eight o'clock
Her girlhood , in the Frauengasse , had been marked by the various woes of Prussia , by each successive step in the development of Napoleon 's ambition . There were no bogey-men in the night-nursery at the beginning of the century . One Aaron 's rod of a bogey had swallowed all the rest , and children buried their sobs in the pillow for fear of Napoleon . There were no ghosts in the dark corners of the stairs when Desiree , candle in hand , went to bed at eight o'clock , half an hour before Mathilde . The shadows on the wall were the shadows of soldiers -- the wind roaring in the chimney was like the sound of distant cannon . When the timid glanced over their shoulders , the apparition they looked for was that of a little man in a cocked hat and a long grey coat . This was not an age in which the individual life was highly valued .