midnight
-- Robespierre , `` Discours , '' Mai 7 , 1794 . -LRB- Who then invested you with the mission to announce to the people that there is no God ? What advantage find you in persuading man that nothing but blind force presides over his destinies , and strikes haphazard both crime and virtue ? -RRB- It was some time before midnight when the stranger returned home . His apartments were situated in one of those vast abodes which may be called an epitome of Paris itself , -- the cellars rented by mechanics , scarcely removed a step from paupers , often by outcasts and fugitives from the law , often by some daring writer , who , after scattering amongst the people doctrines the most subversive of order , or the most libellous on the characters of priest , minister , and king , retired amongst the rats , to escape the persecution that attends the virtuous ; the ground-floor occupied by shops ; the entresol by artists ; the principal stories by nobles ; and the garrets by journeymen or grisettes . As the stranger passed up the stairs , a young man of a form and countenance singularly unprepossessing emerged from a door in the entresol , and brushed beside him . His glance was furtive , sinister , savage , and yet timorous ; the man 's face was of an ashen paleness , and the features worked convulsively .