four in the morning
said the minister of foreign affairs , coldly and interrogatively . ``` Four days , ' echoed Fouche . `` An eye-witness told me , '' said de Marsay , continuing the narrative in his own person , `` that the consuls , Cambaceres and Lebrun , knew nothing of this momentous news until after the six personages returned to the salon . It was then four in the morning . Fouche left first . That man of dark and mysterious genius , extraordinary , profound , and little understood , but who undoubtedly had the gifts of a Philip the Second , a Tiberius and a Borgia , went at once to work with an infernal and secret activity . His conduct at the time of the affair at Walcheren was that of a consummate soldier , a great politician , a far-seeing administrator .