midday
And the following morning at daybreak , Gourdon , who was only a subordinate officer on the Committee of Public Safety , took it upon himself to institute a perquisition in the chateau of Gentilly , which is situated close to the commune of that name . He was accompanied by his friend Tournefort and a gang of half a dozen ruffians recruited from the most disreputable cabarets of Paris . The intention had been to steal a march on citizen Chauvelin , who had been over arrogant of late ; but the result did not come up to expectations . By midday the chateau had been ransacked from attic to cellar ; every kind of valuable property had been destroyed , priceless works of art irretrievably damaged . But priceless works of art had no market in Paris these days ; and the property of real value -- the Sucy diamonds namely -- which had excited the cupidity or the patriotic wrath of citizens Gourdon and Tournefort could nowhere be found . To make the situation more deplorable still , the Committee of Public Safety had in some unexplainable way got wind of the affair , and the two worthies had the mortification of seeing citizen Chauvelin presently appear upon the scene . It was then two o'clock in the afternoon .