On December 5, 1797, Napoleon returned to Paris. With studious eye for
effect, he adopted that line of conduct most calculated, as he thought,
to preserve his reputation and to inflame public curiosity. He was
determined not to stale his presence. Making no display, and avoiding
commonplace demonstrations, he doffed his uniform, put on the sober
dress of a member of the Institute, to which he was elected in place of
Carnot, screened himself within the privacy of his home, and cultivated
the society of scholars, authors, scientists, and non-combatants
generally. When he went out, it was as a private citizen, his two-horse
carriage unattended by aides or escort. He demurely attended the
meetings of the Institute, and on public occasions was to be found in
his place, in his class, among the savants, just as though he had set
his mind now on literary matters and was going to write a book. His
brother Joseph gave it out that Napoleon’s ambition was to settle down
and be quiet, to enjoy literature, friends, and, possibly, the luxuries
of the office of Justice of the Peace. It must have been a queer sight
to have seen the little Corsican dress-parading as a guileless man
of letters; it is very doubtful whether many were deceived by his
exaggerated modesty. Those who were in place and power, the men whom he
would have to combat and overcome, were not for a moment duped. They
suspected, dreaded, and watched him. Prepare for him they could not,
for they had not the means. He had said nothing and done nothing which
they had not indorsed; with hearts full of repugnance, with faces more
or less wry, they had sanctioned even when their instructions had been
disobeyed. They could not seize him by brute force, or put him out of
the way. They were too weak; he too strong. He was the idol of soldiers
and civilians alike; the Directors were not the idols of anybody.
They could not even have him poisoned, or stabbed, for he was on his
guard against that very thing. Soon after his return to Paris he had
received warning of a plot to poison him; he had caused the bearer of
the note to be accompanied by a magistrate to the house of the woman
who had furnished the information, and she was found lying dead on the
floor, her throat cut and her body mutilated. The would-be murderers
had, doubtless, discovered her betrayal of them, and had in this manner
taken vengeance and assured their own safety. After such an occurrence,
Napoleon was not the man to be caught napping; and it was noticed that
at the official banquets to which he was invited he either ate nothing,
or slightly lunched on wine and bread brought by one of his aides.
The Directory gave him, in due time, a grand public reception at the
Luxembourg, which was attended by immense numbers, and which was
as imposing as the pomp of ceremony and the genuine enthusiasm of
the people could make it. But the part played by the Directory and
Talleyrand was theatrically overdone, and gave a tone of bombast and
insincerity to the whole.
What now must Napoleon do? There was peace on the Continent; he was
too young for a place in the Directory, and if he remained in Paris
too long, France would forget him. This was the reasoning of Napoleon,
the most impatient of men. Evidently the reasoning was unsound; it was
dictated only by his feverish, constitutional need of action. There was
no danger of his sinking out of notice or importance in France. There
was the danger of his being identified with a party, but even this
peril has been exaggerated. Astute and coldly calculating as he was,
the party he would have chosen, had he seen fit to choose one at all,
would probably have been the strongest, and political success comes to
that in the long run.
He had been too impatient in Corsica in his earlier struggles; he
had there alienated the wise and lovable Paoli, who wanted to be his
friend, but could not sympathize with his too violent, too selfishly
ambitious character. He had been too impatient to get on in France, and
had been perilously near losing his head as a terrorist in the fall
of Robespierre. Too anxious for social recognition and independent
military command, he had fallen into the snares of Barras and the shady
adventuress of whom the libertine Director was tired, and had rushed
into a marriage which proved fatal to him as a man and a monarch. The
same feverish haste was again upon him, and was to continue to be upon
him all the days of his life, until his final premature rush from Elba
was to lead him, through the bloody portals of Waterloo, to his prison
on the bleak rock of St. Helena.
How could a few months of quiet in Paris have tarnished his fame? Had
he not seen the heart of liberalism throughout all Europe warm to
Paoli,--the time having come,--although the patriot exile had been
sitting quietly at English firesides for twenty-one years?
Who in France was likely to outstrip Napoleon in one year, two years,
ten years? Hoche was dead, Moreau in disgrace, Jourdan under the cloud
of defeat, Augereau on the shelf, Carnot an exile, Pichegru banished.
