"The çoisRenéstyle of this letter is evidently imitated from all the novels that have depicted the passions, from _Werther_ to the _Nouvelle Héloïse._ Madame Récamier easily discovered, from several circumstances of detail, that she herself was the object of the declaration offered as though simply for her perusal. She was not sufficiently accustomed to the language of love to be warned by experience that everything in the expressions was, perhaps, not sincere; but a true and sure instinct warned her; she replied with simplicity and even gaiety, and showed much more indifference than disquietude or fear. It needed no more for Lucien really to experience the passion which he had at first somewhat exaggerated.
"Lucien's letters grew truer, more eloquent, in proportion as he grew more impassioned; certainly they always show the ambition for ornamentation, the desire to attitudinize; he cannot go to sleep without 'flinging himself into the arms of Morpheus.' In the midst of his despair, he describes himself as surrendered to the great occupations which surround him; he is astonished that a man like him sheds tears; but, in all this alloy of declamation and phrases, there is nevertheless eloquence, sensibility and grief. At last, in a letter full of passion in which he wrote to Madame Récamier, 'I cannot hate you, but I can kill myself,' he suddenly makes a general reflection: 'I am forgetting that love is not snatched, but won,' and then adds, 'After receiving your note, I received many of a diplomatic character; I learnt some news of which public rumour has no doubt informed you. Congratulations surround, deafen me... people talk to me of what is not you! 'Then another exclamation:
"And yet this news which found Lucien unconcerned was an immense piece of news: Bonaparte's disembarkation on his return from Egypt.
"A new destiny had landed with its promises and its threats; the 18 Brumaire was not more than three weeks distant.
"Barely escaped from the dangers of that day, which will always fill so great a place in history, Lucien wrote to Madame Récamier:
"'I have seen your image!... You will have had my last thought!'...
"Madame Récamier contracted a friendship, which became daily more intimate and which still endures, with a woman who was illustrious in a very different way from that in which M. de La Harpe was famous.