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field of commercial entertainment and had a presence both at the fairs and in the bustling boulevards. The dates when he opened the differentbranches of his enterprise are hard to pinpoint, but in rough chronological order he had two small exhibitions at the great fairs of Paris, Saint-Laurent and Saint-Germain, a permanent exhibition at 20 Boulevard du Temple (where he also had his workshop and family home) and finally his most famous and fashionable exhibition, the Salon de Cire in the Palais-Royal, part of the estate of the Duc d’Orléans. It was this site that made Curtius’s name. He rented premises here from its controversial redevelopment as a shimmering complex of arcades, cafés and entertainments–a new kind of urban amenity in the early 1780s–until just before the turbulent events of 1789, when he consolidated his various activities in one exhibition in the Boulevard du Temple.
    Curtius was a chameleon, both personally and professionally, as happy in catering for the sensation-seekers paying a few sous at the fair as he was in satisfying lucrative private commissions. He always took great pains to adapt the content of the exhibition to circumstances. At the fairs his exhibitions were arranged more in the style of a cabinet of curiosities, with an eclectic mixture of unusual objects and artefacts alongside the waxworks. This was the world of the freak and the hoax, where the more outlandish the dimensions, afflictions and claims of any attraction, the better the takings. By painting a monkey’s face and gluing a false horn to it, a menagerie could proudly present a new species from Peru. Sometimes the best-laid plans to present a genuine animal as yet unseen in Paris went wrong, as happened to unfortunate Monsieur Ruggery, who had hoped to make a killing with a very rare animal billed as the ‘Tarir of L’Auta from America’. The poor creature died en route, but so keen was Monsieur Ruggery not to disappoint that, as he announced on his posters, he had him ‘stuffed with the greatest care by Monsieur Mauvé’.
    If animals were commonly presented as more exotic than they really were, then so too were people–the vast majority of ‘giants’ were actors in five-inch heels, long skirts and tall wigs. Chez Curtius the showman, it was the wonder of the real that amazed, the famous and infamous replicated exactly as they were, and those who came could not believe their eyes. This milieu was loud and louche, a din and a scrum of unsophisticated pleasures, a tawdry, tacky playground. That Curtius was there at all shows he was far less socially squeamishthan Marie, who as an adult loathed the association of waxworks with the fair. Several notches up in tone was his exhibition in the Boulevard du Temple.
    This district was the eighteenth-century Parisian equivalent of Broadway or the West End, the geographical home of popular entertainment, with spectacular shows featuring acrobats and circus entertainments, magic and mystery as well as popular theatre. Here Curtius showed villains alongside his wax heroes. The Caverne des Grands Voleurs–literally the Cave of the Great Thieves–was a show within a show, the forerunner of the Chamber of Horrors. Melodramatic special effects set the tone, with blue light casting the criminals in a lurid otherworldly hue and, as a ghoulish garnish, fake blood. A contemporary account by Louis de Bachaumont states, ‘As soon as Justice has dispatched someone Curtius models the head and puts him into the collection so that something new is always being offered to the curious, and the sight is not expensive for it only costs two sous. The barker shouts, “Come in, Messieurs, come and see the great thieves.” ’
    Curtius discovered that crime paid. The Caverne des Grands Voleurs was an ingenious way of exploiting the public love of a juicy murder and a dramatic execution. Crime and punishment were topics of perennial