Oh, Agnès, Agnès! My heart wept. My dear friend! My one true friend. I could scarcely bear to contemplate how she had cried out to me as I had abandoned her. I would return to her. Yes, I would beg her forgiveness. I would denounce the coldness of my ‘relation’. I would say she refused to see me on account of my association with her and Orléans. Grace Elliot was a cruel and spiteful woman, I would confess to La Buffon. I would assure her that she had been correct all along and I had been the fool. Oh, Agnès, forgive me or I shall never forgive myself.

If there was one engine which compelled me along that path, it was that singular thought. My legs could not drive me rapidly enough back to the Palais-Royal.

I began to quicken my pace, which caused Langlois to glance at me.

‘It is not much further,’ said he, muttering the first words that had passed between us in several hours.

It was not long after that when we arrived at a small stone wall and a gate, over which Langlois assisted me. From there we found ourselves in the open, upon the plain of Vaugirard. The fog had begun to thin and I could see a road and the walls of the city coming into view.

‘We must move with haste now,’ said he, ‘for there are guards upon this road and all manner of villains. Do not meet the gaze of anyone, no matter how genteel they may seem.’

No sooner had he said that than two women wrapped in grey cloaks came upon the path singing loud, lewd songs about the Queen.

‘Good afternoon, citizens,’ one cried out in a warbling, drunken voice. ‘Will you buy my eels?’ said she, lifting her basket unsteadily.

‘Or are you a generous fellow who might buy us some brandy?’ her companion hollered at Langlois. ‘Oh, we are in much need of warming . . .’

They cackled at their bawdiness.

‘Hussies! Do your husbands know you drank away their money on marketing days?’ Langlois bellowed back at them.

The women laughed at his banter as they passed us by.

I inhaled, grateful for his presence, but also suddenly aware that I would not have it on the other side of the city walls.

Now that we had joined the road, faces passed us with regularity. A rider upon a horse emerged through the haze. He saluted us and carried on, the clip of his mount’s hooves echoing through the grey space. A cabriolet passed us in haste; an ass bearing a cart of sacks moved steadily towards us and then beyond. We walked in silence through the gloom.