She describes a working life controlled by capricious, vindictive bosses in an environment in which she’s expected to display servility and – worse still – gratitude.

The spirit of upper-class occasion was reinforced by the almost baroque servility of the waiters.

Gone, too, is the public debauchery Mouhot depicted: “Almost every vice seemed prevalent at Komput — pride, insolence, cheating, cowardice, servility, excessive idleness.”