ten o'clock
When Couthon entered Lyons at the head of the revolutionary army , the whole of her household fled , and I was left alone to look after her and M. le Vicomte . Then one day when I had gone into Lyons for provisions , I suddenly chanced to hear outside an eating-house that which nearly froze the marrow in my old bones . A captain belonging to the Revolutionary Guard was transmitting to his sergeant certain orders , which he had apparently just received . The orders were to make a perquisition at ten o'clock this same evening in the chateau of Mortaine as the Marquis was supposed to be in hiding there , and in any event to arrest every man , woman , and child who was found within its walls . `` Citizen Laporte , '' the captain concluded , `` knows for a certainty that the ci-devant Marquise and her brat are still there , even if the Marquis has fled like the traitor that he is . Those cursed English spies who call themselves the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel have been very active in Lyons of late , and citizen Laporte is afraid that they might cheat the guillotine of the carcase of those aristos , as they have already succeeded in doing in the case of a large number of traitors . '' I did not , of course , wait to hear any more of that abominable talk .