twelve o’clock
The cold on the 8th of February , 186 - , was more intense than the Parisians had experienced during the whole of the severe winter which had preceded it , for at twelve o'clock on that day Chevalier 's thermometer , so well known by the denizens of Paris , registered three degrees below zero . The sky was overcast and full of threatening signs of snow , while the moisture on the pavement and roads had frozen hard , rendering traffic of all kinds exceedingly hazardous . The whole great city wore an air of dreariness and desolation , for even when a thin crust of ice covers the waters of the Seine , the mind involuntarily turns to those who have neither food , shelter , nor fuel . This bitterly cold day actually made the landlady of the Hotel de Perou , though she was a hard , grasping woman of Auvergne , give a thought to the condition of her lodgers , and one quite different from her usual idea of obtaining the maximum of rent for the minimum of accommodation .