Years after Madame came to this country she sent her son to Paris to search out this terrible instrument of death, and, with the help of the executioner, who was still living, and who solemnly vouched for its authenticity, she secured the knife, the lunette, and also the chopper that was used as a standby, lest the great knife should fail.
KNIFE, LUNETTE AND CHOPPER OF THE ORIGINAL GUILLOTINE USED IN PARIS DURING THE REIGN OF TERROR
Years after, Madame Tussaud, with the aid of the executioner, procured these for her collection.
It was only after much negotiation and the payment of a very considerable sum of money that her object was attained. And now the dread knife harmlessly reposes by the side of the impressions of those heads it so ruthlessly struck off a century and a quarter ago—that of Louis XVI and his Queen, Marie Antoinette, as well as those of Robespierre, Danton, Fouquier-Tinville, Hébert, and the miscreant of Nantes, Carrier. From the time they were first shown in Paris until the present day they have been viewed by an ever-increasing throng, though the sight of them can never have been pleasing, and those who gaze upon them shudder and pass on.
Though Madame Tussaud did not witness the execution of Marie Antoinette, yet she remembered seeing the Queen pass on a tumbril through the jeering crowds to the scaffold. The once gay and light-hearted Queen was dressed in white for her last pageant on earth, her hands tied behind her. The spectacle brought back to Madame memories of the royal palace where she had frequently attended to give lessons in modelling, and she was so overcome that she fainted. Perhaps the most horrifying experience undergone by Madame Tussaud during this terrible period was when the mangled head of the greatly beloved Princess de Lamballe was brought to her that a cast might be made. In vain did she protest that she could not endure the ordeal. The brutal murderers compelled her to comply.
MARIE ANTOINETTE
Impression of her head taken immediately after she had been guillotined, 16th October, 1793.