about five o'clock in the afternoon
If any man could have said , I will be virtuous ; I , of myself , unaided , trusting to my own power , guarding myself by the light of my own reason ; I will walk uprightly through the world , and will shed light from my path upon my brethren , he might have said so . He attempted it , and history shows us the result . He attempted , unassisted , to be perfect among men , and his memory is regarded as that of a loathsome plague , defiling even the unclean age in which he lived . At about five o'clock in the afternoon on an October day , in 1793 , Robespierre was sitting alone in a small room in the house of his friend , Simon Duplay , the cabinet-maker . This room , which was the bed-chamber , reception-room , and study of the arbitrary Dictator , was a garret in the roof of Duplay 's humble dwelling . One small window , opening upon the tiles , looked into the court-yard in which were stored the planks or blocks necessary to the cabinet-maker 's trade . A small wooden bedstead , a long deal table , and four or five rush-bottomed chairs , constituted the whole furniture of the apartment .