the ministers, the majority of the generals, turned away from her, cold and indifferent; and her few true friends, low-spirited and depressed, bowed their heads, while her foes and those of Bonaparte scornfully said in their joy, “Now the new King of Jerusalem and Cyprus has fallen under the blows of a new savage Omar.”  While every thing was against her, Josephine alone was cheerful, and confidingly looked into the future, for she felt and knew that the future would soon bring back her husband, her beloved.

CHAPTER XXXI.

The first faithlessness.

Josephines prophetic heart had not deceived her.  Bonaparte lived!  But his was a life of danger, of constantly renewed battles and hardships—­a life in which he had constantly to guard against not only enemies, but also against sickness.

Bonaparte had traversed the deserts with his army, visited the pyramids, conquered Cairo, and, in warmly-contested and fearful combats, had defeated and subdued the Mussulman.  But these numerous victories had been followed by some defeats, and all his successes were more than counterbalanced by the fruitless storming of the impregnable Acre, and the failure to conquer Syria.  The English admiral, Sidney Smith, with his vessels, anchored in the harbor of Acre, protected the besieged, and constantly provided them with provisions and ammunition, and so efficiently supported the pacha and his mercenary European soldiers, that Bonaparte, after two months of fruitless efforts, abandoned the siege on the 10th of May, 1799, and retreated into Egypt.

This is not, however, the place to recall the stupendous enterprises of Bonaparte, which remind one of the deeds of the heroes and demi-gods of ancient Greece, or the nursery tales of extraordinary beings.

His heroic deeds are engraven on history’s page:  there can be read the wondrous events of his Egyptian campaign, of his march through the wilderness, of the capture of Cairo, of his successful battles of Aboukir and Tabor, which led the heroic General Kleber, forgetting all rivalry, to embrace Bonaparte, exclaiming:  “General Bonaparte, you are as great as the world, but the world is too small for you!”

There, also, one can read of the cruel massacre of three thousand captive Mussulmen, of the revolt of Cairo; there are depicted the blood-stained laurels which Bonaparte won in this expedition, the original plan of which seems to have been conceived in the brain of one who was at once a demi-god and an adventurer.

We leave, therefore, to history the exclusive privilege of narrating Bonaparte’s career as a warrior; our task is with something superior—­with his thoughts, feelings, and sufferings, in the days of his Egyptian campaign.  It is not with the soldier, the captain, or his plans of battle, that we have to do, but with the man, and especially with the husband of Josephine—­the woman who for his sake suffered, was full of solicitude, contended for him, and struggled with love and loyalty, while he fought only with sword and cannon.