But of all these revolutionary figures, by far the most interesting to me is that of Carrier. The contrast between that strongly exact, clearly cut face and the story of Carrier’s madness at Nantes, is one of the things that make one understand not only the Revolution but in general mankind at white heat. Here is a man who, if features mean anything, might have been some sharp, self-contained, disappointed, ironic speaker, or even poet. It is the face of a man who certainly knew his own mind, who despised other men, which is a weakness, but who followed some great idea within. It is a face human in its self-repression and exactitude. Were we familiar with it in connection with some great name of peaceable activity, were it the face of one of those who settled the Congress of Vienna, or of some monarch, or of some writer, it would be famous as an index of genius. As it is, the name--especially to those who do not know the face--suggests nothing but a mad infamy, and indiscriminate shooting and drowning in batches of the wretched Vendean prisoners. And I myself when writing thus of Carrier have a right to be balanced in my judgment for he came very near to guillotining my grandfather’s father, from whom he differed in politics. And here in the case of Carrier is an excellent example of the historical value of that which I postulate as the first, much the greatest, character in a collection such as this: for had we not the bust of the living Carrier, itself almost a living thing, taken immediately after death, we should hardly have guessed what Carrier was. But the face combined with the history explains him well enough. The story of Madame Tussaud seeking for Sanson’s guillotine, or rather for one of his guillotines after the Peace of Amiens and sending her son over to Paris to look for the man and his implements (which the executioner had pawned) and getting it at last at great cost, is characteristic of her energy and business sense. She lived at a time when the material relic was the _clou_ of her collection. If to-day it rather detracts from the sober historical value of the figures, it remains an excellent witness to her indefatigable initiative. And so it is with the collection of Napoleonic relics, notably the Waterloo carriage, which she secured just at the moment when it was of the greatest value to her business. Her modelling of the dead in the revolutionary time included, by her own account, the head of the Princess de Lamballe, when that unfortunate and rather insipid young woman (but gracious and kind) was so foolishly and so atrociously murdered. The record would seem to correspond more or less with the judgment of Michelette, and Michelette’s portrait mostly produced by chance illusion is the best I know.