‘When I heard that the cannons were being removed, you can imagine I had to go out. As I made my way to Montmartre, I saw barricades being erected all over the place and soldiers fleeing towards Concorde. Thiers has decided to depart for Versailles with the government immediately; that is all I need to know. I’m going back to Saint-Germain! Do help us carry this to the Gare Saint-Lazare.’

‘But Aunt! I was there. At Montmartre . . . The atmosphere was very amicable. Only a single shot was fired and that was by a regular soldier.’

‘Well, I was at Place Pigalle and the scoundrels I saw . . . You can’t imagine! They could already smell chaos. They took two generals prisoner and there is talk of their execution. The entire town will succumb to the insurrection and I know from a reliable source that troops are falling back to Versailles. Tomorrow we shall be delivered up to the frenzy of the people. We must hurry, Rosalie! Run off ahead! Go, secure the tickets. No matter the class, we must take the next train before they storm them all. Wait for me at the end of platform 3.’

Stunned, Auguste dashed after his aunt. Struggling under the weight of the packages, they saw more panic-stricken bourgeois families in Rue Auber carrying all the clothes they had been able to pack piled onto their backs, pushcarts filled to the brim with valises and knick-knacks, as well as a few hansom cabs pulled by the rare horses who were fortunate enough not to have been eaten. All were converging on the Gare Saint-Lazare.

‘Hurry, Auguste, it’s mayhem already!’

‘Hurry? This weighs a tonne! What is it you have in there?’

‘My silverware.’

‘You are quite mad!’

Rosalie, who had managed to secure them seats in second class, was waiting for Clothilde at the agreed place.

Auguste settled his aunt into her compartment. She took him by the arm and addressed him seriously before the train moved off.

‘You are a young, impassioned fool, my dear nephew, and I am fond of you just as you are because you make me laugh. But enough now. Things are serious. I am intimately acquainted with Thiers; you can believe me when I tell you: he will kill you all . . . all of you Communards, if only for having dared to unnerve the bourgeoisie.’

It was at Chatou, as the train was emptying out, that Clothilde noticed her.

It must be said, it was hard not to. Resembling nothing Clothilde had ever seen before, the woman was sitting bolt upright, squeezed between the shambolic piles of valises that were fit to bursting with frills and ornaments, and apparently utterly unaware of the political events that had them all fleeing Paris.