midnight
He was a man of a very methodical temperament , and sometimes carried out his plans for the allotment of his time with a strictness that bordered on mania . He shut himself up two evenings a week in order to write an exhaustive work on Cayenne . His modest bedroom was excellently adapted , he thought , to calm his mind and incline him to work . He lighted his fire , saw that the pomegranate at the foot of the bed was looking all right , and then seated himself at the little table , and remained working till midnight . He had pushed the missal and Dream-book back in the drawer , which was now filling with notes , memoranda , manuscripts of all kinds . The work on Cayenne made but slow progress , however , as it was constantly being interrupted by other projects , plans for enormous undertakings which he sketched out in a few words . He successively drafted an outline of a complete reform of the administrative system of the markets , a scheme for transforming the city dues , levied on produce as it entered Paris , into taxes levied upon the sales , a new system of victualling the poorer neighbourhoods , and , lastly , a somewhat vague socialist enactment for the storing in common warehouses of all the provisions brought to the markets , and the ensuring of a minimum daily supply to each household in Paris .