“I am sorry to be so rough,” she confided, as if she was accustomed to such conversations, “but they never give me enough time. A mask needs to be done right, or it shouldn’t be done at all.”
The death masks of prominent victims had been exhibited in Paris for some time now. The marquis had seen the mask of the butchered Princesse de Lamballe, for example, exhibited in a store window like the latest fashion. But this one, the marquis feared, would undoubtedly be the biggest draw of them all.
Then, with a handful of rags, the young woman dried the features of the face, and set the head upright.
“The barber really took a hatchet to you, didn’t he?” she said. “Oh well, it doesn’t matter. I will make you beautiful again.”
Taking up her hairbrush, Tussaud pulled the bristles roughly through the tangled mat of hair, once, twice, but on the third stroke—just as Sant’Angelo felt sure that his worst fears had not been realized—the eyes of the queen flew open, in an expression of utter bewilderment and horror. It was as if she had been willing herself to remain in some dream, concealed by the bonnet, but now, with these constant ministrations, could no longer sustain her disbelief. The mouth opened, struggling to speak, but the only sound was a wet smack. Tussaud fainted away on the grass, as the famous blue-gray eyes flitted about the cemetery, lost, confused, in terror.
And the marquis—who knew now, without a doubt, that she had looked into the glass of La Medusa—also knew what had to be done. And swiftly.
The mouth opened wider, as if to scream, the teeth stained pink with her own blood.
If he meant to save her from suffering for eternity, he would have to act quickly.
Running to the open grave, he grabbed the first woman’s head he could find and plunked it down on the cloth. This one made no protest.
And then, with his invisible hands, he lifted the head of Marie Antoinette, covering her eyes with the bonnet as a final mercy, and said, “Be at peace.” Then he dropped it into the copper-lined barrel of quicklime. There was a hissing and bubbling as the head sank, the caustic brew instantly working to dissolve the skin and devour the bone. In a matter of a minute, the flesh was gone and the skull had disintegrated. Only a few stray hairs stuck up out of the boiling stew.
“What’s taking so long?” Hébert called out to Tussaud, who was just recovering her senses. “We haven’t got all day.” He was sharing a bottle of wine with his committee members—one of whom still sported the white feather in his cap. Its tip was now scarlet, and Sant’Angelo knew perfectly well how it had come by its color.
“Even now, this queen keeps everyone waiting,” the man with the bloody feather quipped, and everyone laughed.
“We’ll have to put that in the paper,” Hébert said. “Make a note of it, Jerome.”
The third man, with the ink-stained hands of a printer, said, “I won’t forget.”
The young Tussaud swallowed hard and looked at the head on the cloth, and even if she knew that this was no longer the head of the queen, she knew enough to say nothing. Bewildered, she draped the damp muslin cloth over the face, spread an even coat of plaster, and after allowing it to dry, pried the mask loose and laid it in her basket, covered with a scrap of cotton. Brushing her hands clean on her skirts, she stood up and said to Hébert, “I am done here, Citizen.”
“It’s about time,” he replied, strapping on the sword he had laid on the grass. “I’ve got a newspaper to get out.” He slapped his tricornered hat back on his head.
“Tomorrow’s edition should be a sellout,” the head gravedigger predicted, in his most unctuous tones.
“I’m going to write the whole issue myself,” Hébert announced, snapping his fingers at Tussaud, who was struggling to gather up all her things. “Octave, go help her, for God’s sake, or we’ll never get back to the office.”
When they had gone, Sant’Angelo waited, as silent witness and friend, until the gravediggers threw all that was left of the queen’s remains into the open pit. Without the head, he was relieved to see, life was at last extinguished. Using the bottom of his boot, the head gravedigger tipped the barrel of quicklime over on top of the bodies, waiting for the brew to sizzle and hiss its way through the carnage. Then, as they started to shovel the dirt in after, the marquis turned and went to exact his revenge.