Models taken from life and exhibited for some time in Le Petit Trianon at Versailles.
A very special interest attaches to this group, inasmuch that, except for the renovation necessitated by the long passage of time, it is now shown within the walls of the present Exhibition exactly as it was when first modelled.
While Madame Tussaud was fully occupied at Versailles her uncle was busy with his Museum in Paris.
In 1783 Curtius added to his collection on the Boulevard du Temple the “Caverne des Grands Voleurs,” which we may fairly regard as the forerunner of the present Chamber of Horrors.
There seems to be some doubt as to the distinctive character of Curtius’s two Exhibitions. One authority informs us that his rooms at the Palais Royal contained the effigies of famous and celebrated men, and that the venture on the Boulevard du Temple was devoted to those of notorious and infamous scoundrels. One cannot say for certain what were the characteristics of the two collections at this time, but there can be no doubt that both attracted great numbers of people for a very long period.
The descriptive accounts of Parisian amusements of the time make mention of Curtius’s “Cabinet de Cire”—or, to make use of the titles given to it on a copperplate etching of that period by Martial, “Théatre des Figures de Cire, ou Théatre Curtius”—as a sight well worthy of inviting the attention of persons of rank and condition. “One may see,” said Dulaure in 1791, “waxen coloured figures of celebrated characters in all stations of life.”
Upon closing the Exhibition at the Palais Royal, Curtius conveyed its figures to the Boulevard du Temple, wherein merged all the models that had been previously on view, thus combining the peculiar characteristics of the two establishments and constituting the Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition as we know it to-day.