midnight
Yet save for these facts it might have been the Paris of old time , unvisited by hunger , misery , or death . The curfew had sounded . Every citizen had long since gone within , extinguished his lights , and locked his door . Safe in the knowledge that the Germans ' second advance had been finally met and effectually blocked sixty miles outside the walls , and that an armistice had been declared to go into effect at midnight , Paris slumbered peacefully . Beyond the pellet-strewn fields and glacis of the second line of defence the invader , after a series of terrific onslaughts , had paused , retreated a few miles and intrenched himself , there to wait until the starving city should capitulate . For four months he had waited , yet Paris gave no sign of surrendering . On the contrary , it seemed to have some mysterious means of self-support , and the war office , in daily communication with London , reported that it could withstand the investment for an indefinite period .