ten o'clock in the evening
And later , about half-past five in the afternoon , he could recall being at a corner of the exterior boulevard in the midst of a mob of howling lunatics , listening without the slightest evidence of disapproval to the abominable story of the murder of Generals Lecomte and Clement Thomas . Generals , they called themselves ; fine generals , they ! The leaders they had had at Sedan rose before his memory , voluptuaries and imbeciles ; one more , one less , what odds did it make ! And the remainder of the day passed in the same state of half-crazed excitement , which served to distort everything to his vision ; it was an insurrection that the very stones of the streets seemed to have favored , spreading , swelling , finally becoming master of all at a stroke in the unforeseen fatality of its triumph , and at ten o'clock in the evening delivering the Hotel de Ville over to the members of the Central Committee , who were greatly surprised to find themselves there . There was one memory , however , that remained very distinct to Maurice 's mind : his unexpected meeting with Jean . It was three days now since the latter had reached Paris , without a sou in his pocket , emaciated and enfeebled by the illness that had consigned him to a hospital in Brussels and kept him there two months , and having had the luck to fall in with Captain Ravaud , who had commanded a company in the 106th , he had enlisted at once in his former acquaintance 's new company in the 124th . His old rank as corporal had been restored to him , and that evening he had just left the Prince Eugene barracks with his squad on his way to the left bank , where the entire army was to concentrate , when a mob collected about his men and stopped them as they were passing along the boulevard Saint-Martin .