Everything had gone wrong. Louis XVI was dead while poor Marie rotted away in a prison cell. Monsieur Léonard had to do something. He had to save the queen!
He sat at his desk, scrawling wildly with charcoal, fingers coal-black. Page after page, he worked late into the night, certain that one of his designs would be the one. It would leap off the page, screaming, “Monsieur, c’est moi que vous attendiez!”
And then it happened. Léonard dropped his charcoal stick in reverence, lifting the design high into the air as if it had been sent to him by God. He kissed the page, smudging black powder on his lips, and ran to grab the pen and ink for the official version to submit to the queen.
The next day, he visited the Conciergerie to show her the design.
“Mon Dieu!” Marie said, “that is something, isn’t it?”
“It is not just something, Votre Majesté, it is exactly what the people need right now. Something to let them know you see them. You understand them. You know who they are and what they want.”
“But do they really want that?”
The page showed a wig. A tall wig. The tallest wig ever crafted. Two feet of hair, bound with braids as if they were chains. The cracked walls of a papier-mâché Bastille sat atop the pouf, accompanied by miniature cannons, bayonets and pikes, actual chains, and a guillotine in front.
“Ma Reine, this is precisely what they want,” Léonard said with certainty. “They want to know that you see their suffering. That you suffer with them. The wig will not be light. It will be a burden. The weight of the walls, the metal of the cannons, they will weigh you down. This wig is France, and you are taking it on. Vaillamment. Do you see?”
“I do,” Marie said. “Only, I just worry about the neck cramps is all.”
“The neck cramps are worth it, chère Majesté! You are fighting for the very soul of France! This pièce de résistance could turn the tide—convince the people to let you into their hearts again. Or for the first time…”
“Well, if you think it will work. You are the greatest hairdresser in Europe, and your intuition has always been unerring. I will wear it. Mon cher Louis would most certainly disagree, but he’s dead. Clearly, we shouldn’t follow his lead any longer.”
“Magnifique!”
The deal was made, and Léonard set himself to work. While he still had a chest full of beautiful, blond human hair at the ready, for this wig it would be nothing but horsehair. Coarse and wiry. Still blond (naturellement) and powdered, though not with scented rose water and a lavender hue. Instead, he mixed starch with soot and ash, singeing portions of the braids that spiraled upward.
He placed bits of splintered wood and rubble in the hair and lit a fire beside his workstation to let the strong smell of smoke set in. Then, he placed the props. In the center, standing at a ridiculous two feet in height, the crumbling walls of the Bastille, splashed with a bit of pig’s blood from the local butcher shop. The chains were not pristine but rusted. For the finale, he wrapped the whole thing in a single blue, white, and red ribbon, frayed at the edges, faded and soiled as if dragged through the mud, but still pressing onward. Like their queen. Like France!
It took nearly two weeks to complete, but it was ready just in time for her trial. When Léonard entered her cell again, her muslin chemise was filthy, covered by a tattered, gray petticoat and shawl. Under any other circumstance, Léonard would have wept at the sight, but in truth, the outfit was the perfect backdrop for her new crown.
The trial began, and Marie stepped into the courtroom, head held high—or at least as high as she could with fifteen pounds of cannonballs and chains weighing her down. Her face was stern, and her fists clenched. She found if she unclenched them, she would fall over.
The reaction was immediate: outrage.
The spectators had already packed rotten fruit to throw at the right time, but the ghastly wig was so egregious, they couldn’t help but unleash the things right away. A barrage of moldy groceries fell upon Marie like flaming boulders from the catapults. Not one soul took even a moment to consider the symbolism before the wig fell to the floor, the papier-mâché walls crushed under the feet of the crowds that rushed in after her, screaming for blood.
The judge called for the court to be silent and addressed Marie. “You stand accused of high treason, depleting the national treasury, and offenses against good taste. What were you trying to achieve with that little stunt, Accusée Capet?”
“Bon, ben… my hairdresser, Léonard, thought it would be a good idea. To show everyone how horrible it had been to be me. Because I assure you it has. Just awful. I’m not sure any of you even realize how long my neck will ache after wearing all of France atop it.”
“It won’t hurt for long without a head to hold up,” the judge sneered. “Je vous déclare coupable! To the guillotine with you!”
“C’est triste,” Marie sighed.
“As for you, Monsieur Léonard-Alexis Autié!”
Léonard had barely processed what was going on. He was still in the crowd, searching for the broken bits of his masterpiece when hands reached out to push him forward through the masses until he was standing in front of the judge beside Marie.
