about seven o’clock
After this epigram , or rather , this satire on the company , so true and so concise that it hit every one , the usual game of boston was proposed . Is not this a picture of life as it is at all stages of what we agree to call society ? Change the style , and you will find that nothing more and nothing less is said in the gilded salons of Paris . It was about seven o'clock when Rigou drove by the Cafe de la Paix . The setting sun , slanting its beams across the little town , was diffusing its ruddy tints , and the clear mirror of the lake contrasted with the flashing of the resplendent window-panes , which originated the strangest and most improbable colors . The deep schemer , who had grown pensive as he revolved his plots , let his horse proceed so slowly that in passing the Cafe de la Paix he heard his own name banded about in one of those noisy disputes which , according to the Abbe Taupin , made the name of the establishment a gain-saying of its customary condition . For a clear understanding of the following scene we must explain the topography of this region of plenty and of misrule , which began with the cafe on the square , and ended on the country road with the famous Tivoli where the conspirators proposed to entrap the general .