It was from that day forward that my mistrust of him began to soften into mild suspicion, though to be sure, I found him a good deal irksome. His flattery could be as rich and thick as treacle pudding and his boasts equally excessive. He spoke of his ‘numerous acquaintance’ at the courts of Europe, from Catherine the Great to King Carlos of Spain. It was not until the end of our second day upon the road that I even learned he had a wife. Of course, she possessed ‘the heart of an angel and the beauty of Helen of Troy’, while his son displayed ‘all the genius of Socrates’. He effused over the fields and meadows of Thornton Park, and spoke at great length about his many prized stallions and mares.

Reader, I shall be the first to concede that before I entered the barriers of the French capital, all I knew of that place had come to me through books, newspapers and the gossip of my friends, many of whom had never quit the shores of England. My acquaintance had talked of nothing but the extravagance of the French nobility: how their silk gowns, lace, dainty shoes and eau de parfum were of incomparable make. The ladies adorned themselves in scent; they smelled of civet and jasmine; they soaked their persons in asses’ milk and rosewater. They wore more powder and rouge than even the actresses at Drury Lane. They dyed their hair the colour of cherries. There a mistress might live as a wife and a wife of title might live as a queen in her own apartments at Versailles. Every gentleman was a fop or a libertine or both, and not a single one among them married for love. The royal family was as profligate as the emperors of Rome and the people had come to loathe them . . . or so I had heard and read, and even repeated in conversation, as if I possessed some authority upon the matter.

As a girl I had pored over engravings of this place: this city of palaces and Gothic cathedrals, of aristocratic hôtels particuliers and perfectly clipped, symmetrical gardens hidden behind high walls. I imagined it was not so different from Brussels – perhaps somewhat larger, but similar in a fashion. There would be quiet squares and snarls of lesser streets, markets and shops whose fronts had been painted in bright shades of green and carnation and blue. I imagined that Allenham would find me lodgings in some location near to the place Vendôme or the Palais-Royal; perhaps a set of apartments in one of the more modest hôtels particuliers.