After dragging Malta out of its mediaeval calm and plunging it into the full swirl of modern progress, Bonaparte set sail for Egypt.  His exchequer was the richer by all the gold and silver, whether in bullion or in vessels, discoverable in the treasury of Malta or in the Church of St. John.  Fortunately, the silver gates of this church had been coloured over, and thus escaped the fate of the other treasures.[100] On the voyage to Alexandria he studied the library of books which he had requested Bourrienne to purchase for him.  The composition of this library is of interest as showing the strong trend of his thoughts towards history, though at a later date he was careful to limit its study in the university and schools which he founded.  He had with him 125 volumes of historical works, among which the translations of Thucydides, Plutarch, Tacitus, and Livy represented the life of the ancient world, while in modern life he concentrated his attention chiefly on the manners and institutions of peoples and the memoirs of great generals—­as Turenne, Conde, Luxembourg, Saxe, Marlborough, Eugene, and Charles XII.  Of the poets he selected the so-called Ossian, Tasso, Ariosto, Homer, Virgil, and the masterpieces of the French theatre; but he especially affected the turgid and declamatory style of Ossian.  In romance, English literature was strongly represented by forty volumes of novels, of course in translations.  Besides a few works on arts and sciences, he also had with him twelve volumes of “Barclay’s Geography,” and three volumes of “Cook’s Voyages,” which show that his thoughts extended to the antipodes; and under the heading of Politics he included the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, a Mythology, and Montesquieu’s “Esprit des Lois”!  The composition and classification of this library are equally suggestive.  Bonaparte carefully searched out the weak places of the organism which he was about to attack—­in the present campaign, Egypt and the British Empire.  The climate and natural products, the genius of its writers and the spirit of its religion—­nothing came amiss to his voracious intellect, which assimilated the most diverse materials and pressed them all into his service.  Greek mythology provided allusions for the adornment of his proclamations, the Koran would dictate his behaviour towards the Moslems, and the Bible was to be his guide-book concerning the Druses and Armenians.  All three were therefore grouped together under the head of Politics.

And this, on the whole, fairly well represents his mental attitude towards religion:  at least, it was his work-a-day attitude.  There were moments, it is true, when an overpowering sense of the majesty of the universe lifted his whole being far above this petty opportunism:  and in those moments, which, in regard to the declaration of character, may surely be held to counterbalance whole months spent in tactical shifts and diplomatic wiles, he was capable of soaring to heights of imaginative reverence.  Such an