In order to meet the gentlemen’s demands, I sketched more rapidly, anxiously endeavouring to capture all of their features as the last glow of day sank into the woods. They laughed and teased and made love to me with their praises. I set my mouth into a pleasant smile, my eyes so sore that any who had gazed upon me in earnest and not merely for their own pleasure might have observed my exhaustion. It occurred to me as they gathered around, peering over my shoulder, studying my progress and passing comment, that this was the very reason for my invitation. I existed to delight and amuse, to perform as might a musician or even a troupe of actors. As night fell, one of my attentive swains thought to assist me by placing a candelabrum on the edge of my table. My glass of wine was replenished and a dish of sugar plums laid at my elbow. It was only when supper was called, sometime after ten o’clock, that I relinquished my pencil and brushes. My hands were filthy with charcoal and pigment, and they trembled.

Madame de Buffon proudly fetched me from my corner and took my arm into hers. She sat me beside her at the dining table where there seemed no semblance of formality; men landed themselves wherever they pleased. Most were a good deal in drink by that hour, having emptied a punchbowl and countless bottles of wine. I was scarcely aware of what I ate. Some portions of cold fowl and lamb in unctuous sauces were offered to me and I took thoughtless, tired mouthfuls with few words in between. All that I heard was a din of noise. The company appeared no more than a blur of blues and white, the glinting gold lacings of their uniforms serving to outline their forms in the dimness. However, exhaustion had not entirely blinded me to the antics at the far end of the table, where Biron fed his lusty mistress oysters. What a performance they enacted. She unfurled her tongue and he slid on to it one wet prize after another, much to the uproarious delight of the gentlemen beside them. La Buffon, who sat with me, grew silent and stony. Eventually, having viewed enough of the spectacle, my hostess laid down her fork and knife and pushed herself unsteadily from her seat.

‘Forgive me, for I am grown quite weary.’ She smiled at me weakly before looking to Orléans and signalling her wish to retire. I rose from politeness, but she laid a hand upon my shoulder and bid me sit once more. ‘Bonne nuit, ma petite Anglaise,’ she whispered into my ear and placed a kiss upon my cheek. ‘You will endeavour to amuse Monsieur d’Orléans in my absence, will you not?’

I agreed, believing I understood perfectly her wishes; she hoped to enlist me as Orléans’s chaperone.