midnight
The King , who was by no means lacking in shrewdness and wit , and his chief advisers in Paris , did not fail to realize something of this , but keen-sighted men like the Marquis d'Aumenier , away from the person of the monarch , realized it much more fully , although even he had not the least idea of the wide extent and depth of this feeling . But the old man knew instinctively that he must control things in Grenoble at least with an iron hand and that no temporizing was possible . The return of Marteau , who was a man of parts and power , he admitted -- he recalled how well he had borne himself before the little group in the drawing-room ! -- followed by the midnight gathering , the joy of the veterans , their worship almost of the Eagle , enlightened him . He would put down sedition with an iron hand , he swore to himself . The King had committed this important place to him . It was , in a certain sense , a frontier city if the impossible happened .