The name of Madame Tussaud is famous throughout the world, yet few people know the fascinating story of her life in Paris during the French revolution, where she met Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, and Napoleon; became a close friend of the Royal family; and made the acquaintance of the radical Robespierre.
In her Memoirs and Reminiscences of France, Madame Tussaud recounts how she was forced to take wax impressions of the newly severed heads of her royal friends from Louis XVI to Marie Antoinette, and how, with her head shaved, she awaited her own execution with the beautiful Josephine Beauharnais, future Empress of France. Fortunate to survive, she traveled to England with her collection of macabre wax casts and established the Baker Street Bazaar, so creating the famous waxworks museum that has made her name immortal.
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