Doubtless the ideals he had conceived of the French capital as a citizen in far-off Berne would not have squared with the actual state in which he found the city when he took up his domicile within it.
Report had carried the splendours of Versailles far beyond the frontiers of France, and might well have enlivened the imagination of an artist like Curtius, who, doubtless, would have hoped to enjoy the pleasure of witnessing them for himself; but on his arrival in the capital he found the glories of the palaces had set, and that the Court of Louis XV had not only grown dull, but had even gone out of fashion.
The King himself had become weary of the great Court functions and sumptuous entertainments, and now preferred to indulge in complete seclusion the appetites that still remained to him. The military exploits of his reign had not brought him any great renown, and in recent years he had suffered reverses that had cast a gloom over these closing days of his life.
He had also been reminded more than once that the levelling hand of Death took no heed of rank and power. That dread visitor had already unceremoniously claimed the King’s son (the Dauphin) and his wife, and his own neglected Queen, Marie Leczinska, was fast failing in health.
The temper of the people towards the King had undergone a great change, and the days of “Well-Beloved”-ness had long since departed. During the reign of his predecessor, Louis XIV, the excessive taxation and the state of semi-serfdom had been borne by the lower classes with something like resignation, for they had received some compensation through the glory of his military achievements and the extension of his power. But small reason had they for so patiently bearing the ever-increasing burdens that had signalised the reign of his successor, Louis XV, whose military exploits had brought the country little by way of glory, and whose career had naught to show but a long life of wanton extravagance, combined with a painful disregard for the welfare of his people.
What Curtius did in the four years that succeeded his arrival in Paris one cannot say for certain; but there is little doubt that he was busily engaged in executing commissions for his numerous and ever-increasing list of patrons, whose liberality and kindness not only equalled, but far surpassed, the Prince de Conti’s promises.
It is quite evident that soon after his arrival Curtius tried his deft hands upon a model of the Queen of Louis XV, and it is this comparatively early work that constitutes one piece among a mere half-dozen examples that have been handed down to us. Probably the influence of his friend, the Prince de Conti, aided him in obtaining this commission.
It was after having practised his profession as artist for some years that Curtius repaired to Berne for the purpose of fetching his sister and her little daughter.
That was in the year 1766, and Madame Tussaud was then about six years old. On the authority of her Memoirs, published in 1838, it would appear that she was born at Berne in the year 1760; but documentary evidence exists which appears to indicate that her birth actually took place a year later. Be that as it may, we first hear of her when she accompanied her mother to Paris as the guest of her uncle.
This brief review will not permit us to dwell long on the early days of the young girl in Paris, nor on those events that prefaced the outbreak of the Revolution. Truth to say, between 1766 and 1789—a matter of twenty-three years—the details concerning the lives of Curtius and his niece are neither very full nor very clearly defined. This seems to be all of a piece with the nature of the work they produced, for it is astonishing, having regard to the considerable output, how small a quantity of it has been handed down to us.