I felt uneasy. It meant that I would have my back to my classmates and they could look over my shoulder and see what I was doing. The idea that these sophisticated art students could see my work as I was creating it suddenly made me deeply self-conscious.

“I see you have brought your own canvas,” Augustin said. “Put it aside as we are working on paper and sketch pads at this point. I don’t think we are ready to commit our ideas to canvas for posterity quite yet.”

There were sniggers from my classmates. I turned bright red, and stared hard at my shoes. “I haven’t brought a sketch pad,” I replied.

“Then you can borrow mine for the day,” Augustin said.

He handed me the pad, and then he went back to the front of the class and began to shuffle papers on his desk. I stood nervously behind the easel, staring at him until he looked up again.

“Yes?”

“I was just wondering,” I said. “What we are drawing?”

There was another snigger from my classmates. Augustin looked imperiously down his nose at me.

“Mademoiselle Thompson,” he said. “This is my class, but you have your own mind, do you not? I’m not here to guide your hand. What you decide to draw is up to you.”

I wanted to say, well, why did I come all the way to France just so I can stand here with no direction or input then? I could draw by myself at home just as easily. But I got my pencil out and began to sketch. I was thinking about the last series of pictures that I’d done – works based around those big black-and-white cobs who hacked around Hyde Park. I decided to continue with that, and drew from my memory.

Soon, I had the outlines down and I was sketching detail, the tree boughs above them, the riders on their backs. Behind me, the rest of the class were laughing at something. I tried to ignore it, and then the girl right behind me spoke up. My French was poor but I could make out what she was saying – it was something like: “Look, sir. I have my end-of-year assignment completed ready for the auction at Lucie’s.”

There was laughter from the class as she showed off her drawing. It was a stick-figure pony with a circle for a tummy and four sticks for its legs.

“Stop wasting time, Antoinette,” Augustin replied. “Get on with your work.”

“Ah, but, sir,” Antoinette persisted. “Isn’t this all you have to do now to get into the Paris School and the auction too? Draw pictures of pretty ponies!”

There were more giggles until Augustin snapped. “Enough! All of you!”