‘Lucy!’ I commanded. She stopped instantly. ‘Monsieur d’Orléans and Madame de Buffon? They are here and well? And no harm has come to any member of the household?’

‘Yes, madam, they are here and well. There is no disruption within the Palais-Royal,’ she said, though her voice quivered.

‘Well then,’ I concluded. ‘We must accustom ourselves to such upheavals and not take fright at every disturbance. So long as the Austrians have not arrived at the gates of Paris, we have nothing to fear.’ I smiled at her, but this appeared to do nothing to calm her. Her hands remained unsteady as she dressed me. Hurried and shaking, she could not tie my garters without assistance, nor fasten the buckles upon my shoes.

‘Lucy?’ I spoke again, though softly and without reprimand. ‘Whatever troubles you, girl?’

It was then she raised her gaze to me. It was wide and staring. She shook her head and then placed her hand to her mouth.

‘There are bodies, madam,’ she whispered. ‘I saw them this morning. The prisoners’ bodies, madam, they carry them through the streets. They carry them on pikes. There was . . . a head . . .’ She stopped and her eyes began to fill.

I reached for her hand. I scarcely thought what I did, but I gripped it, I suppose out of fear. I recalled too well those scenes to which I had been subjected not a month earlier. I recalled what it was to witness murder and shut my eyes hard against the memory of it. She paused and regarded me, as if quite startled by my gesture.

‘Lucy, you are safe here, more so than anywhere else,’ I attempted to reassure her. I employed the very words Mrs Elliot had spoken to me, but I could not say that I derived any comfort from uttering them.

It was then I heard a soft rustling and looked to discover La Buffon standing awkwardly in the open door. All at once, my belly turned. Lucy’s news had, for a short spell, succeeded in displacing my own grave concerns, but Madame’s appearance there brought them back to me once more.

‘Henriette.’ She spoke softly, as if in a haze. Her moon-like mound protruded through her yellow sprigged gown. The golden curls which framed her face bestowed upon her the look of a disconcerted child. I was uncertain how long she had been lingering there, and what she had observed of my maid’s distress.

‘You have heard what has occurred?’ she enquired gently, glancing at Lucy and then back to me.

‘Yes . . . some . . . Tell me . . .?’