Heavy footsteps could be heard throughout my apartments. Keys rattled and doors were opened and shut. Though I could not make out her words, I could hear Thérèse’s soft but anxious voice addressing them in the adjacent room. With every moment that passed, I grew more unnerved, scarcely able to stand still long enough to have my gown buttoned over my petticoat. Still greatly dishevelled, I threw open my bedchamber doors to find near a dozen of them, rifles hanging from their shoulders, in my dressing room. One had been pulling at the drawers of a clothes press, while the others stood puzzling over several locked boxes recently returned from the Palais. From their careless manner and slouch, they seemed to me rough men. Two of them were consuming part of a sausage which they cut insolently with a knife as they regarded me. The victuals, I took it, were from my kitchens.

For a moment, I gaped incoherently at the scene. From the surrounding rooms I could hear the sounds of boots, of quick fingers turning and tipping my possessions.

‘Citizeness, we would have you open these boxes directly,’ ordered the most senior of the group, without so much as a nod of greeting.

‘Guard, may I enquire what has brought on the need for a visit such as this? I have done no wrong nor committed any crime.’

‘We are here to determine that, citizeness, for we have had reports concerning your household from some people in your section.’

‘Pray, sir, what manner of reports have you—’

‘Yesterday we received word that you had been to visit a friend in the country. This lady is a royalist and suspected in both the Sections de la République and de Sèvres of counter-revolutionary sympathies.’

I was startled by this, for I could not imagine how the guards had come by such information. My stomach turned over to consider that my friend Agnès de Buffon should be the source of it. My friend. It could not be. I shut my eyes tightly.

‘If you please . . . it is true I have returned from a visit, but I know nothing of her sympathies. I had heard she was unwell . . . I went to call upon her. Who informed you of this?’

‘Citizeness,’ said he, addressing me squarely, ‘the boxes, if you will . . . and the keys for the locked compartments to all of your furniture.’

‘Yes . . . yes, certainly, captain.’ I spoke in an anxious fluster. ‘My maid is in possession of these . . .’ I gestured to Lucy, who took them from her pocket. ‘Please fetch Thérèse,’ I then instructed her.