“You have made a mockery of this court by asking Marie to wear ‘France’ atop her head. As far as I’m concerned, you are as guilty as the monarch herself!”
“Non!”
“Oui! How long have you lived beside her in Versailles? Getting fat on macarons and croquembouche paid for by the people!”
“I have never been fat!”
“I will let France decide your fate,” the judge said. “People of the court, qui est pour la guillotine?”
The crowd condemned the hairdresser to death with a resounding, “Pour!”
“It is decided,” the judge said. “To the guillotine with both of you!”
Léonard and Marie were dragged to the public square, where more ravenous townsfolk hurled fruit and insults. “Pas de pitié pour les parasites! À la guillotine! À la guillotine!”
“Mon étoile, forgive me,” Léonard said to Marie. “If only I could have done more. If only they would have taken a second to look upon your visage, they would have seen that you are not a cruel tyrant. They would have seen you as I see you: a delicate flower in a world of cruelty and despair!”
“You are too kind, mon ami. And despite this rather gruesome affair we’ve found ourselves in, I am rather glad you are here with me. If I am to be cast into Purgatory to atone for my sins, I would rather wait in that dreadful, dreary waystation with you. Devoid of pomade, feathers, and silk—an abysmal gray prison without color or joy—but I can wait there for eternity if you are beside me, the only ornamentation I need.”
Léonard raised a hand to his heart. “Mon cœur!”
They embraced.
Someone threw the tiny guillotine from the courtroom floor, and it hit Léonard in the back of the head while Marie was taken to the real thing, its blade still stained from previous victims. She waved goodbye to Léonard, blew him a kiss, and accidentally stepped on the executioner’s foot.
“Pardonnez-moi, monsieur! I didn’t do that on purpose.”
“Don’t worry about it,” the executioner said, bowing politely before locking her head in place. “Are you quite comfortable in there? Voilà, bien.”
The blade fell.
The crowd cheered.
Léonard wept.
Then he was ushered forward.
“Didn’t expect to have two executions today,” the executioner said. “Luckily, le rasoir national never tires.” He patted the guillotine as the blade was raised back to the top, ready for Léonard’s head.
“It has been an honor to serve as the premier hairdresser to the king, queen, and France! If this is the punishment for success, then I shall take it in stride!”
The executioner shrugged. “If you say so, camarade.” He led Léonard into place, gently but firmly. He was, after all, a professional. His father was an executioner, as well as his father’s father, and so on. The guillotine was his life. He knew her like a lover. With poise and dignity, he pulled the lever.
The blade fell.
But only halfway.
“Merde!” the executioner swore. “I knew I should have cleaned it last night. Probably some bone fragments stuck in the grooves. Attendez un moment, I’ll have this fixed en deux secondes.”
But the crowd was growing bored, already having seen the spectacle they’d come for. The queen was dead. Who cared about this pompous coiffeur anyway? People began to wander away.
Léonard knelt uncomfortably on his hands and knees, waiting as the executioner messed about above him. Below him, the face of Marie stared up at him expectantly, as if asking, “Aren’t you coming, mon cher?”
“J’fais de mon mieux!” Léonard cried, trying to assure her he would be along shortly.
The remaining crowd grew restless as the executioner struggled to fix the guillotine, and a chant began to rise from the rabble. “Libérez-le! Libérez-le!” Their boredom had made a peculiar and sharp turn into the realm of mercy. They were calling for his freedom!
“Libérez-moi?” Léonard murmured. “No, no, you’re too kind. I have made my peace.”
“He’s one of us!” someone called from the crowd, followed by, “Fat lot of money he’ll be making without his patronne anyway!”
“I’m actually fairly wealthy,” Léonard explained. “I own le Théâtre de Monsieur.”
An actor cried out, “Do you, really? I played a role there once in La Mort de César, and I was paid a fair wage too!”
The chants grew louder. “Libérez-le! Libérez-le!”
The executioner, only half listening, finally mumbled, “Ben… there’s something jammed in there pretty good.” He stepped down off the wooden stairs leading up to the blade. “Looks like some kind of hairpin. I could probably remove it eventually, but, well, it is getting late, and I’m pretty hungry. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to let you go. After all, you weren’t even on my list.”
The crowd cheered.
Léonard wept.
But indeed, the hour was late, and after a good night’s sleep, Monsieur Léonard no longer felt swept up by his emotions for the old queen. In fact, he no longer felt anything for France at all. With a dull ache in his heart and a final kiss goodbye, he booked passage to Russia, where he promptly fell in with the Russian court, spending the rest of his days discussing Voltaire over brandy and borscht.
He never made another wig.