about nine o'clock in the morning
_ Here beat the very heart of that rare , that immortal , that unparalleled _ vie de Bohème _ , the vagabond poetry of which possesses such an inexhaustible charm for even the soberest imagination . What brick and mortar idylls , what romances _ au cinquième _ , what joyous epithalamiums , what gay improvident _ ménages _ , what kisses , what laughter , what tears , what lightly-spoken and lightly-broken vows those old walls could have told of ! Here , apparelled in all sorts of unimaginable tailoring , in jaunty colored cap or flapped sombrero , his pipe dangling from his button-hole , his hair and beard displaying every eccentricity under heaven , the Paris student , the _ Pays Latiniste pur sang _ , lived and had his being . Poring over the bookstalls in the Place du Panthéon or the Rue des Grès -- hurrying along towards this or that college with a huge volume under each arm , about nine o'clock in the morning -- haunting the cafés at midday and the restaurants at six -- swinging his legs out of upper windows and smoking in his shirt-sleeves in the summer evenings -- crowding the pit of the Odéon and every part of the Theatre du Panthéon -- playing wind instruments at dead of night to the torment of his neighbors , or , in vocal mood , traversing the Quartier with a society of musical friends about the small hours of the morning -- getting into scuffles with the gendarmes -- flirting , dancing , playing billiards and the deuce ; falling in love and in debt ; dividing his time between Aristotle and Mademoiselle Mimi Pinson ... here , and here only , in all his phases , at every hour of the day and night , he swarmed , ubiquitous . And here , too -LRB- a necessary sequence -RRB- , flourished the fair and frail grisette . Her race , alas ! is now all but extinct -- the race of Frétillon , of Francine , of Lisette , Musette , Rosette , and all the rest of that too fascinating terminology -- the race immortalized again and again by Béranger , Gavarni , Balzac , De Musset ; sketched by a hundred pencils and described by a hundred pens ; celebrated in all manner of metres and set to all manner of melodies ; now caricatured and now canonized ; now painted wholly _ en noir _ and now all _ couleur de rose _ ; yet , however often described , however skilfully analyzed , remaining for ever indescribable , and for ever defying analysis !