Paris, meanwhile, was in chaos—the Revolution falling to tragic pieces. I watched secret police kick in doors, searching for the remaining Brits, arresting them in public. Imprisoned Frenchmen and -women we knew, Girondists all of them, prepared to feed the guillotine with their necks. In mid-October the Jacobins executed Marie Antoinette. She’d been governed by “uterine furies,” they claimed, and deserved what she got. It was shocking to hear them argue that the new France must be more like ancient Rome: Men would make the laws, women should obey them, each sex in its rightful place. No divorce, no inheritance, no legal representation, no form of protest would be allowed for women. Even statues of Lady Liberty were felled for the more masculine Justice.

While I felt an unstoppable life force fluttering inside me, it seemed that France was dooming women, and daring its own demise.

Imlay didn’t come and didn’t come. His letters were sweet but impatient. Why did I press him? Why did I doubt his plan? Question his ambition? He never doubted mine. And then came word that Helen Maria had been arrested. I couldn’t imagine her being carted off to a jail cell, and went to visit her as soon as they allowed it. She put on a brave face, at first, as she would.

“Women make the best prisoners, just as they will the best citizens,” she said. “There’s a true spirit of fraternity here, or sorority—acts of care and compassion among us—why, we cheer up even the gloom of a prison!”

I put my hand on hers, as she’d done for me when we first met in her drawing room. Tears pooled in her eyes.

“But I’m terrified, Mary,” she said, cupping her other hand around her slender neck. “At night I feel the blade quivering over my head and can’t sleep a wink.”

I rubbed my thumb across her knuckles.

“I was cocky,” she said. “I thought by the sheer exuberance of our humanity, there’d be no stopping the world we could make together. But brute force has defeated sentiment, and the lust for power triumphed over reason.” She bowed her head and shook it. “I meant to be the spectatrice, not the spectacle itself. Now I lie awake wondering if I can be one of the bold ones who dance my way up the steps to the guillotine, sing a song, recite my principles, or just tell them to go to hell. Mostly I think I’ll simply weep for my life.”

“Imlay will think of some way to save you, Helen Maria, I know he will. He always has a scheme. And knows people on all sides.”

“That he does,” she said, slipping her hand from mine. “But I learned some time ago never to wait for Imlay.”