eight o'clock in the
morning
On the 22d of March , in the year of our Lord 1718 , a young cavalier of high bearing , about twenty-six or twenty-eight years of age , mounted on a pure-bred Spanish charger , was waiting , toward eight o'clock in the morning , at that end of the Pont Neuf which abuts on the Quai de l'Ecole . He was so upright and firm in his saddle , that one might have imagined him to be placed there as a sentinel by the Lieutenant-General of Police , Messire Voyer d'Argenson . After waiting about half an hour , during which time he impatiently examined the clock of the Samaritaine , his glance , wandering till then , appeared to rest with satisfaction on an individual who , coming from the Place Dauphine , turned to the right , and advanced toward him . The man who thus attracted the attention of the young chevalier was a powerfully-built fellow of five feet ten , wearing , instead of a peruke , a forest of his own black hair , slightly grizzled , dressed in a manner half-bourgeois , half-military , ornamented with a shoulder-knot which had once been crimson , but from exposure to sun and rain had become a dirty orange .