Oh, we had a marvellous view of the scaffold, I can tell you. Foresight, is what it is, said my Alphonse, dragging us out of our nice warm beds in the middle of the cold night, and Héloise so tired and fretful, but blessed if he wasn’t right. And didn’t we all forget the long waiting when the led that rascally old king onto the platform and us near enough to spit on him, which Gustavus did, the imp, and Alphonse boxed his ears and said to show some respect for the dignity of the sovereign, even if they were seeing fit to chop off his head.

I was working on a sweater for the littlest — the winters are always so cold and he was a frail little thing, bless his heart, and gone to Heaven now, oh, three years ago. He was so sickly and weak, we never did decide on a name for him, what with one thing and another, and then he was gone and what would have been the point, I ask you? But there you are. I was knitting him a little sweater while the king stood there listening to the charges, and didn’t he just look so sad and so noble? It made you feel for him, though of course they had to kill him.

When they dropped that horrible blade we all shouted and I got so excited I jerked like an epileptic and nearly dropped a stitch. Lord, that gave me a turn, dropping a stitch, I mean. What a shame it would have been to spoil that sweater and so close to done, even though (and a real shame it was, too, very sad) it ended up not mattering one way or another, what with him dying so soon and all.