Roland bowed assent.
General Kléber, to whom Bonaparte intended to leave the command of the army, was invited to Rosetta, "to confer with the commander-in-chief on matters of the utmost importance."
Bonaparte made an appointment with him which he knew very well he could not keep. He wished, however, to avoid Kléber's reproaches and bitter frankness. He wrote all that he would have said to him, and gave as his reason for not keeping his appointment his fear that the English cruisers might return at any moment.
The vessels destined for Bonaparte were once more to carry Cæsar and his fortune. But this time it was not Cæsar sailing eastward to add Egypt to the conquests of Rome; it was Cæsar revolving in his mind the vast projects which had made the conqueror of the Gauls cross the Rubicon.
He was going back without recoiling at the idea of overturning the government for which he had fought on the 13th Vendémiaire, and which he had sustained on the 18th Fructidor.
A dream of gigantic magnitude had faded away before Saint-Jean-d'Acre. A still vaster vision was forming in his mind as he left Alexandria.
On the 23d of August, a dark and gloomy night, a boat pushed off from the Egyptian shore, and put Bonaparte aboard the "Muiron."
THE END
Transcriber's Note:—
Punctuation errors have been corrected.
The following suspected printer's errors have been addressed.
Page 172. misson changed to mission. (diplomat for this mission)
Page 286. Convenion changed to Convention. (The Convention felt)