand strong, are coming from the Rue Saint-Bernard,” Jacques says.

I glance at Henri. “My God, not here?”

“No,” Jacques tells us. “They’re making for Versailles.”

We stand on our steps and listen as the tocsin of Notre-Damedes-Blancs-Manteaux begins to ring. Henri takes my hand, and we stand together as the women approach. Nearly all are carrying pikes and knives. Some have muskets, and they raise the polished guns above their heads each time someone shouts, “When will there be bread?” I can see from their ragged dresses that these women are poissardes. Market women. They have come from the quay where they’ve been selling fish. They are hungry looking and were probably easy to rile.

“What do they think they’re going to do?” I whisper.

“Stand at the gates and harass the guards,” Henri guesses.

Already my brothers and the Royal Flanders Regiment are going to be tested. Curtius steps into the crowd and speaks with a man who seems to be leading the women. The conversation is brief.

When Curtius returns, his face is grave. “That man was one of the Vainqueurs of the Bastille. He says the women have been growing more violent each day that Lafayette has been gone.”

“Where did he go?” Jacques shields his eyes from the rain with his hand.

“To the port of Le Havre to bid Jefferson farewell. Now that he’s returned, he’s gathering twenty thousand Guardsmen to march with the women and keep them from violence.