are unwilling to listen to anything.  I see that if I linger here, I shall soon lose myself.  Everything wears out here; my glory has already disappeared.  This little Europe does not supply enough of it for me.  I must seek it in the East, the fountain of glory.  However, I wish first to make a tour along the coast, to ascertain by my own observation what may be attempted.  I will take you, Lannes, and Sulkowsky, with me.  If the success of a descent on England appear doubtful, as I suspect it will, the army of England shall become the army of the East, and I will go to Egypt.”

This and other conversations give a correct insight into his character.  He always considered war and conquest as the most noble and inexhaustible source of that glory which was the constant object of his desire.  He revolted at the idea of languishing in idleness at Paris, while fresh laurels were growing for him in distant climes.  His imagination inscribed, in anticipation, his name on those gigantic monuments which alone, perhaps, of all the creations of man, have the character of eternity.  Already proclaimed the most illustrious of living generals, he sought to efface the rival names of antiquity by his own.  If Caesar fought fifty battles, he longed to fight a hundred—­if Alexander left Macedon to penetrate to the Temple of Ammon, he wished to leave Paris to travel to the Cataracts of the Nile.  While he was thus to run a race with fame, events would, in his opinion, so proceed in France as to render his return necessary and opportune.  His place would be ready for him, and he should not come to claim it a forgotten or unknown man.

CHAPTER XII.

1798.

Bonaparte’s departure from Paris—­His return—­The Egyptian expedition projected—­M. de Talleyrand—­General Desaix—­Expedition against Malta—­Money taken at Berne—­Bonaparte’s ideas respecting the East—­Monge—­Non-influence of the Directory—­Marriages of Marmont and La Valette—­Bonaparte’s plan of colonising Egypt—­His camp library—­Orthographical blunders—­Stock of wines—­Bonaparte’s arrival at Toulon—­Madame Bonaparte’s fall from a balcony—­Execution of an old man—­Simon.

Bonaparte left Paris for the north on the 10th of February 1798—­but he received no order, though I have seen it everywhere so stated, to go there—­“for the purpose of preparing the operations connected with the intended invasion of England.”  He occupied himself with no such business, for which a few days certainly would not have been sufficient.  His journey to the coast was nothing but a rapid excursion, and its sole object was to enable him to form an opinion on the main point of the question.  Neither did he remain absent several weeks, for the journey occupied only one.  There were four of us in his carriage—­himself, Lannes, Sulkowsky, and I. Moustache was our courier.  Bonaparte was not a little surprised on reading, in the ‘Moniteur’ of the 10th February, an article giving greater importance to his little excursion than it deserved.