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
Dwellings in Queen Square were sacked and fired, until the whole mass was
wrapped in flames. Such was the remarkable lethargy of the householders
that a few mischievous boys made a house-to-house visitation, gave the
inmates half an hour’s notice to quit, and at the expiration of that
time coolly set fire to the houses without molestation. The booty the
rioters seized was trifling. On the corpse of one boy, who was sabred by
a soldier, was found a curious collection of spoil--a lady’s glove, some
children’s books, and the Custom House keys.
One curious incident happened when the contents of fifty puncheons of rum
gushed out of a bonded warehouse and ran flowing down the street, setting
fire to a house at the other end.
The riots were quelled by the military on the Monday, after many
thousands of pounds’ worth of property had been destroyed; and one of the
results was that four persons were hanged.
By what might almost be described as a stroke of good fortune--inasmuch
as it perpetuated the name of Tussaud--there was in Bristol at that
time a lad of nineteen years, named William Muller, whose genius as a
painter gives Bristol just cause for pride to-day. This gifted youth
produced a series of wonderful sketches of the “Bristol Revolution,” as
it was then called, in which he portrays the weird and striking scenes of
incendiarism in the city streets.
One of these sketches is now in our possession. It shows Madame Tussaud’s
Exhibition premises standing out full and clear in the fiery glare, while
the figures and other articles are being hurriedly removed and piled up
in the roadway before the jeering mob. The figures and decorations are
easily recognised in the picture, and many of them are still included in
the Exhibition.
For no imaginable reason the premises occupied by Madame Tussaud’s
collection had been marked to be burnt. A chalk sign was scrawled upon
the door, and the adjoining buildings, besmeared with petroleum, had
been already set on fire. In Madame’s employment was a stalwart and loyal
negro. This black servant took up his position at the entrance to the
Exhibition, and threatened to kill with a blunderbuss the first man who
dared approach to harm the place.
The negro kept the mob at bay long enough, it would seem, to save the
building, for at eight o’clock Madame’s anxiety was relieved when she
heard, above the wild yelling of the infuriated people, the distant
sounds of the drums and fifes of the 11th Infantry Regiment, just then
reaching the outskirts of the city. The music that cheered her scared the
plundering rabble and stayed their depredations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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