She was an eyewitness to events detailed in her memoirs, Journal of my life during the French Revolution (Ma Vie sous la Révolution) published posthumously in 1859.

She was arrested several times but managed to avoid the guillotine, and was released following the military coup that ended the Terror and resulted in the execution of Robespierre.

In the acclaimed but widely controversial 2001 film adaptation of her memoirs by French New Wave director Éric Rohmer as The Lady and the Duke, Grace Elliot was played by English actress Lucy Russell.

With her social reputation destroyed, Elliott became recognised as a member of the demimonde and forced to earn her living as a professional mistress or courtesan.

She was then taken by her brother to a French convent, but she seems to have been brought back almost immediately by Lord Cholmondeley, who became her lover and remained one of her principal protectors throughout her life.

During her life in Paris, Elliott witnessed the horror of the September massacres and the body of the Princess de Lamballe carried through the streets.

It has been recently shown that Elliott was trafficking correspondence on behalf of the British government and assisting in the transportation of messages between Paris and members of the exiled French court in Coblenz and in Belgium.

Shortly after the Assault on the Tuileries Palace, on 10 August 1792, Elliott hid the injured Marquis de Champcentz by physically carrying him to her house on the Rue Miromesnil at great risk.

On another occasion, Elliott agreed to take in and hide at her home in Meudon Madame de Perigord and her two children, who were attempting to flee to England.

In the spring of 1793, however, she was arrested and imprisoned and spent the rest of the Terror in prisons, including the Recollets and the Carmes, where she claims to have met Joséphine de Beauharnais, although this has been questioned by historians.