seven to nine in the morning
Her mother , the danseuse , now forty-three years old , retired from the stage and went to live in the country , -- thus depriving her daughter of the resources derived from her wasteful extravagance . Madame Colleville kept a very agreeable but extremely free and easy household . From 1816 to 1826 she had five children . Colleville , a musician in the evening , kept the books of a merchant from seven to nine in the morning , and by ten o'clock he was at his ministry . Thus , by blowing into a bit of wood by night , and writing double-entry accounts in the early morning , he managed to eke out his earnings to seven or eight thousand francs a year . Madame Colleville played the part of a `` comme il faut '' woman ; she received on Wednesdays , gave a concert once a month and a dinner every fortnight . She never saw Colleville except at dinner and at night , when he returned about twelve o'clock , at which hour she was frequently not at home herself .