The firemen took the weight of ladder and Parisian, pulling him three feet back from the tower wall. Victor Vigny took half a dozen coils in his hand and sent them spinning upwards. He had judged the coils accurately, landing the spliced end directly in King Nicholas’s hand.

‘Tie her off strong now, and be quick about it.’

Victor cinched the rope to the top rung, and then slid down the stiles as fast as he could without stripping the skin from his palms.

‘Ladder don’t reach,’ the fireman pointed out, while Victor plunged his hands into the nearest fire bucket.

‘I know that, monsieur. But the ladder reaches the rope, and the rope reaches the king.’

‘Ah,’ said the fireman.

‘Now stand back. If I know your king, that tower has more explosives in it than a similarly sized cannon. I believe we may be about to shoot down the moon.’

The fire brigade gave up. They couldn’t pump enough pressure to reach the blaze, and even if they could that fire was all sorts of colours and pouring water on it could just make it angry.

So they stood back out of the spitting castle’s range, waiting to see if the last male Trudeau in the line could save himself from death by fire or fall.

Inside the bathroom, King Nicholas put his Royal Doulton toilet through its most rigorous test. True, the toilet had been constructed to bear the weight of a hefty adult, but possibly not one swinging from a rope tied to its piping. With a dripping towel draped over his forehead, the king put four loops around the evacuation pipe and a few hitches on the end.

I really hope that pipe does not burst. Being burned alive is bad enough, without being found covered in waste.

The bathroom’s stout wooden door was cracking with heat, as though soldiers battered from without. The steel bands buckled, sending rivets pinging around the room like ricocheting bullets.