midday
There 's barely your share left , '' -- and as he spoke , he made a pretence of shaking the crumbs off his jacket . FOOTNOTES : -LSB- 1 -RSB- _ Chambre Ardente _ , -- under the ancien régime , a tribunal charged with the investigation of heinous crimes and having power to burn those found guilty . Employing a very old-fashioned locution , the _ citoyenne _ Gamelin had declared : `` that by dint of eating chestnuts they would be turning into chestnuts . '' As a matter of fact , on that day , the 13th July , she and her son had made their midday dinner on a basin of chestnut porridge . As they were finishing this austere repast , a lady pushed open the door and the room was flooded in an instant with the splendour of her presence and the fragrance of her perfumes . Évariste recognised the _ citoyenne _ Rochemaure . Thinking she had mistaken the door and meant her visit for the _ citoyen _ Brotteaux , her friend of other days , he was already preparing to point her out the _ ci-devant _ aristocrat 's garret or perhaps summon Brotteaux and so spare an elegant woman the task of scrambling up a mill-ladder ; but she made it clear at once that the _ citoyen _ Évariste Gamelin and no other was the person she had come to see by announcing that she was happy to find him at home and was his servant to command .