As I approached Saint-Germain-des-Prés, a finely dressed gentleman had the misfortune to accost me. He stepped from a door and tugged upon my sleeve while making some lascivious noise. I turned on him with a jerk of violence. Some dark creature I did not know reared up from within me and shrieked that I would tear out his eyes if he laid so much as a finger upon me. He recoiled in terror. I am ashamed to confess it, but it pleased me greatly to witness the horror in his expression.

I sobbed freely as I approached the pont Royal. My hands trembled as I wiped my face with the backs of them. As I gazed out across the river, I recalled the night when I embarked upon this same journey to the rue de Miromesnil, believing I might find some solace there. Now I turned my eyes towards the dark and ghostly Tuileries Palace, and then beyond in the direction of the Palais-Royal, where I hoped to make amends. As I neared it from the rue Saint-Honoré, my heart, like a bellows, gave a sudden, fulsome heave. How I longed to be returned to my apartments there and to feel the warmth of their fires, to rest my tortured feet, to beg my cherished friend’s forgiveness at last.

I entered through the passage de Valois, that set of stairs down which I had flown in pursuit of Allenham, only months before. What might have become of him had I revealed my lover as a spy to all the world? I have often had cause to reflect upon that. Surely the man who nearly took my life upon that day had also done a great service in preserving Allenham’s.

Once inside, nothing within the corridors of the Petits Appartements struck me as out of the ordinary, and indeed its familiarity and its illumination welcomed me. Orléans’s servants passed silently, obligingly averting their eyes as I moved beyond them, along the sconce-lit route to my rooms. Such hunger and exhaustion I had never known, as if all my body were melting like wax. I moved to open the doors to my sitting room, but was surprised to find them locked. I tried another set, and that too I found bolted.

‘Where is Lucy? Where is my maid?’ I enquired of a footman, who claimed he did not know. ‘Bring me Romain,’ I called after him, knowing that Orléans’s intendant would be better placed to assist me in this matter. A short while later, Romain arrived wearing a harried expression.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ I enquired in a somewhat indignant voice. Romain held his head high, but hesitated before speaking.

‘Mademoiselle,’ said he, ‘I regret to inform you that shortly after you quit the Palais-Royal this morning, Madame de Buffon requested that your belongings be removed and returned to your apartments at the Hôtel Blanquefort.’