four o’clock in the morning
Without personal assumption , without ambition even , he possessed great influence in public affairs . Nothing of importance was done without consulting him ; but he never went to court , and was seldom seen in his own salons . This noble life , devoting itself from its very beginning to work , had ended by becoming a life of incessant toil . The count rose at all seasons by four o'clock in the morning , and worked till mid-day , attended to his functions as peer of France and vice-president of the Council of State in the afternoons , and went to bed at nine o'clock . In recognition of such labor , the King had made him a knight of his various Orders . Monsieur de Serizy had long worn the grand cross of the Legion of honor ; he also had the orders of the Golden Fleece , of Saint-Andrew of Russia , that of the Prussian Eagle , and nearly all the lesser Orders of the courts of Europe . No man was less obvious , or more useful in the political world than he .