It's an interesting subject (it's where a lot of my interests in art, history, politics and the macabre meet!) - but Tussaud was in showbiz and they're notorious for embellishing their stories to make them as grisly as possible! She says, for example, she took the cast of Marat's face while he was still warm! But, then again, she was local, and it's not impossible - she also says Robespierre actually gave her his clothes for their figure of him, which doesn't tally with the Robespierre-had-very-few-clothes story, but then, the 'he only had two coats' may be a myth, too! That's actually one of the things I love about this whole period, and has kept me interested for years: the inexhaustible supply of alternative and often contradictory accounts that you have to sift through - other periods are interesting, too, but people didn't write memoirs in earier centuries and little survives except archaology - and of course that the politics of the period are still a live issue in a way the politics of the 15thc are not!
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-09-20 08:49 am (UTC)