In the Directory there was not a man who could give him the slightest
concern.
But to Napoleon it seemed absolutely necessary that he must be actively
engaged--publicly, and as master. He could not get the law changed so
that he could become a director; he could not quite risk an attack in
the Directory. _That_ pear was not yet ripe. He had wished to be sent
to Rastadt to straighten matters there, but the Directory chose another
man. Napoleon, resenting the slight, threatened, once too often, to
resign. A Director (some say Rewbell, others Larévellière) handed him a
pen, with the challenge, “Write it, General!” Moulins interposed, and
Napoleon beat a retreat, checkmated for the time.
Apparently, as a last resort, the expedition to Egypt was planned, both
Napoleon and the Directory cordially agreeing upon one thing--that it
was best for him to leave France for a while.
The attack on Egypt suggested itself naturally enough as a flank
movement against England. The idea did not originate with Napoleon; it
was familiar to the foreign policy of France, and had been urged upon
the Bourbon kings repeatedly. With his partiality for the East, whose
vague, mysterious grandeurs and infinite possibilities never ceased
to fascinate him, the oft-rejected plan became to Napoleon a welcome
diversion. Veiling his design under the pretence of a direct attack
upon England, he bent all his energies to the preparations for the
invasion of Egypt. Nominally belonging to Turkey, the ancient ally
of France, Egypt was in fact ruled by the Mamelukes, a military caste
which had, in course of time, evolved from the personal body-guard of
Saladin. The reign of the Mamelukes was harsh and despotic; they paid
little respect to religion, and none to law; and Napoleon thought that
by telling the Sultan he would overthrow the Mamelukes in the Sultan’s
interest, while he assured the subject Egyptians that he came to
liberate them from Mameluke tyranny, he would deceive both Sultan and
Egyptians. As it happened, he deceived neither.
It was a part of the scheme agreed on by Napoleon and the Directors
that Talleyrand should go to Constantinople and gain over the Sultan
to neutrality, if to nothing more favorable. With this understanding,
Napoleon gathered up the best generals, the best troops, the best
vessels, swept the magazines, cleaned out the directorial treasury, and
even borrowed from the Institute its best savants, and weighed anchor
at Toulon, May 18, 1798, for Alexandria. The wily Talleyrand did not go
to Turkey, had apparently never intended to go, and that part of the
plan failed from the beginning. English diplomats took possession of
the Sultanic mind; and what they saw, the heir of the Prophet saw. To
save herself from a movement which threatened her in the East, Great
Britain warmed to the infidel, forgot crusading vows and traditions,
guided infidel counsels, supplied infidel needs, and aimed infidel
guns. So that from the day he set sail, Napoleon had against him all
the resources of England, all the power of Ottoman arms, all the
strength of Mameluke resistance, all the discouragement of native
Egyptian hostility.
[Illustration: NAPOLEON
From the painting by Paul Delaroche entitled “General Buonaparte
crossing the Alps”]
To reach Egypt at all it was necessary that he should run the extreme
risk of encountering the British fleet. By the victory England had
won over the Spanish allies of France off Cape St. Vincent (February,
1797), and over the Dutch at Camperdown (October, 1797), France was
left without naval support. In a sea-fight between herself and England,
all the advantage would have been with her foe. Conscious of this,
Nelson did his utmost to come upon Napoleon during his voyage, and the
two fleets passed each other once in the night; but Napoleon’s rare
luck favored him, and Nelson missed his prey.
