about nine o'clock
And Jean cast himself on the ground at Maurice 's side , sobbing , feeling him , trying to raise him to see if he might not yet be saved . `` My boy , oh ! my poor , poor boy ! '' When at about nine o'clock the train from Sedan , after innumerable delays along the way , rolled into the Saint-Denis station , the sky to the south was lit up by a fiery glow as if all Paris was burning . The light had increased with the growing darkness , and now it filled the horizon , climbing constantly higher up the heavens and tingeing with blood-red hues some clouds , that lay off to the eastward in the gloom which the contrast rendered more opaque than ever . The travelers alighted , Henriette among the first , alarmed by the glare they had beheld from the windows of the cars as they rushed onward across the darkling fields . The soldiers of a Prussian detachment , moreover , that had been sent to occupy the station , went through the train and compelled the passengers to leave it , while two of their number , stationed on the platform , shouted in guttural French : `` Paris is burning .