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42 as I walked along the streets. People nowadays know too much. Nothing is left to do.

And this imagination and poetic power are to be found in his private as well as his public concerns. For instance, he is superstitious: "He was disposed to accept the marvellous, presentiments, and even certain mysterious communications between human beings."

"I have seen him," writes Madame de Rémusat, "excited by the rustling of the wind, speak enthusiastically of the roar of the sea, and sometimes inclined to believe in nocturnal apparitions; in short, leaning to certain superstitions."

"Méneval notes his crossing himself involuntarily on the occasion of some great danger or the discovery of some important fact. 'During the Consulate, in the evening, in a circle of ladies, he sometimes improvised and declaimed tragic tales, Italian fashion, quite worthy of the story-tellers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. . . . As to love, his letters to Josephine during the Italian campaign form some of the best examples of Italian passion, and are in most piquant contrast with the temperate and graceful elegance of his predecessor, M. de Beauharnais.