thirty-five minutes past eight
In addition to the hundreds of men who worked there daily , there were some fifty women , burnishers and polishers . The entry to the workshops and offices was in the Rue de la Federation , through a large carriage way , whence one perceived the far-spreading yard , with its paving stones invariably black and often streaked by rivulets of steaming water . Dense smoke arose from the high chimneys , strident jets of steam emerged from the roof , whilst a low rumbling and a shaking of the ground betokened the activity within , the ceaseless bustle of labor . It was thirty-five minutes past eight by the big clock of the central building when Mathieu crossed the yard towards the office which he occupied as chief designer . For eight years he had been employed at the works where , after a brilliant and special course of study , he had made his beginning as assistant draughtsman when but nineteen years old , receiving at that time a salary of one hundred francs a month . His father , Pierre Froment , * had four sons by Marie his wife -- Jean the eldest , then Mathieu , Marc , and Luc -- and while leaving them free to choose a particular career he had striven to give each of them some manual calling . Leon Beauchene , the founder of the works , had been dead a year , and his son Alexandre had succeeded him and married Constance Meunier , daughter of a very wealthy wall-paper manufacturer of the Marais , at the time when Mathieu entered the establishment , the master of which was scarcely five years older than himself .