about
two o'clock
Silvine and Prosper , who had selected the Grande Rue as their route for traversing the city , advanced but slowly through that lake of malodorous slime . In addition to that the place was in a state of ferment and agitation that made it necessary for them to pull up almost at every moment . It was the time that the Prussians had selected for searching the houses in order to unearth those soldiers , who , determined that they would not give themselves up , had hidden themselves away . When , at about two o'clock of the preceding day , General de Wimpffen had returned from the chateau of Bellevue after signing the capitulation , the report immediately began to circulate that the surrendered troops were to be held under guard in the peninsula of Iges until such time as arrangements could be perfected for sending them off to Germany . Some few officers had expressed their intention of taking advantage of that stipulation which accorded them their liberty conditionally on their signing an agreement not to serve again during the campaign . Only one general , so it was said , Bourgain-Desfeuilles , alleging his rheumatism as a reason , had bound himself by that pledge , and when , that very morning , his carriage had driven up to the door of the Hotel of the Golden Cross and he had taken his seat in it to leave the city , the people had hooted and hissed him unmercifully . The operation of disarming had been going on since break of day ; the manner of its performance was , the troops defiled by battalions on the Place Turenne , where each man deposited his musket and bayonet on the pile , like a mountain of old iron , which kept rising higher and higher , in a corner of the place .