"He had not, till then, aspired to any save facile conquests and, to obtain these, had studied only the romancing methods which his want of knowledge of the world represented to him as infallible. It is possible that he was enticed at first by the idea of captivating the loveliest woman of his time. Young, the leader of a party in the Council of the Five Hundred, the brother of the first general of the age, he was gratified at uniting the triumphs of a statesman and the successes of a lover in his person. "He conceived the idea of having recourse to a fiction to declare his love to Madame Récamier; he imagined a letter from Romeo to Juliet, and sent it as a work of his to her who bore the same name." Here is this letter from Lucien, known to Benjamin Constant; in the midst of the revolutions which have stirred the world of reality, it is racy to see a Bonaparte plunge into the world of fictions: LETTER FROM ROMEO TO JULIET by the author of the _Tribu indienne_[347] "VENICE, 29 _July._ "Romeo writes to you, Juliet: if you refuse to read me, you will be crueller than our parents whose long strife has at last been appeased; no doubt that horrid strife will not revive. ... A few days since, I knew you only by repute. I had sometimes seen you in the temples and at feasts; I knew you were the most beautiful; a thousand lips repeated your praises, and your charms had struck but not dazzled me.... Why has peace delivered me to your empire? Peace! It reigns in our families, but trouble reigns in my heart.... "Recall to yourself the day when I was first presented to you. We were celebrating at a large banquet the reconciliation of our fathers. I had come from the Senate, where the troubles raised against the Republic had created a lively impression.... You arrived; then all flocked round: "'How lovely she is!' they cried.... "The throng in the evening filled the gardens of Bedmar. Importunate people, who are everywhere, took possession of me. This time I had neither patience with them nor affability: they kept me from you!... I wished to account for the emotion that was overcoming me. I knew love and wished to master it.... I was carried away, and with you left the festive spot. "I have seen you since: love has seemed to smile upon me. One day, seated at the water's edge, motionless and pensive, you were stripping a rose of its leaves; alone with you, I spoke.... I heard a sigh... vain illusion! Recovering from my mistake, I saw indifference with its placid brow seated between us two.... The passion which masters me found utterance in my discourse, and yours bore the amiable and cruel impress of childhood and pleasantry.