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Rh living. My Cousin Lucien was there, of course; and he behaved very oddly during dinner, sometimes laughing and drinking hilariously, and then becoming taciturn. Though he was not in uniform his martial face bespoke the soldier. Since then, and looking back from a distance, I can see that something ambiguous floated in those brown eyes of his, and gathered at the corners of his mouth, which dropped a trifle, revealing a tendency to debauchery. You will understand presently why the chief topic of conversation has always remained in my memory. I was the only child at table, and too young for my elders to take notice whether I understood their talk or not. They spoke of presentiments, and so on to superstitions, apropos of the statue of the marshal in the Place d'Armes opposite to my sister's house. They told how at Eylau, and before he rode his cavalry to the charge, that brave man twice recoiled, as though he had seen death face to face. He struck his horse with whip and spur, saying to the nearest officer, 'I am like my poor Desaix,—I feel that the bullets won't respect me any longer.' Five minutes later he fell, shot through the breast. This anecdote served as the nucleus for twenty others. Madame Alexis related that after she had dreamed she saw the postman enter and give her a mourning letter, the letter did actually come and was given to her the following morning under the identical