But for a rare, cooling breeze, the heat continued to hold us in its firm fist. It rendered me quite dizzy at times. I was certain the heat had caused me to swell: my ankles, my bosom. I remonstrated with Lucy that she pulled my laces too tightly. After several instances of this, she paid me a cautious, sidelong glance, the meaning of which I did not take.

‘They are fattening me for the slaughter,’ I huffed as my bosom pushed over the edge of my bodice.

This agitation only grew worse. I found my mind unable to hold a single thought for more than several moments. It fluttered about like a butterfly. My eyes could scarcely take in the words of books or the suits of cards I held. Figures and sights passed before me like stripes of colour. Music pierced my ears like noise and conversation faded into babble. I felt myself a-tremble. It was on account of the talk. Of this, I was certain, for it was incessant, urgent and bellicose. It came from the mouths of those men whose names have been most blackened in the annals of history: Messieurs Danton, Desmoulins, Marat, Vergniaud, Hébert and even the tyrant Robespierre. Yes, friends, these villains became my constant companions at Orléans’s modestly dressed table.

You might well imagine how it was to sit in the company of the frog-featured Danton, or beside Marat whose neck and countenance was enflamed with a bright rash. I attempted to turn my eyes from it as he rubbed and scratched at himself throughout our meal. He smelled of tar and sulphur. Although she argued that he was a genius and she hungrily consumed every edition of his newspaper, L’Ami du Peuple, even Madame could scarcely abide the stench of him.

It was a singular experience indeed to sit so near to these monsters, before they had shown the full horror of themselves to the world. I listened, hardly daring so much as to breathe while they aired their schemes. Why, it seemed as if revolution coursed through their very veins and pumped their hearts full of life. They frightened me a good deal, for they spoke rapidly and vehemently of murder and sacrifice. They raised their glasses to the guillotine. They weighed the merits of placing weapons in the hands of every citizen of Paris. Even Orléans fell silent as they argued these propositions. The more passionate they grew, the less he offered by way of his own opinion. He nodded and praised them, and agreed where necessary, but at times appeared almost as a bemused spectator at his own dinner. The footmen, of which there were but two, delicately handed about the dishes of carp and fried capons and breast of lamb, as if they feared disrupting the oration. More than any of the others, it was Danton who could hold an entire table in his thrall, like a magician.