Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution

I am of two minds about Madame Tussaud, Michelle Moran's recounting of the famous waxmaker in her pre-London fame days.

Marie Grosholtz (later Tussaud) is ambitious, Moran does not let us forget that. She has a great head for business, although more for the numbers than for giving the people what they want: the latter she must still learn at the knee of her mentor-uncle-father-protector, Philippe Curtius. Marie's skill with wax is unrivaled; not only does she create the displays to which rich and poor alike do flock, but on the eve of the French Revolution, she is invited to Versailles to become the tutor to Louis XVI's pious younger sister, the Princess Elisabeth. In the months and years that follow, Marie's world is torn apart by the revolution and ensuing Reign of Terror.

Based in historical fact and events, the first half is excellent. The book begins to unravel about two-thirds from the finish, though, as Moran compresses months and then years into a mere two or three pages, whereas the initial chapters might comprise a single day each. The story begins to suffer. Admittedly, I was also a bit put off by the character of Henri Charles. Not as Moran has created him - no he's very nice and sympathetic - but his mere presence. For while Grosholtz/Tussaud, Curtius, the royal family, and revolutionaries (chiefly Marat, Robespierre, and Desmoulins) were all real people, Henri Charles exists between the pages of Madame Tussaud alone. (A fact, a might add, the Moran should make clearer as she gives a post-revolution round-up of each of the figures who appeared in this book.)

I understand that much about Tussaud's life is suspect: a showwoman to her last, those who know best advise taking Tussaud's own memoirs with a grain of salt. Or two. Perhaps Moran felt the book needed a bit of romance, or perhaps she learned of some former flame, but in either case, I wish she had clarified this (as, for example, did Melanie Benjamin in advising readers of The Aviator's Wife just how much came from history and how much from her pen).

If you're dying to read a novel set during the French Revolution and you don't mind a co-mingling of real and imagined characters, Madame Tussaud is a rich and entertaining read. (And I still very much prefer it to Annette Vallon.)