That same night, he said to Bourienne: "Nothing is remembered in Paris. If I remain quiet long without doing something fresh, I shall be lost: one idol quickly replaces another in this great Babylon. If I were to attend the play three times more they would then ignore my presence."
A few days later he was made a member of the Institute, under the Science and Art division—an honour that gratified him extremely. He immediately sent the following letter to the president:—
"CITIZEN PRESIDENT,—I feel deeply honoured by the votes of the distinguished men who compose the Institute. I am very sensible that before I can become their equal I must for a long time yet remain their scholar.
"If there were any more expressive way by which I could express my high regard for them, I would avail myself of it. The true conquests, the only victories which bring no aftermaths of regret, are those that overcome ignorance.
"Those are the most honourable occupations, the most serviceable to all nations, which contribute to the widening of human knowledge. The true strength of the French Republic should from henceforth consist in making every new discovery a part of itself.
BONAPARTE."
There is in Molière's l'Avare a phrase which Harpagon thought of inscribing in letters of gold on the walls of his dining-room. Tell me, Prince Louis, if there is not a similar phrase for you to meditate upon in this letter of your uncle's to the Institute?
All these ovations in public places and these receptions by the Institute sufficed for a time to distract a brain so active as Bonaparte's, but they could not satisfy him for long.
Very soon he returned to his favourite idea—the East: it had come to him whilst he was waiting and watching the progress of peace negotiations at Paneriano.
"Europe is a mole-hill," he observed once, when walking with Bourrienne, César Berthier and my father; "it has never had such grand empires or great revolutions as the East, with its six hundred millions of peoples."
He wrote to the Directory as early as August 1797:—"We feel that the time is not far distant when, to destroy England's power thoroughly, we ought to take possession of Egypt."