The mind cannot conceive of death upon first glance. There is ever some explanation for a prone body: sleep, inebriation, even injury. It is not in the human condition to assume instantly that life has fled. I looked and then stared at the pair of Swiss Guard, one face downwards in the black filth, his white breeches saturated with blood, the other with a throat slit wide and a crimson crust obscuring his once animated features. It was only once we had passed that I cried out in horror. My friend pulled me to her with great force.

I feared I might be sick, but she held me and nuzzled her face into my hair.

‘Do not think on it, Henriette, do not let it set in your memory,’ she whispered and kissed my temple. ‘Think on liberty. Think on liberty, ma soeur.’ She held me close and tight until I felt I could draw air again. It was only once I had composed myself that I realized the coach had drawn to a complete halt.

We were upon the corner of the rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs.

‘Why do we pause?’ enquired La Buffon. She rose up and peered through the rear window at the guardsmen, attempting to reassure herself of their presence. There appeared to be some disturbance ahead of us in the road. We could hear shouts and frantic noise but could perceive nothing from where we sat. Madame’s horses snorted and shifted. The coachman called out in an attempt to soothe them. I felt once more my heart begin to pound. I could not sit still and pulled down the window to survey the scene before us. Much to my alarm I discovered that we had been separated from the other vehicles in the procession. We sat at a crossing, the centre of which was occupied by a gathering of some forty or fifty men in plain attire bearing rifles and assorted arms: pikes and axes, even the long scissors of a tailor.

‘The road is overrun with volunteers,’ I reported to La Buffon. ‘They appear to be waiting for something . . . or someone. I cannot see the other coaches. They seem to have passed through before the crowd closed—’

Just then, the noise swelled. The mob turned. There was pointing and frenzied shouting in our direction where it seemed two men in Swiss uniform were fleeing for their lives. With a great roar the volunteers set off at a charge in pursuit of them, barrelling like a stampede towards us.

‘Dear God!’ I cried as I pulled up the window. ‘They come this way!’

The guardsmen at our rear then surged forward, moving beside Madame’s coach in an attempt to corner the fugitives. The horses shrieked and reared; the cabin shook as bodies collided with it.