Alysa Salzberg's blog

  With a mix of emotions, Charlotte Corday watches Jean-Paul Marat die in his bath from the stab wound she's just inflicted on him. Wax figure tableau (with Marat's actual bathtub!!!) in the Musée Grévin, Paris (my photo). I’m going to interrupt this blog’s usual content about life during the 1870-1871 Siege of Paris, to travel back nearly eight decades from the Siege, to the French Revolution and the turbulent years that followed. A few days ago, I saw something so extraordinary from that time that I have to write about it! It all started at the Musée Grévin, the Parisian equivalent of Madame Tussaud’s. I’d never been, but my brother-in-law was in town and wanted to see it, and why the heck not? In fact, between my interest in history (the building is a classified historical monument), oddities, and opportunities for funny selfies, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t visited it before. While we roamed around the French History section, I discovered there was something else at the wax