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A review by danelleeb
Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution by Michelle Moran
4.0
A biographical account told through the events of the French Revolution, this book is based on actual events, documents, and people. It's an engrossing tale of the turbulence and danger of the times.
Most people know the name 'Madame Tussaud' from the various tourist attractions with locations around the world, but this woman truly existed and made her living via the life-sized wax models she created (usually via her photographic memory, sometimes by sketches, or a plaster mask).
Her family owned the Salon de Circe, a wax museum in Paris where the tableaux and exhibits of the famous and notorious people provided many Parisians with the news. When Marie gets the attentions she's always wanted from the royal family - with a visit to her attraction by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette - she begins to live a sort of double life - acting as a tutor and then becoming a friend to the king's sister, whilst living amongst the poor people of Boulevard du Temple.
As the republic crumbles and everyone begins to turn on each other, Marie, a foreigner in France with brothers in the king's Swiss Guard, must do whatever she can to survive. And that's why she begins to make the death masks and figures of those who meet their death by the new contraption for killing - the guillotine.
Overall, it was an incredible way to tell the story of Marie Grosholtz, or, as we know her, Madame Tussaud.
Most people know the name 'Madame Tussaud' from the various tourist attractions with locations around the world, but this woman truly existed and made her living via the life-sized wax models she created (usually via her photographic memory, sometimes by sketches, or a plaster mask).
Her family owned the Salon de Circe, a wax museum in Paris where the tableaux and exhibits of the famous and notorious people provided many Parisians with the news. When Marie gets the attentions she's always wanted from the royal family - with a visit to her attraction by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette - she begins to live a sort of double life - acting as a tutor and then becoming a friend to the king's sister, whilst living amongst the poor people of Boulevard du Temple.
As the republic crumbles and everyone begins to turn on each other, Marie, a foreigner in France with brothers in the king's Swiss Guard, must do whatever she can to survive. And that's why she begins to make the death masks and figures of those who meet their death by the new contraption for killing - the guillotine.
Overall, it was an incredible way to tell the story of Marie Grosholtz, or, as we know her, Madame Tussaud.