four o’clock
They would make the circuit of the whole district . They delighted in passing through the rotunda of the corn market , that huge massive stone cage where sacks of flour were piled up on every side , and where their footsteps echoed in the silence of the resonant roof . They were fond , too , of the little narrow streets in the neighbourhood , which had become as deserted , as black , and as mournful as though they formed part of an abandoned city . These were the Rue Babille , the Rue Sauval , the Rue des Deux Ecus , and the Rue de Viarmes , this last pallid from its proximity to the millers ' stores , and at four o'clock lively by reason of the corn exchange held there . It was generally at this point that they started on their round . They made their way slowly along the Rue Vauvilliers , glancing as they went at the windows of the low eating-houses , and thus reaching the miserably narrow Rue des Prouvaires , where Claude blinked his eyes as he saw one of the covered ways of the market , at the far end of which , framed round by this huge iron nave , appeared a side entrance of St. Eustache with its rose and its tiers of arched windows . And then , with an air of defiance , he would remark that all the middle ages and the Renaissance put together were less mighty than the central markets .