The capture of Malta was a part of Napoleon’s plan. This island
fortress belonged to the Knights of St. John, a belated remnant of
the ancient orders of chivalry, created for the purpose of retrieving
Palestine from the infidel. These soldiers of the Cross had fallen
upon evil days and ways; their armor very rusty indeed, their banners
covered with dust, their spurs very, very cold. In a world which had
seen a new dispensation come, the knights were dismally, somewhat
ludicrously, out of place. Asked, What are you doing here? What do you
intend to do? What is your excuse for not being dead? the knights would
have been stricken dumb. No intelligible reply was possible. Camped
there upon a place of strength and beauty, a fortress girdled by the
Mediterranean, they were, in theory, Christendom’s outpost against
the infidel. Christendom, in theory, was yet intent upon raising
up champions who would tread in the steps of Godfrey, of Tancred,
of Richard Cœur de Lion. In theory, Christendom was never going to
rest till the tomb of Jesus had been redeemed, till the shadow of
Mahomet should be lifted from the Holy Land. And so it happened that
the knights had stopped at Malta, long ages ago, resting upon their
arms, until such time as Christendom should rouse itself and send
reënforcement. The time had never come. The knights, they waited; but
the crusader of Europe had gone home to stay. Once and again, as the
centuries crept slowly by, the Church had turned in its sleep and
mumbled something about the tomb of Christ; but the Church was only
talking in its sleep, and the knights had continued to wait. A king,
now and then, suddenly awakened to the fact that he was a very great
scoundrel, must finally die, would probably go to hell, and therefore
needed to redeem himself at the expense of the infidel, swore a great
oath to renew the crusades; but such vows bore no fruit; the spasm of
remorse passed over, and the knights continued to wait. Really, it
was not so hard upon them. They had a royal home, a royal treasury, a
royal standing and a sacred. They lived a pleasant life; they doffed
iron armor, and wore silks, velvets, and other precious stuffs more
congenial to the flesh than metallic plates. They came to love such
things as good eating, joyous entertainments, the smiles and the favors
of fair ladies, and the sweetness of doing nothing generally.
Malta being defended by such decadent champions, it was easily captured
by such a man as Napoleon Bonaparte. There was, perhaps, bribery; there
was, certainly, collusion, and the resistance offered was but nominal.
General Caffarelli probably voiced the general sentiment when he said,
looking around at the vast strength of the fortress, “It is lucky we
had some one to let us in.”
Leaving a garrison under Vaubois to hold the place, Napoleon again set
sail for Egypt.
Nelson was flying hither and thither, on the keenest of hunts, hoping
to pounce upon the crowded vessels of the French, and to sink them.
Storms, fog, bad guessing, and Napoleonic luck fought against the
English, and they missed the quarry completely. Napoleon hastily landed
near Alexandria, July 2, 1798, marched upon the city, and easily took
it. After a short rest, the army set out by the shortest route for
Cairo. The sun was terribly hot, the desert a burning torment, water
it was almost impossible to supply, food failed, and the skirmishes of
the enemy from behind sandhills, rocks, or scraggy bushes harassed the
march, cutting off every straggler. Bitterly the soldiers complained,
contrasting this torrid wilderness to the fertile beauty of Italian
plains. Even the generals became disheartened, indignant, almost
mutinous. Men like Murat and Lannes dashed their plumed and braided
hats on the ground, trampled them, and damned the day that had brought
them to this barren Hades.
The common soldiers bitterly recalled Napoleon’s promise that each of
them should make enough out of the campaign to buy seven acres of land.
Was this desert a fair sample of the land they were to get? If so, why
the limit of seven acres?
The trying march was over at last, the Nile was reached, and then
came the relief of battle and easy victory. The Mamelukes were great
horsemen, the best in the world, perhaps; but they had no infantry
and no artillery worth the name. In the hands of Napoleon they were
children. Battle with Mamelukes was target practice, during which
French marksmen, in hollow square, shot out of their saddles the
simple-minded Mamelukes, who fancied that they could do everything with
horses.
In all of the battles which took place, the tactics of the French
were the same: “Form square: savants and asses to the centre.” Then,
while the baggage, the learned men, and the long-eared donkeys rested
securely within the lines, a steady fire of musketry and cannon emptied
the saddles of the heroes of the desert.
To see the Mamelukes come thundering on to the attack, was magnificent;
to see them drop in the sand without having been able to reach the
French, was pitiful.
