Madame Tussaud

does not appear in any rush to finish. He drinks it slowly, allowing Paschal to sit on his knee and read his newspaper. When Isabel asks if Curtius will be needing the button on his military coat sewn, he tells her, “Rather sooner than later I’m afraid.”

We all stop what we are doing. My mother puts her hand to her chest. “What does that mean?”

“I’m being sent on a mission,” he says. “A trip to Mayence to report on the patriotism of General Custine. They want me to leave in seven days.”

Paschal asks, “Will you be fighting?”

Curtius smiles. “I am too old for that.”

“And you are too old for any mission,” my mother says angrily. “Are they so desperate that they need old men?”

“It would seem that way.”

“You will be careful,” I worry. “You won’t be mistaken for an actual soldier?”

He laughs. “I doubt there’s any chance of that.” He lifts Paschal from his lap and goes to my mother. “It will only be few months.” He leans over and wraps his arms around her. But she is weeping. “I will return before Michaelmas,” he promises.

“What Michaelmas?” she cries. “It’s now the day of the cat, or the tree, or some pebble.”

He holds her tightly. “It’s only for a few months.” But I know he is putting a cheerful face on a dangerous situation, and the night before he leaves, he takes me to his room and unlocks a metal chest. “These are all of our most important documents,” he says. “If anything should happen to me—”

“You shouldn’t talk like that.”

“We don’t know, Marie. Who would think that two of your brothers would be gone?”

Or that war would separate us from Wolfgang and Henri so that any correspondence would look like treason. It has been months since we have had a letter from them, and who knows how much longer it will be before they are able to send word.

“In here is the deed to the house.” Curtius shows it to me. “Now it is fully paid. And this is my will, along with your inheritance.” He puts away his papers. “Things are changing rapidly. Do not be surprised if they put the queen on trial.”

“You can’t go,” I say desperately, and for the first time in many years, I see his resolution waiver. “What will we do without you?” I ask. “How will Maman survive?”

“She has Paschal and Isabel. And, above all, she has you.”

“It’s not the same.”

His eyes fill with tears. “I know.”

When our family gathers outside the Salon to see him off, the neighbors come to bid him farewell. There is the chandler, the grocer, a handful of actors who have remained on the Boulevard, and of course, there is Jacques. I remember the last time so many people gathered on this street to bid a carriage farewell. It was my first trip to Montreuil. Yachin had stood here, where I am standing now, and begged me for playing cards. But instead of bringing cards, I brought him death.

I go to the lamppost where the carriage driver is waiting and tear off Marat’s most recent placard. It is a list of suspects he believes should be guillotined. I fold the paper and tuck it inside my sleeve.

“I wish we could walk across this city,” Isabel admits, “and tear every one down. Last week, he wrote against the Polish Princesse Lubomirska, and someone posted it on this lamppost. They arrested her on suspicion of treason last night. It was in this morning’s paper.”

He is like God. He has the power of life and death. Princesse Lubomirska came from Poland in a golden berline to help fight for the cause of liberty. I keep the placard tucked in my sleeve, and the next morning I compare it to the list printed in the Chronique. Every name on Marat’s placard is there. Wealthy, poor, women, men—they have all been arrested.

Chapter 57

JULY

1793

I am the anger, the just anger of the people, and that is why they listen to me and believe in me.

—JEAN-PAUL MARAT

IT IS A DIFFERENT HOUSE WITHOUT CURTIUS. ALTHOUGH THE days are the same, the nights are quiet. Everything makes my mother nervous now. The ringing of the bells, the soldiers in the streets, Paschal’s footsteps on the stairs when he is running. She is on constant vigil, waiting for another loved one to be snatched from her home. Only Curtius’s letters from Mayence can calm her.

He writes weekly, telling us how it is on the fronts, of the cannon fire in the distance and the cries of men in the hospital tents. Though he has a sent a positive report of Custine to the Convention, both Marat and Robespierre are convinced that the general is secretly a royalist.

“We must remember,” Marat writes on his insidious placards, “where the name Custine comes from. He was the Comte de Custine, an aristocrat no different from our tyrant king!”

As soon as I read these words, I know it is over for the general. He is summoned back to Paris, and because his children are here—hostages like the rest of us—he has no choice but to come. It is not enough that they arrest him. The Revolutionary Tribunal sentences his entire family to death: his son, his grandson, even his young daughter-in-law, whose only crime was to marry into a family that has displeased Marat.

When news of their sentencing reaches us on the Boulevard, Isabel comes to me in the workshop. “What does this mean for Curtius? He gave his word that Custine was a patriot.”

“They will not turn against us. We are their angels of death, remember?” I know that my voice sounds bitter, but she understands the toll these masks have taken on me. On both of us. “And many years ago,” I add, “we helped Marat. He came to our salons. When the king’s men wanted to arrest him, we hid him for a week.” It’s been more than three years since the night we stood together on our balcony and watched the New Year fireworks. Johann and Edmund were alive, and in a small apartment in Saint-Martin, Yachin was celebrating with his family. “I believe he will keep his silence.”

Indeed, he does, but not in any way I would have imagined. I am sitting with Isabel when Jacques-Louis David appears at the door of the Salon. He has not been here since he came with the news that the Swiss Guards had been massacred. That was nearly a year ago, and now my whole life is measured by this date. For every event I recall, I think, Was that before or after Johann and Edmund were killed? The Convention has their calendar, and I have mine.

Jacques-Louis must remember this as well. He approaches the caissier’s desk with hesitation. He is the Convention’s favorite artist, the man commissioned to sculpt a Goddess of Reason for every Temple in Paris. But he is trembling. Either terrible events are unfolding or he is ill. “Marie,” he says breathlessly, “you must come. You are wanted in the Rue des Cordelieres.”

“Why?”

He looks at Isabel. “I cannot say.”

“And it’s a matter of urgency?”

For such a slight man, he is sweating profusely. His hair is wet, and there are stains beneath his arms. “Of grave, grave emergency,” he swears. I stand from the desk, and he adds quickly, “Bring your bag.”

“With plaster?”

“And towels—everything.”

“Let Maman know I’ve gone with Jacques-Louis,” I tell Isabel. I gather my bag and follow him out the door and into the street. He is practically running. “What is this about?” I demand.

“A tragedy. An absolute tragedy!”

“Has someone died?”

“Yes!” he cries. He stops walking to look at me. In the harsh morning light, he looks all of his forty-five years.