four o’clock
The `` long-haired '' ones had to-day the `` regulation cut , '' and wore divers head-gears , for the most of the scattered poets carried cartridge-boxes and guns ; but some of the political `` beards '' had not renounced their old customs ; the war and the fall of the Empire had been a triumph for them , and the fourth of September had opened every career for them . Twenty of these `` beards '' had been provided with prefectures ; at least all , or nearly all , of them occupied public positions . There was one in the Government of National Defence , and three or four others , chosen from among the most rabid ones , were members of the Committee on Barricades ; for , improbable as the thing may seem today , this commission existed and performed its duties , a commission according to all rules , with an organized office , a large china inkstand , stamped paper , verbal reports read and voted upon at the beginning of each meeting ; and , around a table covered with green cloth , these professional instigators of the Cafe de Seville , these teachers of insurrection , generously gave the country the benefit of the practical experience that they had acquired in practising with the game of dominoes . The `` beards '' remaining in Paris were busied with employments more or less considerable in the government , but did not do very much , the offices in which they worked for France 's salvation usually closed at four o'clock , and they went as usual to take their appetizers at the Cafe de Seville . It was there that Amedee met them again , and mixed anew in their conversations , which now dwelt exclusively upon patriotic and military subjects . These `` beards '' who would none of them have been able to command `` by the right flank '' a platoon of artillery , had all at once been endowed by some magical power with the genius of strategy . Every evening , from five to seven , they fought a decisive battle upon each marble table , sustained by the artillery of the iced decanter which represented Mount Valerien , a glass of bitters , that is to say , Vinoy 's brigade , feigned to attack a saucer representing the Montretout batteries ; while the regular army and National Guard , symbolized by a glass of vermouth and absinthe , were coming in solid masses from the south , and marching straight into the heart of the enemy , the match-box .