After a skirmish at Shebreis, in which the Mamelukes were driven off
without any difficulty (July 13), came the encounter known as the
Battle of the Pyramids (July 21), chiefly remembered now as that in
which Napoleon dramatically exclaimed to his troops as they were being
made ready for the struggle, “Soldiers, from yonder pyramids forty
centuries look down upon you!” The telescope had revealed to him the
fact that the artillery of the enemy consisted of guns taken from
their flotilla on the river. These guns were not on carriages, like
field artillery, and therefore they could not be moved at will during
battle. This suggested to him a change in his own dispositions. A
portion of his army being left to deal with the stationary artillery
and the infantry which manned the feeble, sand-bank intrenchments,
he directed the other to march out of the range of the guns, for
the purpose of throwing against the Mameluke horse his own cavalry,
supported by infantry and artillery. Murad Bey, the commander-in-chief
of the opposing army, seized the moment when this change was being made
by Napoleon to launch against him a mass of seven thousand Mameluke
horse. This mighty host struck the division of Desaix when it was
in motion, and therefore unprepared for cavalry. For an instant the
French, at least of that column, were in peril. So quickly, however,
did the veterans of Desaix form squares, so quickly did Napoleon see
the point of danger and send relief, that the battle was never in
real doubt. The camp of the Arabs was stormed, the Mameluke cavalry
slaughtered; and, inflicting a loss computed at ten thousand on the
enemy, the French had but a score or two killed and one hundred and
twenty wounded.
The Mameluke power was shattered by the Battle of the Pyramids, and the
conquest of Egypt was practically achieved. For some days Frenchmen
fished the Nile for dead Mamelukes, to secure the wealth which those
warriors carried on their persons.
Arrived in Cairo, Napoleon did his utmost to assure the permanence
of his triumph. He caused the religion, the laws, the customs of the
country, to be respected. Pursuing his policy of trying to deceive
the Mahometans, he proclaimed that the French were the true champions
of the Prophet; that they had chastised the Pope, and conquered the
Knights of Malta; therefore the people of Egypt should be convinced
that they were the enemies of the Christians.
“We are the true Mussulmans!” read the proclamation. “Did we not
destroy the Pope because he had preached a crusade against the
Mahometans? Did we not destroy the Knights of Malta because they said
that God had directed them to fight the followers of Mahomet?”
He cultivated the influential men of the country, and encouraged the
belief that he himself might become a Mussulman. In truth, Napoleon
admired Mahomet greatly, and he never shrank from saying so, then or
afterward. In the classification of the books of his private library,
made in his own writing, he grouped under the same head the Bible, the
Koran, the Vedas, and Mythology, and Montesquieu’s _Spirit of Laws_.
These he enumerated in the class of _Politics and Morals_. He reminded
his soldiers that the Roman legions had respected all religions. He
did not remind them that Roman rulers had considered all religions as
equally useful for purposes of government; nor that Roman philosophers
had regarded them all as equally sons and daughters of that primeval
pair, Fear and Fraud--fear of the unknown, and the fraud which
practises upon it.
Napoleon found that Mahometan priests were as eager to convert him
as Christian priests had been to capture Constantine and Clovis. In
the one case as in the other, the priests were willing to compromise
the creed to gain the convert. Napoleon did not quite join the
faithful himself, but he approved of General Menou’s apostasy, and he
ostentatiously observed the Mahometan festivals.
Both Napoleon and Bourrienne denied, as others assert, that he went
into the mosque, sat cross-legged on the cushion amid the faithful,
muttered Koran verses as they did, and rolled head and body about as a
good Mussulman should. If he did not do so it was because he thought,
as a matter of policy, that the act would not compensate him for the
trouble and the ridicule. He afterward did just about that much for the
Christian religion; and faith had no more to do with his conduct in the
one case than in the other.
As he went farther with the Jacobins than it was pleasant to remember,
so he probably went farther with the Mahometans than he cared to
admit; for he certainly prevailed upon the priesthood to do that which
was forbidden by the Koran unless he was a convert. They officially
directed the people to obey him and pay him tribute. Nor is there
any doubt that the leaders among the priests liked him well enough,
personally, to watch over his personal safety. General Kléber, who
succeeded him in command, neglected to pay the chiefs those attentions
Napoleon had lavished upon them, and in turn they neglected him. To
this, perhaps, his assassination was due.
Regarding Egypt as a colony to be developed, rather than a conquest
to be despoiled, Napoleon devoted every attention to civil affairs.
