inspirations of his heart, Fourier did not perform merely an act of humanity; it was moreover one of excellent policy.  Our learned colleague, M. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, to whom I am indebted for this anecdote, has stated in fact that Soleyman and Fayoumi, the principal of the Egyptian chiefs, whose punishment, thanks to our colleague, was so happily transformed into a banquet, seized every occasion of extolling among their countrymen the generosity of the French.

Fourier did not display less ability when our generals confided diplomatic missions to him.  It is to his tact and urbanity that our army is indebted for an offensive and defensive treaty of alliance with Mourad Bey.  Justly proud of this result, Fourier omitted to make known the details of the negotiation.  This is deeply to be regretted, for the plenipotentiary of Mourad was a woman, the same Sitty Neficah whom Kleber has immortalized by proclaiming her beneficence, her noble character, in the bulletin of Heliopolis, and who moreover was already celebrated from one extremity of Asia to the other, in consequence of the bloody revolutions which her unparalleled beauty had excited among the Mamelukes.

The incomparable victory which Kleber gained over the army of the Grand Vizier did not damp the energy of the Janissaries, who had seized upon Cairo while the war was raging at Heliopolis.  They defended themselves from house to house with heroic courage.  The besieged had to choose between the entire destruction of the city and an honourable capitulation.  The latter alternative was adopted.  Fourier, charged, as usual, with the negotiations, conducted them to a favourable issue; but on this occasion the treaty was not discussed, agreed to, and signed within the mysterious precincts of a harem, upon downy couches, under the shade of balmy groves.  The preliminary discussions were held in a house half ruined by bullets and grape-shot; in the centre of the quarter of which the insurgents valiantly disputed the possession with our soldiers; before even it would have been possible to agree to the basis of a treaty of a few hours.  Accordingly, when Fourier was preparing to celebrate the welcome of the Turkish commissioner conformably to oriental usages, a great number of musket-shots were fired from the house in front, and a ball passed through the coffee-pot which he was holding in his hand.  Without calling in question the bravery of any person, do you not think, Gentlemen, that if diplomatists were usually placed in equally perilous positions, the public would have less reason to complain of their proverbial slowness?