midnight
He viewed the whole revolutionary movement as a conspiracy against his comfort , and boasted that during his enforced residence in France he had not so much as exchanged a word with one of the `` French slaves , instigators of false liberty , '' who , by trying to put into action the principles taught in his previous works , had so grievously interfered with the composition of fresh masterpieces . The royal pretensions of the Countess of Albany -- pretentions affirmed rather than abated as the tide of revolution rose -- made it impossible that she should be received at the court of Pianura ; but the Duke found a mild entertainment in Alfieri 's company . The poet 's revulsion of feeling seemed to Odo like the ironic laughter of the fates . His thoughts returned to the midnight meetings of the Honey Bees , and to the first vision of that face which men had lain down their lives to see . Men had looked on that face since then , and its horror was reflected in their own . Other fugitives to Pianura brought another impression of events -- that comic note which life , the supreme dramatic artist , never omits from her tragedies . These were the Duke 's old friend the Marquis de Coeur-Volant , fleeing from his chateau as the peasants put the torch to it , and arriving in Pianura destitute , gouty and middle-aged , but imperturbable and epigrammatic as ever .