eleven o'clock
He could not disguise his feeling of ennui sufficiently to prevent the provincial circles from being greatly offended ; they declared unanimously that young de Buxieres was a bear , and decided to leave him alone . The death of his father , which happened just as the youth was beginning his official cares , put a sudden end to all this constraint . He took advantage of his season of mourning to resume his old ways ; and returned with a sigh of relief to his solitude , his books , and his meditations . According to the promise of the Imitation , he found unspeakable joys in his retirement ; he rose at break of day , assisted at early mass , fulfilled , conscientiously , his administrative duties , took his hurried meals in a boardinghouse , where he exchanged a few polite remarks with his fellow inmates , then shut himself up in his room to read Pascal or Bossuet until eleven o'clock . He thus attained his twenty-seventh year , and it was into the calm of this serious , cloister-like life , that the news fell of the death of Claude de Buxieres and of the unexpected inheritance that had accrued to him . After entering into correspondence with the notary , M. Arbillot , and becoming assured of the reality of his rights and of the necessity of his presence at Vivey , he had obtained leave of absence from his official duties , and set out for Haute Marne . On the way , he could not help marvelling at the providential interposition which would enable him to leave a career for which he felt he had no vocation , and to pursue his independent life , according to his own tastes , and secured from any fear of outside cares .