employed to save, and not to kill. But the proposal soon grew into a rumour that it had been carried into execution, and that not on a few dozens, but on several hundreds—a rumour which continued to be believed for many years, not only by the other European nations, but by Buonaparte's own army. He continued his march back to Cairo, burning the crops and villages by the way, in revenge of the hostility of the natives. He reached Cairo on the 14th June, his reputation much diminished by his repulse.
Buonaparte found that, during his absence in Syria, Egypt had been disturbed by insurrections, which Desaix had put down, and had again defeated, and driven back into Upper Egypt, Murad Bey, who had made a descent thence. Soon after his return, however, Murad was once more in motion, descending the Nile in two bodies, and Ibrahim Bey was moving on the frontiers of Syria, as if to form a union with Murad. La Grange was dispatched against Ibrahim, and Murat against Murad. Scarcely were they repulsed when the cause of their manœuvres became evident. A Turkish fleet, containing eighteen thousand men, appeared in the Bay of Alexandria, commanded by Mustapha Pacha. They seized the fort, and, landing, began to fortify themselves, expecting the arrival of the Mamelukes, as had been concerted. On the 25th of July Buonaparte attacked them, and drove in all their outposts; but, on coming within reach of their batteries and their gunboats, in the bay, the French were checked, and the Turks, rushing out, with their muskets slung at their backs, made terrible havoc amongst them with their sabres, poniards, and pistols. The defeat of Napoleon must have been complete had not the Turks stopped to cut off the heads of the slain, for which they were offered a reward. This gave time for the French to rally. It was now the turn of the Turks to give way, and Murat, who had fought at the head of the troops, followed them so impetuously with the bayonet, that the confusion and panic became general. The Turks threw themselves en masse into the sea to regain their ships; and, by drowning, and the bayonets and bullets of the French, ten thousand out of the eighteen thousand perished. Mustapha Pacha himself was taken, and carried in triumph before Buonaparte. This battle had been fought at Abonkir, near the spot where Nelson had so signally triumphed over them. The victory was the event which Buonaparte needed to enable him to return with credit to France. He immediately embraced it. All his plans and brilliant visions of empire in the East had perished for the present, but private letters from his brothers in Paris, and a number of newspapers, which Sir Sidney Smith had furnished him with to mortify him, roused him to instant action. From these he learnt that the directory had, as he expected, consummated their unpopularity; that Italy, which he had won to France, was again lost by the other generals. To remain in Egypt was to sink into a sort of provincial or proconsular general; to return to Paris was, by a bold and adroit stroke, to make himself the master of France.
He immediately ordered admiral Gantheaume to have ready a couple of frigates, which lay in the harbour of Alexandria; and, taking with him his favourite generals, Murat, Lannes, Marmont, Berthier, Desaix, Andréossy, and Bessieres, and the two principal savans, Monge and Denon, to give an account of the scientific results of the expedition, he rushed on board. He had left the care of the army to Kleber and Menou; and he issued a short proclamation, saying that events in Paris demanded his presence there, but that he would return with all possible expedition.
We are told that Nelson, in quitting Egypt, had left the bay of Alexandria well blockaded. With this French army in Egypt, and the most victorious general of France there cut off from return, if due vigilance had been observed, a most active blockade and watch ought to have been maintained. There appears to have been little or none at all. Buonaparte, prevented from returning to France, or seized on his way back, would have given a totally different face to history. But Buonaparte was enabled to traverse the Mediterranean against contrary winds, from the 22nd of August to the 30th of September, when they touched at Ajaccio, in Corsica, Buonaparte's native place, and again till the 9th of October, in all, eight-and-forty days, without interruption from any English vessels. So great does the negligence of the British navy appear to have been—so great the neglect of Nelson, forgetting his duties in the smiles of lady Hamilton, at Naples—that, as they approached the French coast, and saw a considerable English fleet, the admiral would have put about, but Buonaparte ordered him to sail right through them, and they did so without challenge, and they landed safely at Rapheau, near Frejus. The English seemed to have imagined that they had annihilated Buonaparte by the battle of Aboukir, and to have given themselves no further anxiety about him; but he was once more in Paris, prepared to give them more trouble than ever.
Though Buonaparte had been absent, his family had taken care to keep public opinion alive to his importance. His wife, Josephine, lived at great expense, and collected around her all that was distinguished in society. His brother, Lucien, had become president of the council of five hundred; and Joseph, a man much respected, kept a hospitable house, and did much to maintain the Buonaparte prestige. Talleyrand and Fouché were already in Napoleon's interest, and Bernadotte, now minister at war, Jourdan, and Augereau, as generals, were prepared to act with him. The abbé Siéyes, with his perpetual constitution-making, had also been working in a way to facilitate his schemes. He had planned a new and most complicated constitution, which was to consist of four successive bodies—First, a tribunate of a hundred members, who discussed all legislative measures in the presence of a legislative council, which did not interfere in the discussions, but listened, and then voted in silence upon the measure discussed, the tribunate, which had discussed, not voting at all. The act passed by the legislative council was handed to a body of three consuls, of whom one was to be the head, or first consul, who signed and promulgated it. The third body, a senate of one hundred members, apparently placed betwixt the legislative council and the consuls, sat with closed doors, and appeared intended as a check on the consuls, any of whom, who appeared inclined to exceed his due authority, they might elect into their own body, whereupon he ceased to be consul, and became merely one of them.
Of the five directors Buonaparte left in office, the
