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The Abbé de Coulmier pushed open the door of the Marquis de Sade's quarters, feeling his heart sink as it did a hundred times a day in similar situations. There Madeleine perched, upon the libertine old man's knee, as he read to her from his latest batch of pornographic fare.

            If she was not allowing him to pierce her mind from a distance, reading his salacious manuscripts in her own chamber, then she was stealing into his rooms to hear them, placing herself in moral danger the Abbé could not bring himself to think upon for very long.

            Seeing the shock and disappointment written on the young priest's face, the girl jumped up from her precarious seat, raising her eyebrows and saying petulantly, "You're in the nick of time. This old letch forgot himself." Making for the door, she passed close by the Abbé, clearly looking to avoid another lecture. Before she could, however, he placed his hand lightly upon her narrow shoulder.

            "Madeleine?"

            "Yes, Abbé?"

            "The next time you feel the urge to visit the Marquis, I hope you'll come to confession instead."

            He hated dishing out endless admonitions to her, however essential they were for her welfare, as she persistently and rebelliously partook of the old aristocrat's writing. She was a young woman, after all, and one who might have married well by now and made a better life for herself, had circumstances not confined her to the laundry service of an asylum. Yet she remained so headstrong, and so oddly delighted by disgusting things.

            It was becoming impossible for him to reach out to her, to be her friend.

            Watching the back of her head, his eyes fixed upon her lustrous red hair, he was almost deaf to the Marquis's voice behind him.

            "Care for a splash of wine, Abbé?"

            If he could not voice his worries to Madeleine, it may do well, he surmised, to vent them to the Marquis instead. Following the other man into his lavishly furnished chamber, the Abbé wondered at the state of his life these days. His closest friend was a writer of immoral stories, his principal daily preoccupation the safety of a laundrywoman with whom he shared only an ambiguous friendship.

Sometimes, he suspected that Madeleine believed herself to be in love with him, when she could not possibly be. Three years before, when she had been barely more than a child, she had asked him to educate her. He had been only too happy to do so. She was a sprightly, pleasant girl, a veritable ray of sunshine in the otherwise tedious, depressing innards of Charenton.

            Coulmier had always felt that his purpose in life was to help others, and to be a friend and confidant to as many people as humanly possible. His time spent with Madeleine became some of the happiest he had ever known, her delicate fingers scratching on his door, her sweet voice whispering for him to let her in so that her lessons could begin. He would share with her small quantities of wine, laughing at her sharp wit, enjoying the first real friendship he had ever known.

            His feelings for her had always been loving in a purely platonic sense. He was naturally aware of her nubile, vivacious beauty, yet it would be unforgivable of him, he knew, to view her as anything other than a little sister, or even a daughter. And anyway, those feelings had never truly occurred to him when he had been with her.

            He was unsure, however, when exactly the change in her had first taken place. Perhaps, as he liked to believe, it had begun as a purely natural process brought along by the advent of her womanhood. He could not, however, escape the possibility that it had been the arrival of the Marquis and his lascivious ways, which had prompted her to look at her friend the Abbé in a most unsisterly manner.

            It had taken a long time for the young man to note the alteration in his companion's behaviour. Until one week, when she began arriving at her daily tutelages with her corsets a little less tightly laced, puffing out her well-developed breasts as he leaned over her to see what she had written. He cursed himself now, thinking back upon the series of small incidents, considering how little encouragement he had needed to realise her intentions.

            She was sharp-tongued, true, but silly nonetheless. Their friendship was never the same. From that time on, her lessons took place outside the seclusion of his chamber. He was careful never to move his head too closely to hers, never to look too intently upon her full, sensuous lips, or to notice how soft and smooth the skin of her hands felt beneath his own. She was not a child anymore.

            And for the sake of both their immortal souls, her burgeoning inclinations must never be encouraged. They were by no means in love, neither would they ever be. He had taken it as his responsibility never to allow any improprieties in their relationship to develop.

September that year was cool and crisp. This was how the Abbé preferred it, chilly days when the asylum seemed quieter, the mood more subdued, everyone more placid than usual and willing to cooperate. His job was difficult at the best of times, though always rewarding, and these still, silent days were the easiest and most pleasant of all. This morning, he lay on his back upon his bed, fortifying himself to begin his daily round of duties, when a quiet knock sounded upon his door.

            The shrill, always irritable tones of Charlotte sounded through the thin wooden panels. "Abbé? You are required at the front gates. The new arrival is here."

            He sighed quietly, preparing to rise. "Thank you, Charlotte. I will be out directly."

            The new arrival. Even though he was well used to the process of introducing new wards to Charenton, he nevertheless always found himself steeling his constitution each and every time he had to meet with them. Stepping towards the front gates, behind which was parked a closed van drawn by two scruffy geldings, he tried to anticipate the condition of this latest, picturing another old man victimised by his advanced age, a middle-aged woman driven insane by widowhood, or a vagrant picked up for becoming a nuisance on the streets.

            He prepared a friendly greeting as two guards moved to help the arrival from the back of a van. Strangely, there was no struggle, no sounds of screams as the doors were opened. The person, it seemed, was not even restrained in any way.

            The Abbé's breath froze in his chest with disbelief as the guards extended their hands to take the slender arms of a beautiful young woman as she lowered herself to the ground, demurely raising her eyes to meet those of her astonished host.

A whirlwind of questions consumed him as he walked along the darkened corridor, alongside one of the guards who had accompanied Charenton's most unlikely new ward to her place of incarceration.

            "Who is she?" he asked his burly companion, his voice no more than a strained whisper.

            The guard answered airily, having fully expected the question. "Her name is Anne Lenoir. Not yet twenty years old, as far as I know. She was delivered here on the request of a wealthy, much older cousin, her guardian and only living relative after her parents were guillotined. Influential people once, apparently. Their loyalties lay in the wrong place, and it was their downfall."

            Coulmier swallowed as horrifying pictures sprung up in his mind. "So…she is of noble birth?"

            "Yes, and very lucky indeed. This is the most benevolent fate she could have hoped for. Such was her cousin's belief, at least."

            The Marquis is now not the only blue-blooded one here, the Abbé thought to himself, unsure whether to feel reverence or pity as a result.