eleven o’clock
The same opinion was expressed by the sergeant and the lieutenant of the gendarmerie . `` It is impossible that it can be anything but a planned attack on the part of the peasants , '' said the sergeant ; `` but there are two districts , Conches and Blangy , in each of which there are five or six persons capable of being concerned in the murder . The one that I suspect most , Tonsard , passed the night carousing in the Grand-I-Vert ; but your assistant , general , the miller Langlume , was there , and he says that Tonsard did not leave the tavern . They were all so drunk they could not stand ; they took the bride home at half-past one ; and the return of the horse proves that Michaud was murdered between eleven o'clock and midnight . At a quarter past ten Groison saw the whole company assembled at table , and Monsieur Michaud passed there on his way to Soulanges , which he reached at eleven . His horse reared between the two pavilions on the mail-road ; but he may have been shot before reaching Blangy and yet have stayed in the saddle for some little time . We should have to issue warrants for at least twenty persons and arrest them ; but I know these peasants , and so do these gentlemen ; you might keep them a year in prison and you would get nothing out of them but denials .