A very special interest attaches to this group, inasmuch that, except for the renovation necessitated by the long passage of time, it is now shown within the walls of the present Exhibition exactly as it was when first modelled. While Madame Tussaud was fully occupied at Versailles her uncle was busy with his Museum in Paris. In 1783 Curtius added to his collection on the Boulevard du Temple the “Caverne des Grands Voleurs,” which we may fairly regard as the forerunner of the present Chamber of Horrors. There seems to be some doubt as to the distinctive character of Curtius’s two Exhibitions. One authority informs us that his rooms at the Palais Royal contained the effigies of famous and celebrated men, and that the venture on the Boulevard du Temple was devoted to those of notorious and infamous scoundrels. One cannot say for certain what were the characteristics of the two collections at this time, but there can be no doubt that both attracted great numbers of people for a very long period. The descriptive accounts of Parisian amusements of the time make mention of Curtius’s “Cabinet de Cire”--or, to make use of the titles given to it on a copperplate etching of that period by Martial, “Théatre des Figures de Cire, ou Théatre Curtius”--as a sight well worthy of inviting the attention of persons of rank and condition. “One may see,” said Dulaure in 1791, “waxen coloured figures of celebrated characters in all stations of life.” Upon closing the Exhibition at the Palais Royal, Curtius conveyed its figures to the Boulevard du Temple, wherein merged all the models that had been previously on view, thus combining the peculiar characteristics of the two establishments and constituting the Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition as we know it to-day. CHAPTER V Eve of the French Revolution--Necker and the Duke of Orléans--Louis XVI’s fatal mistakes--His dismissal of the people’s favourites. We are now approaching the day when the long-pent-up storm, threatening for so great a while, was about to burst, and we must contemplate King Louis XVI and his advisers seeking for a means to placate a people at last stirred to resentment through the cruel and unjust burdens it had for generations been made to bear. The murmurings which had long been general and indefinite were now resolving themselves into a hatred fast becoming focused upon the rich and the powerful, many of whom, it must be added, were also arrogant and dissolute. A rude awakening among some of these, who had at last been brought to realise the imminence of the convulsion, induced them to advocate with much haste and little discretion certain concessions. These were obviously granted as acts of expediency, and with as little derogation as possible from their own interest, rather than out of any sympathy for a distressed and desperate people clamouring for relief.