Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution by Michelle Moran Read Free Book Online Page B

signs blank forms and the police fill in whichever names they wish.
    I think of the Marquis de Sade, currently imprisoned in the Bastille under a lettre de cachet drafted by his in-laws. A thousand things conspired to send him to this place, including poisoning prostitutes in Marseille and imprisoning a young woman until she made an escape from his second-floor window. But his must certainly be the rare case of justice being served. If the Estates-General can accomplish nothing more than the banishment of these lettres , it will be a success.
    As the coffee is finished and everyone rises to leave, Curtius asks Henri to stay behind. “I am having some trouble with the du Barry model,” he says. “Since we moved her for the king’s visit, the mechanical heart is no longer working.” This is one of my uncle’s favorite figures, not because she is scantily dressed but because he has fitted her with a beating heart that makes the model’s ample chest rise and fall. Visitors always bend closer for a look, and some have sworn that they can even hear her breathing.
    “Have you tried replacing the pump?” Henri asks. I follow them down to the du Barry tableau. I watch as Henri steadily tinkers with the model, his hands moving lightly over her wax breasts, and suddenly the wine from dinner has flushed my cheeks. After a few minutes Henri declares, “It was the valve.” The heart is beating again, and mine flutters under my fichu. I fan myself distractedly with my hand, but neither of the men seems to notice.
    Curtius claps him heartily on the back. “Henri, I don’t know what we would do without you. How is that exhibition of yours going?”
    Henri smiles broadly, and I wonder how many women linger after his shows hoping he will smile like this at them. Quite a few, probably, though they are wasting their time. Like me, Henri is married to his work. But experiments with hydrogen do not pay the rent, and so Henri has taken on the task of putting on scientific shows. “I am about to install a new exhibit,” he tells us. “The Auricular Communications of the Invisible Girl . Perhaps you would like to see it tomorrow?”
    “I’m sorry,” I say. “But I have—”
    “We would love to,” Curtius interrupts.
    What’s the matter with him? He knows that Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe is to bring her daughter in for a sitting. I put on my best showman’s smile. “I look forward to seeing the Invisible Girl.”
    “Oh, you won’t see her,” Henri promises. “But you will hear her.”
    My cheeks flush again. “Of course.”
    “Tomorrow at seven in the morning then,” he says, and he is looking at me.
    After I see Henri to the door, I go upstairs to search for Curtius. I am angry with him. When does he think I will have time to prepare for a sitting if I am listening to some invisible girl? No doubt the mechanics of the show will be interesting—everything that Henri does defies logic. But there is nothing interesting about being unprepared. I stalk through the salon and stop as I’m about to enter the kitchen. Next to the unwashed pots and pans, Curtius has his arms around my mother, and they are sharing a tender moment. He is whispering something in her ear, and she is giggling. They are young again in the way they love each other. For a moment, I am tempted to interrupt. Then I turn around.
    I will have to remember to be angry with him tomorrow.

Chapter 6

F EBRUARY 4, 1789

The contagious example of the Duc d’Orléans [is ruinous] .
    —M ADAME C AMPAN ,
FIRST LADY-IN-WAITING TO M ARIE A NTOINETTE

    A LTHOUGH I SHOULD BE LAYING OUT CALIPERS AND BOWLS of plaster, I am standing in Henri’s workshop surrounded by the most curious instruments of science. Because I have been so busy with the Salon, I have not been here for several months—perhaps even a year, I realize with shock—and in that time much has changed. Placed haphazardly on the long wooden countertops are gadgets I have never seen before, and in between