Stubbornly, you resist the urge to retch. But the vile stench of decay is not all that thickens this still air. That you should be here to prepare reportage of the scene that confronts you presents an irony that even you could not have imagined: the journalist himself, arch-Jacobin, revolutionary hero, your friend, lies dead, bloody, rotten. The tub in which he would bathe is fully crimson, as are the putrid sheets in which his lifeless body is now swathed. Blood is smeared across every surface: the wooden floorboards, a broken timber writing board, even the map of France which adorns the wall beyond is not spared. And next to the bath nestling amid a crumpled olive blanket is an ebony-handled six-inch kitchen knife, a lethal weapon at close quarters. You tear your gaze away from this despicable object to allow your eyes smarting with tears to fall upon the scattered tools of Marat’s trade: a handful of soiled papers, some quill pens, an ink-pot upturned. It is now that you recognise these items for what they truly are: the accoutrements of a Saint. Oui, you resolve, Pietà of the Révolution, you can paint that.