The Romance of Madame Tussaud'sTussaud, John Theodore
History
The Romance of Madame Tussaud's
Tussaud, John Theodore
Madame Tussaud and Sons' Exhibition; Tussaud, Marie, 1761-1850; Waxworks
Charlotte Corday had addressed a letter to Marat stating that she had
news of importance to communicate, and when she called he readily
admitted her. She amused him with an account of the Deputies at Caen,
when he said. “They shall all go to the guillotine.” “To the guillotine!”
exclaimed she, and as he took up a pencil to write the names of his
intended victims Charlotte plunged a knife into his heart.
Madame Tussaud afterwards visited Charlotte Corday in the Conciergerie
Prison, and described her as tall, well-mannered, and possessed of many
graces of character and appearance. The brave young woman, who paid for
her avenging act with her life, wrote in a letter to her father that
she had done what was right. After the heroine’s death Madame Tussaud
obtained a record of Charlotte Corday’s beautiful face.
[Illustration: JEAN PAUL MARAT
One of the most bloodthirsty of the terrorists, stabbed in his bath by
Charlotte Corday, 13th July, 1793. A wax model made immediately after his
death.]
The actual model, now in our Exhibition, of Marat dying in his bath, was
exhibited during the Revolution at the Museum of Curtius in Paris, and
attracted crowds, who were loud in their lamentations, for at that time
Marat was a national idol.
Robespierre visited the Museum, and took the opportunity of haranguing
the people at the door. In flamboyant language he said, “Enter, citizens,
and see the image of our departed friend, snatched from us by the
assassin’s hand, guided by the demon of aristocracy. Marat was the
father of the poor, the defender of the weak, and the consoler of the
wretched. As his heart poured forth the sweet emotions of sympathy for
the oppressed, so did the vigour of his mind emit its thunder against the
oppressor.” Then, descending to bathos, the cunning demagogue exclaimed,
“What did he get for it all? Five francs were found in his house!”
Surprise has sometimes been expressed by visitors that the bath in which
Marat was stabbed to death should be so small and of such a curious shape.
Marat was murdered in a “slipper” bath, which was more like a “halt boot”
than a slipper, so that the water would come up to the shoulders of the
bather without flowing over. This kind of bath was greatly in vogue at
the time of the French Revolution. Its object was to save water, which
in those days was not freely supplied. When the bather was in the bath a
small quantity of water would fill it.
Maximilien Robespierre had sent numerous people to their death during the
Reign of Terror. His own turn came at last, when he too met his death
from the sharp tongue of La Guillotine. The revulsion of feeling that had
set in against Robespierre was very bitter. He was shot at point-blank
range by a man named Meda in the Salle d’Égalité, a room in the Hôtel de
Ville, but was only wounded, and he went to the guillotine on the 28th of
July, 1794, with his broken jaw swathed in a white linen cloth.
[Illustration: MAXIMILIEN MARIE ISIDORE ROBESPIERRE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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