four o'clock in the morning
This old woman carried on several trades . Sometimes she cut bristles into equal lengths for brushes , sometimes she sorted out bits of gingerbread . When those industries failed , she did cooking and washed the faces of pedlars ' children . In Lent she rose at four o'clock in the morning , went and took possession of a chair at Notre-Dame , and sold it for ten or twelve sous when the crowd arrived . In order to procure fuel to warm herself , in the den where she lived on Rue Saint-Victor , she would go , at nightfall , to the Luxembourg and peel the bark off the trees . Germinie , who knew her from having given her the crusts from the kitchen every week , hired a servant 's room on the sixth floor of the house , and took up her abode there with the little one . She did it on the impulse of the moment , without reflection .