The family of the great Goethe was singularly endowed with this power of presentiment. The poet's grandfather predicted both a great conflagration and the unexpected arrival of the German Emperor, and a dream informed him beforehand of his election as alderman and then as mayor of his native city. His mother's sister saw hidden things in her dreams. His grandmother once entered her daughter's chamber long after midnight in a state of great and painful excitement; she had heard in her own room a noise like the rustling of papers, and then deep sighs, and after a while a cold breath had struck her. Some time after this event a stranger was announced, and when he appeared before her holding a crumbled paper in his hand, she had barely strength enough to keep from fainting. When she recovered, her visitor stated that in the night of her vision a dear friend of hers, lying on his deathbed, had asked for paper in order to impart to her an important secret; before he could write, however, he had been seized by the death-struggle, and after crumpling up the paper and uttering two deep sighs he had expired. An indistinct scrawl was all that could be seen; still the stranger had thought it best to bring the paper. The secret concerned his now orphaned child, a girl whom Goethe's grandparents thereupon took home and cared for affectionately (_Goethe's Briefwechsel_, 3d ed., II. p. 268). Bourrienne tells us in his _Mémoires_ several instances of remarkable forebodings on the part of Napoleon's first wife, Josephine. Her mind was probably, by her education and the peculiar surroundings in which she passed her childhood, predisposed to receive vivid impressions of this kind, and to observe them with great care and deep interest. Thus she almost invariably predicted the failure of such of her husband's enterprises as proved unsuccessful. After Bonaparte had moved into the Tuileries on the 18th Brumaire, she saw, while sitting in the room of poor Marie Antoinette, the shadow of the unfortunate queen rise from the floor, pass gently through the apartment, and vanish through the window. She fainted, and from that day predicted her own sad fate. On another occasion the spirit of her first husband, Beauharnais, appeared before her with a gesture of solemn warning; she immediately turned to Napoleon, exclaiming: "Awake, awake, you are threatened by a great danger!" There seemed to be, for some days, no ground for apprehension, but so strong were her fears that she secretly sent for the minister of police and entreated him to take special measures for the safety of the First Consul. At eight o'clock of the evening of the same day the latter left the Tuileries on his way to the opera; a terrible explosion was heard in the Rue St. Nicaise, where conspirators attempted to blow up the dictator, and he narrowly escaped with his life. Josephine at once hastened to his side, and after having most tenderly cared for the