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  • Location: Strasbourg, Paris, London

Madame Tussaud’s Apprentice

Madame Tussaud’s Apprentice

Why a Booktrail?

1789: What hope does a waxwork artist have during the Paris revolution?

  • ISBN: 978-1846883811
  • Genre: Biography/memoirs, Fiction, Historical

What you need to know before your trail

Celie Rosseau is a talented young artist who, along with her partner Algernon, resorts to petty thieving on the streets of Paris to survive. It is 1789: rumours of rebellion against the monarchy are starting to spread in the capital and the two of them get involved in the idealistic revolutionary fervour. But when she is caught stealing from the brother of the King himself, Celie is saved only thanks to her drawing skills and the intercession of Marie Tussaud, the famous waxworks artist and a favourite at the French court, who decides to employ her. Suddenly Celie finds herself whisked away from the tumult of Paris to the safety and opulence of Versailles. This raises a difficult moral dilemma for the young lady who had until recently dreamt of overthrowing the very people who now treat her with kindness: should she compromise her ideals and risk losing Algernon – the man she loves – or should she stay true to the cause of the poor and the revolution?

Travel Guide

Strasbourg to Bern, Paris to London

Marie Tussaud was born Marie Grosholtz on December 1, 1761in Strasbourg, France and died April 16, 1850 in London, England. She is the founder of the Madame Tussaud’s waxwork museum in London which has branches across the world.

Born in a small village in Strasbourg, she spent some time in Bern working before moving to Paris. It was here that she met Philippe Curtius and learned the art of wax modelling. He had two museums of waxwork models which Marie Tussaud inherited once he had died in 1794.

Life got really interesting in around 1780 when she was employed as an art tutor at Versailles for Louis XVI’s sister , Madame Élisabeth. During the Reign of Terror,she had the not so very enviable job of creating death masks from freshly severed heads which had just been chopped off by the gullotine.

She married an engineer by the name of François Tussaud,  but the marriage was short lived. In 1802 she took her two sons and her collection of wax models to England and toured the British Isles for 33 years before finally establishing a permanent home in Baker Street, London.

Madame Tussauds

She lived in London for around 8 years until she died. The Baker Street museum moved to Marylebone Road in 1884.

Many of the original models made by Marie Tussaud of people of her time such as Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Horatio Nelson, and Sir Walter Scott, have survived to this day.

Booktrail Boarding Pass:  Madame Tussaud’s Apprentice

Destination : Strasbourg, Paris, London  Author/Guide: Kathleen Benner Duble  Departure Time: 1761 – 1850

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