About the Book:

“Smart and ambitious, Marie Tussaud has learned the secrets of wax sculpting by working alongside her uncle in their celebrated wax museum, the Salon de Cire. From her popular model of the American ambassador, Thomas Jefferson, to her tableau of the royal family at dinner, Marie’s museum provides Parisians with the very latest news on fashion, gossip, and even politics. Her customers hail from every walk of life, yet her greatest dream is to attract the attention of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI; their stamp of approval on her work could catapult her and her museum to the fame and riches she desires. After months of anticipation, Marie learns that the royal family is willing to come and see their likenesses. When they finally arrive, the king’s sister is so impressed that she requests Marie’s presence at Versailles as a royal tutor in wax sculpting. It is a request Marie knows she cannot refuse—even if it means time away from her beloved Salon and her increasingly dear friend, Henri Charles.

As Marie gets to know her pupil, Princesse Élisabeth, she also becomes acquainted with the king and queen, who introduce her to the glamorous life at court. From lavish parties with more delicacies than she’s ever seen to rooms filled with candles lit only once before being discarded, Marie steps into a world entirely different from her home on the Boulevard du Temple, where people are selling their teeth in order to put food on the table.

Meanwhile, many resent the vast separation between rich and poor. In salons and cafés across Paris, people like Camille Desmoulins, Jean-Paul Marat, and Maximilien Robespierre are lashing out against the monarchy. Soon, there’s whispered talk of revolution. . . . Will Marie be able to hold on to both the love of her life and her friendship with the royal family as France approaches civil war? And more important, will she be able to fulfill the demands of powerful revolutionaries who ask that she make the death masks of beheaded aristocrats, some of whom she knows?

Spanning five years, from the budding revolution to the Reign of Terror, Madame Tussaud brings us into the world of an incredible heroine whose talent for wax modeling saved her life and preserved the faces of a vanished kingdom.”

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

I have read several of Michelle Moran’s books, and for the most part I have loved her writing.  However, this is a book that is sitting on the fence, in comparison to the other works I have read of Moran’s.  Having lived in France for a couple of years, I had a connection to many of the places identified in this book, and it made the reading of this one a little bit more enjoyable.  I was able to envision many of the sites I had seen, and make a very real connection with this story.  But overall, I had real mixed emotions about it.

The biggest thing about this book that was really frustrating me was that the protagonist, Marie Tussaud, never really seemed to be witness to anything, other than after the fact.  I understand that she had an amazing life, and story to tell — but her point of view wasn’t exactly the most conducive to the overall story I felt like Moran was trying to tell.  Most of the story appeared to be more about the French Revolution, than it was about the work that Marie Tussaud was doing.  But since most of what occurred in the Revolution were events that Marie was only peripherally witness to — mainly through her art — the whole story seems to develop from the point of view of people always telling Marie and her family what had happened.  I’m not sure I found this the most insightful approach to telling this story.  I always felt like I was an outsider looking in — and I was always aware of feeling this way throughout the book.

Another thing that I really got frustrated with was that there were characters in the book that Moran introduced, and then just didn’t follow up with them throughout the story.  The handling of many of these characters/people simply manifested the problem of not quite finishing the story.  From the beginning they were people that she introduced sufficiently enough to make them a presence in the story — but in the end I felt like Moran simply forgot about them.  In fact, I felt like as soon as Robespierre was arrested and executed, Moran simply dropped the story completely.  The last couple of chapters felt more like — well the war is over, so end the book.  The last couple of chapters were not much more than a sum up with superficial information provided so she could call the book done.

What I did enjoy about the book was it is one of the more amazing looks inside the development of the French Revolution.  This is an interesting story that gives us a great insight into how wrong the bid for freedom can go when it is being championed by individuals that are as bad, or even worse than those they sought to depose.  This story does and excellent job of presenting how easily individuals can become that which they are fighting so hard to overthrow.  The danger of power, and the desire to gain money and control is so much more alluring than the more altruistic values of equality for all men, and freedom for everyone.  And because of this, the French Revolution is a great example of what happens when these altruistic desires go wrong.  The bloodshed, tyranny, environment of fear and oppression — all of these can be found in this amazing book, and in some ways the reader wonders if they are reading about the French Revolution — or the rise of Nazi Germany.  But a word of caution — this is a story of excesses on all sides.  And the horror and atrocities that were committed in the name of freedom are bloody and haunting.

The characters were also a powerful addition to this story.  So many people that were trying to reenact the American Revolution — but for all the wrong reasons provide an example of how the course of American history could have been so much different, if it had not been for a few simple facts that are brought out in this insightful read.  If the monarch, and his military fighting force is not an ocean, and several weeks away — but rather in the same country as those fighting rebelling against perceived oppressions, the outcome would have been very different.   Also, the cost of oppression, no matter the origins are dangerous to the oppressed no matter who is in control.

Tags: France, French Revolution, Government, Historical Fiction, Maximillien Robespierre. Louis XVI, Murder, Suffering, Survivor

Category: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Philosophy, Politics