He reorganized the administration, conforming as nearly as possible
to established customs. He set up a printing-press, established
foundries and manufactories, planned storage dams and canals to add to
the cultivable soil, organized an institute, and started a newspaper.
He sent his savants abroad to dig, delve, excavate, explore, map the
present and decipher the past of Egypt. Napoleon himself used his
leisure in visiting historic places and making plans for the material
progress of the benighted land. He discovered traces of the ancient
canal connecting the Nile with the Red Sea, and formed the resolution
of reopening it. He himself located the lines for new canals. He
crossed the Red Sea ford which the Israelites used in fleeing from
bondage, and, staying too long on the opposite shore, was caught by the
rising tide, and came near meeting the fate of Pharaoh and his host.
More self-possessed than Pharaoh, Napoleon halted when he realized his
peril, caused his escort to form a circle around him, and each to
ride outward. Those who found themselves going into deeper water drew
back, followed those who had found fordable places; and, by this simple
manœuvre, he deprived needy Christendom of a new text and a modern
instance.
While on the farther shore Napoleon visited the Wells of Moses,
and heard the petition of the monks of Sinai. At their request, he
confirmed their privileges, and put his name to the charters which bore
the signature of Saladin.
A terrible blow fell upon him in August when Nelson destroyed the
French fleet in the famous battle of the Nile. There is doubt as to
who was to blame for this calamity. Napoleon cast it upon Brueys, the
French admiral who lost the battle; and Brueys, killed in the action,
could not be heard in reply. He had drawn up his ships in semicircle
so close to the shore that he considered himself comparatively safe,
protected as he was by land batteries at the doubtful end of his line.
But Nelson, on the waters, was what Bonaparte was on land--the boldest
of planners and the most desperate of fighters. He came up at sunset,
and did not wait till morning, as Brueys expected. He went right to
work, reconnoitred his enemy, conceived the idea of turning his line,
getting in behind with some of his ships, and thus putting the French
between two fires. The manœuvre was difficult and dangerous, but
succeeded. Nelson rammed some of his ships in on the land side of the
amazed Brueys, who had made no preparations for such a manœuvre. Caught
between two terrible fires, Brueys was a lost man from the beginning.
It was a night battle, awful beyond the power of description. When it
ended next day, the English had practically obliterated the French
fleet; Napoleon was cut off from Europe. When the news reached him,
he was stunned, almost crushed; but rallying immediately, he wrote to
Kléber, “The English will compel us to do greater things in Egypt than
we had intended.”
Desaix conquered Upper Egypt; organized resistance to the invaders
ceased for the time, and from the cataracts to the sea Napoleon held
the valley down. The administration began to work smoothly, taxes
seemed lighter because more equitably distributed, and the various
enterprises Napoleon had set on foot began to show some life. He
enrolled natives in his army, and formed a body of Mamelukes which
afterward appeared so picturesquely in France. Two young Mamelukes,
Roustan and Ibrahim, given him by one of the pachas, became his
personal attendants, and served him faithfully till his power was
broken in 1814.
The ruin of the fleet was not the only grief of Napoleon in the months
which followed. Junot had acted the part of the candid friend, and had
revealed to Napoleon the secret of Josephine’s infidelities. Captain
Hypolite Charles had reappeared in the absence of the husband, and was
now living with the wife at Malmaison. So openly was this connection
kept up that the Director, Gohier, a friend of Josephine, advised her
to divorce Napoleon and marry Charles. The first shock of Junot’s
revelation threw Napoleon into a paroxism of wrath, then into a stupor
of despair and dull disgust with everything. Then, by a reaction,
natural, perhaps, to a man of his temperament, he threw himself into
libertine excesses. Prior to this period his morals, considering the
times and the temptations, had been remarkably pure. Henceforth he
was occasionally to give himself a license which scandalized even the
French officers. Scorning subterfuge and concealment, he became as
bold as any born king, a rake by divine right, in the shamelessness
of his amours. He appeared in public at Cairo with Madame Foures, his
mistress, riding in the carriage by his side; and if Bourrienne tells
the truth on Napoleon, and Carlyle tells no lie on Peter the Great,
the one was about as obscene as the other while the lustful impulse
prevailed.