nine
o’clock
Perhaps I shall owe to your curiosity the happiness of taking you once more by the hand -- as in the days before Mesmer . Always yours , Bouvard . Stung like a lion by a gadfly the old scientist rushed to Paris and left his card on Bouvard , who lived in the Rue Ferou near Saint-Sulpice . Bouvard sent a card to his hotel on which was written `` To-morrow ; nine o'clock , Rue Saint-Honore , opposite the Assumption . '' Minoret , who seemed to have renewed his youth , could not sleep . He went to see some of his friends among the faculty to inquire if the world were turned upside down , if the science of medicine still had a school , if the four faculties any longer existed . The doctors reassured him , declaring that the old spirit of opposition was as strong as ever , only , instead of persecuting as heretofore , the Academies of Medicine and of Sciences rang with laughter as they classed magnetic facts with the tricks of Comus and Comte and Bosco , with jugglery and prestidigitation and all that now went by the name of `` amusing physics . ''