It was not Madame de Buffon’s fierce love of liberty, or her convictions, or even her fantastic schemes for Orléans that unnerved me so. No, it was her proposal which succeeded in doing that. I have never comprehended the French. They are of a different order entirely from their English cousins. They possess no sense of delicacy; there is no refinement in their nature, not even among those of birth. I recall that upon a recent sojourn in Paris I bore witness to a respectable young beauty making use of her chamber pot before a room of adoring beaux. Not a soul present thought anything of it.

I continued to behold La Buffon, studying her sweet features, both hopeful and pleading. While her intention had been to honour me, I could not but feel a sense of mortification, as if my character had been dealt the most heinous of insults. Of course the truth of the matter was that Orléans’s mistress saw me plainly. She regarded me in a manner no different from Mrs Elliot, and Mr Savill as well. She viewed me as Orléans had the night before, as did all who made my acquaintance. To the world I was a whore, and yet I would not countenance it. I would not answer to it. I still held fast to the notion that I possessed some ability to determine my fate. But I had been ruined and so long as I remained in the single state, I would never be restored to wholeness.

I rose to my feet as La Buffon stared up at me questioningly.

‘Madame, you will forgive me, please . . . but I am in need of air . . .’ I said and made a curtsey to her.

I stepped from the pavilion into the blaze of mid-afternoon and, with some determination, began to walk. I knew not what was my destination, only that I could not bear to stand idle so long as my mind ticked. I paced along the cut hedges of yew and box, through a patte d’oie decorated with white marble benches and statues of Apollo and Daphne and the goddess Diana, hiding her nakedness from the gaze of Actaeon. I strode between these clipped avenues, these channels so contained, so geometric and ordered, and longed for the open English fields of my father’s estate at Melmouth. I strode in an aimless march, my breast filled with ire.