two o'clock in the morning
It was near midnight when messengers from the grand vizier , who was now within three miles ' march of the city , arrived at the western gate , and demanded admission , that they might obtain an immediate audience of the duke . The request was directly complied with , and the envoys were conducted to the palazzo , where the prince immediately assembled the council of state to receive them , himself presiding . The audience was in other respects strictly private ; but the nature of the interview was soon proved to have been most unexpectedly pacific ; for two hours after the reception of the envoys , criers proceeded throughout the city , proclaiming the joyful news that the grand vizier had of his own accord proposed such terms as the council of state had not hesitated to accept . Thus , at two o'clock in the morning , were the Florentines at first alarmed by hearing the monotonous voices of the criers breaking upon the solemn stillness ; but their fear changed into gladness ineffable , ere those functionaries had uttered a dozen words of the proclamation which they were intrusted to make . What the terms were did not immediately transpire ; but two circumstances which occurred ere it was daybreak , and which , though conducted with considerable secrecy , nevertheless soon became generally known -- these circumstances , we say , afforded ample scope for comment and gossip . The first was the occupation of the Riverola Palace by the Ottoman soldiers who had accompanied Demetrius as an escort , and whom he had left in Florence ; and the second was the fact that two females , closely muffled up , were removed from the prison of the inquisition , and delivered over to the charge of the grand vizier 's messengers , who conveyed them out of the city . But the curiosity excited by these incidents was absorbed in the general anxiety that was evinced by the Florentine people to feast their eyes with the grand , interesting , and imposing spectacle which the dawn of day revealed to their view .