about eleven o'clock in the morning
The police themselves would not credit it . And Sophia 's beauty was against her . At that time the Rue Breda was perhaps the most notorious street in the centre of Paris ; at the height of its reputation as a warren of individual improprieties ; most busily creating that prejudice against itself which , over thirty years later , forced the authorities to change its name in obedience to the wish of its tradesmen . When Sophia went out at about eleven o'clock in the morning with her reticule to buy , the street was littered with women who had gone out with reticules to buy . But whereas Sophia was fully dressed , and wore headgear , the others were in dressing-gown and slippers , or opera-cloak and slippers , having slid directly out of unspeakable beds and omitted to brush their hair out of their puffy eyes . In the little shops of the Rue Breda , the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette , and the Rue des Martyrs , you were very close indeed to the primitive instincts of human nature . It was wonderful ; it was amusing ; it was excitingly picturesque ; and the universality of the manners rendered moral indignation absurd .