Instead, she called on M. Giroux in a modest house not many blocks from the Chastains’ establishment. She was let into a bright parlour, well-appointed with furniture from fifty years ago, and waited there for M. Giroux. The worries that had been suppressed first by shock and then by a flurry of activity came upon her in a sudden rush as she waited. Dread knotted in her stomach, and she had to fight to breathe.

When the parlour door opened, Jane jumped in her seat and then flushed quite red. A woman, likely M. Giroux’s mother, entered the room with her chin held high. ‘You are the British woman?’

The coldness of her reception came as a shock. Jane could only nod.

‘I do not know what business you think you have with my son, but I assure you, we have no interest in it.’ She inclined her head once. ‘Good day, madame.’

‘Please!’ Jane gasped and held out her hand in supplication. ‘My husband has been taken by Napoleon’s men. I only need help in finding him. I thought your son might know where they are encamped, boys being boys.’

‘You want my son to spy for you?’ Mme Giroux’s countenance darkened with anger.

‘No. Certainly not. I only wanted to ask if he had heard any word of their whereabouts.’

‘I fail to see how that is in any way different from spying. We do not spy, and certainly not for the British.’ She pulled the door to the parlour open. ‘Good day, madame.’

Jane searched her face for some hint of compassion, but was met only with cold disdain. Trembling, she left the parlour and went out to the street. She stood in the inexcusably beautiful day and stared at the cobblestones. Could she expect a different reception at the homes of Yves’s other friends? Perhaps she should have asked him to run the errand for her, after all.

Grimacing, Jane trudged on to the next name on the list, passing through the town square on her way. The signs of the festivities from the night before had vanished, save for a few scattered shoes lying abandoned in odd corners. Under the balcony where the glamourist had been, a glazier worked to repair the window which had broken in the shoe-tossing fervour.

As he reached for a new pane of glass, Jane could not hold back a cry of surprise. The glazier was Mathieu La Pierre, the glassblower’s son. Mind working quickly, Jane hurried over to him. ‘M. La Pierre! Might I trouble you for a moment?’

Raising his eyebrows, he set down the pane of glass he had been lifting. ‘Mme Vincent. Are you well?’