"Each day I would wish to see you, as though the dart were not fixed deep enough in my heart. The moments at which I see you are very rare, and those young Venetians who surround you and talk insipid gallantry to you are hateful to me. How is it possible to talk to Juliet as to other women! "I have wanted to write to you; you will know me, you will no longer refuse to believe me; my soul is ill at ease; it thirsts for sentiment. If love has not stirred yours; if Romeo in your eyes is but an ordinary man, oh, I conjure you by the bonds which you have laid upon me, be severe with me from kindness; do not smile to me again, do not speak to me again, thrust me far from you. Tell me to go away and, if I can execute that rigorous order, remember at least that Romeo will ever love you; that none has ever reigned over him as Juliet has; and that he can no longer cease to live for her, at least in remembrance." For a sober-minded man, all this is rather laughable: the Bonapartes used to live on theatres, novels and verses; is the life of Napoleon himself aught else than a poem? [Sidenote: Lucien's passion.] Benjamin Constant continues, while commenting upon this letter: "The style 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.