Read Kate Berridge for Free Online Page B

interest, and being well informed about them earned you street credibility. As Mercier said, ‘Some worthy cobbler, for instance, will know the history of the hanged and the hangmen as a man of good society knows the history of the kings of Europe and their ministers.’ When Marie was sixteen, Paris was gripped by a particularly sensational double murder–of Madame La Motte and her son. On 6 May 1777 the perpetrator, Desrues, was executed in the Place de Grève; but what particularly excited public interest was the fact that Desrues was said to be a hermaphrodite–or, as Baron de Grimm put it more elegantly, ‘Both the male and female sex would seem unwilling to own him.’ This unusual personal background in conjunction with his bravery during his slow and brutal execution endeared Desrues to the crowds, and confirmed his place in criminal folklore. His mortal remains were revered as relics, and his life was commemorated in popular ballads and best-selling pamphlets. He was therefore an obvious subject to take up a prime position in Curtius’shall of infamy. As Mercier noted, ‘To the man in the street Desrues was a more illustrious name than Voltaire.’ And it was the men and women in the street whom Curtius was targeting.
    One important function of wax figures was as an illustrated supplement to the news of the day. The ballad singers on the streets were a valued broadcasting service. From royal sex scandals, to sensational murders and executions, they were a popular source of gossip, scandal and news. Curtius supplied for people’s eyes what the balladeers gave their ears, and seeing the public’s appetite for even the smallest crumbs of information about topical events instilled into Marie a life-long commitment to ensuring that the waxworks were up to date. Mercier noted that songs detailing the bloody acts and horrid deaths of criminals were always big hits: ‘Some well-known personage ascends the scaffold, his death is set to music at once with violin accompaniment.’ Curtius exploited this interest with his visual version of the sensations of the day.
    At the Palais-Royal the waxworks were an elegant recreation of an aristocratic salon, and the central attractions were tableaux of the royal family. This was the classiest of Curtius’s various sites, and the plus- snob style was achieved by a tiered admission system. As a writer in the early nineteenth century relates, ‘The price of admission was two sous, but for twelve sous the public was permitted to approach and circulate near the figures, and though the charge was so moderate, Curtius’s receipts were 300 francs daily.’
    Then as now, people clamoured to get close to the most influential people of the day, and relished their chance ‘to mingle with the mighty’. In the early days of the exhibition the latter included the military hero General Lafayette, who did so much to popularize America in France. (Later, however, Marie, in a rare expression of an opinion, felt his allegiance to the colonists had been misguided. ‘Well-meaning short-sighted mortal! How little did he foresee the dreadful effects which ever must arise from suddenly conferring liberty on an enslaved and uneducated people!’) In silent company with him was the man whom Marie regarded as his accomplice in bringing down France, Benjamin Franklin, of whom she said, ‘To Dr Franklin’s visit to France may be attributed the primary cause of the French Revolution, as Lafayette was not alone in becoming a discipleof the transatlantic philosopher.’ But not all the figures were controversial. Instead of propagating republicanism, the naturalist Buffon cultivated popular interest in the natural world. And when people were not crawling on the earth to study caterpillars they were gazing at the sky, as Paris was gripped by balloon-mania. Aeronauts were a new species of celebrity, and Curtius’s wax tributes