‘The King has commanded that Orléans return to Paris. He fears that Orléans is stirring dissent among the troops!’ she exclaimed with an angry laugh.

‘When?’ I enquired.

Her eyes rolled down the letter.

‘With immediate effect. Tomorrow morning at first light.’

That night, all the lamps were lit and the house was packed up in a frenzy. I retired to the sound of heels clacking back and forth upon the stairs and the distant stir of horses and carts from the stables. What slumber I enjoyed was interrupted at dawn, when Lucy shook me awake. Like children roused from their beds, Madame de Buffon and I boarded her carriage whilst still rubbing the sleep from our eyes. Orléans and the remainder of his household joined us in a princely train of four coaches which also ferried his young son Monsieur de Beaujolais and his tutor Monsieur Barrois, his physician Monsieur Seiffert, and Monsieur Rotaux. Romain and the other servants belonging to the Palais-Royal had been sent on ahead before daybreak.

I had been told nothing more about the circumstances of our departure other than that which La Buffon revealed to me the night before. It was not until we were upon the road that I mustered the courage to beg further details of the events which had prompted our hasty return. I sat observing Orléans’s agitation and restlessness with quiet dismay. With each stop we made, he sprang from his coach and moved into another. He rode with us and then with his son before returning once more for our company.

‘I am sorely in need of comfort,’ he sighed to Madame de Buffon as he sank upon the opposite bench. His face was haggard from a lack of sleep.

‘May I enquire’, I ventured to La Buffon under my breath when it looked as if Orléans slumbered, ‘what has brought this about?’

‘The Duke of Brunswick, the commander of the Prussian army at Coblenz, has sent a letter addressed to the people of Paris. He does not approve of the King and Queen being held as prisoners in the Tuileries Palace and has now threatened that he will raze the city should any harm come to them.’ She scowled. ‘But the worst of it, Henriette, is that the Duke and the King have been conspiring in this. The King has been conspiring against his own people.’

I held her gaze.

‘Certainly the people of Paris will not abide such a thing.’

‘No, ma petite, that much is certain,’ said Orléans gently, opening his eyes. ‘I have been informed that Paris is now filled with volunteers who have come from across France to defend their capital. The people fear that an invasion is imminent.’

‘And is it, monseigneur?’ I pressed, now truly concerned.

The Duke lifted a single eyebrow in what seemed a careworn gesture.

‘I cannot say.’