JOB OF A HISTORIAN Not all historians start with a qualification in history. Marie Grosholtz was born in Strasburg in 1761 before moving to Berne in Switzerland when she was very young. Her mother worked as a housekeeper for Philippe Curtius, a doctor with an interest in making wax models and busts. He moved to Paris and soon Marie and her mother followed. Marie began to work for Curtius, eventually becoming his assistant. During her time in Paris during the late 1700s, Marie met and modelled both Rousseau and Voltaire. During the French Revolution, Grosholtz modelled many death masks including Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and Robespierre. Curtius died in 1794 leaving Marie his waxwork collection. Marie married Francois Tussaud a year later and had two sons. She left her husband and took her sons and the waxwork collection to London in 1802. Over the next couple of decades, Marie travelled around Britain and Ireland before setting up in London in 1835. She created many waxwork models of famous people including Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington. She had a room in which she kept one of the blades from the guillotine used during the French Revolution and other items connected to Napoleon. In a time when there were no films or photographs, these wax models offered people a chance to see real history.
Marie Grosholtz (Tussaud) 1761–1850 created many waxwork models of famous people.
10. Do you think that wax models are a good source for historians? 11. Look at the death mask of Theobald Wolfe Tone on page 261. Is this a primary or secondary source? 12. Is a death mask from the eighteenth century a valuable piece of historical evidence? Give reasons for your answer.
13. Do you consider people who make wax models of people historians? Give reasons to support your answer.
VIEWPOINTS AND OBJECTIVITY
14. The French Revolution has been a cause of great debate. Opinions are divided about the common people of Paris and the sans-culottes.
Here are some views about the women who brought the Royal family back from Versailles to Paris: (i)
All the unutterable abominations of the furies of hell, in the abased shape of the vilest women.
Source: Edmund Burke (Anglo-Irish politician who lived between 1729 and 1797) in Reflections on the Revolution in France.