about three o’clock in the morning
The execution of that prince is connected by a series of discoverable ramifications with the plot which was laid on that June evening in the boudoir of the ministry of foreign affairs , the night before the battle of Marengo . Those who have the means of judging , and who have known persons who were well-informed , are fully aware that Bonaparte was handled like a child by Talleyrand and Fouche , who were determined to alienate him irrevocably from the House of Bourbon , whose agents were even then , at the last moment , endeavoring to negotiate with the First Consul . '' `` Talleyrand was playing whist in the salon of Madame de Luynes , '' said a personage who had been listening attentively to de Marsay 's narrative . `` It was about three o'clock in the morning , when he pulled out his watch , looked at it , stopped the game , and asked his three companions abruptly and without any preface whether the Prince de Conde had any other children than the Duc d'Enghien . Such an absurd inquiry from the lips of Talleyrand caused the utmost surprise . ` Why do you ask us what you know perfectly well yourself ? ' they said to him .