five
o'clock
Day broke as Maurice 's company was passing through Pont Maugis , and then he recognized their locality , the hills of Liry to the left , the Meuse running beside the road on the right . Bazeilles and Balan presented an inexpressibly funereal aspect , looming among the exhalations of the meadows in the chill , wan light of dawn , while against the somber background of her great forests Sedan was profiled in livid outlines , indistinct as the creation of some hideous nightmare . When they had left Wadelincourt behind them and were come at last to the Torcy gate , the governor long refused them admission ; he only yielded , after a protracted conference , upon their threat to storm the place . It was five o'clock when at last the 7th corps , weary , cold , and hungry , entered Sedan . In the crush on the Place de Torcy that ensued upon the entrance of the troops into the city Jean became separated from Maurice , and all his attempts to find him again among the surging crowd were fruitless . It was a piece of extreme ill-luck , for he had accepted the young man 's invitation to go with him to his sister 's , where there would be rest and food for them , and even the luxury of a comfortable bed . The confusion was so great -- the regiments disintegrated , no discipline , and no officers to enforce it -- that the men were free to do pretty much as they pleased .