In the corner of the dank room, six ladies crowded about me. One offered me a basin of cold water with which to wash my face and hands while Mademoiselle Desenfants removed me from my night shift. Another anxiously rifled through my box for a clean chemise, which she handed to me in silence. They assisted me in fastening my stocking garters, for my hands shook so. They tied me into my skirts. Madame de Vollet began to weep quietly to herself as she fixed the front of my bodice. There were hands upon my back, my hair, straightening my skirts. My feet were encased in a pair of blue shoes given to me by Orléans. My finest buckles had been seized and so these delicate slippers of Italian silk were adorned with no more than simple grosgrain ribbons.

When at last I was dressed, the lamentations and embracing began in earnest, until the guard returned and ordered me to come.

Madame de Vollet grabbed at my hand.

‘My poor child, adieu! May God preserve you!’

I regarded her, my eyes dulled and tired of life.

‘If I am to die, then I am not sorry for it.’

In truth, I wished for nothing more.

Chapter 28

THE FULL LIGHT of morning had not yet penetrated the gloom. I took it to be perhaps six o’clock when they brought me and another prisoner, a man accused of forging documents for émigrés, by cart through the still, sombre streets. I was pleased there were few to assail me, to bellow out curses, to spit or throw filth. When I confess to you, reader, that I was not afraid, that I scarcely knew myself any more, that my mind and heart were as void and empty as dry amphorae, you must believe me. As we rattled slowly through the rue Saint-André-des-Arts to the pont Michel I considered the sky with the awareness of someone who believed they would never again witness dawn. Before me, the clouds turned the colour of roses against the indigo of morning. Where once I might have marvelled at this spectacle of nature, at the display of ever-altering hues, I now simply observed, feeling nothing stir in my breast. What life I had lived had now been spent and, after having glimpsed its horrors and delights, and all the most alluring and hideous faces of the human character, I was reconciled to death.