Pierrolet had disappeared. A search was made for him all over the town, but he could not be found. Later it became known that he had enlisted in Captain La Hire's company. At the Battle of Patay, under the Maid's eyes, he took prisoner an English captain and was dubbed a knight.
[1] An obsolete measure varying according to place. In 1703, in the Orkney and Shetland Isles a setten of barley was about twenty-eight pounds' weight.
["LA MUIRON"]
"And sometimes, during our long evenings, the Commander-in-Chief would tell us ghost stories, a species of story in the telling of which he excelled."—Mémoires du Comte Lavallette.
For more than three months Bonaparte had been without news from Europe, when on his return from Saint-Jean-d'Acre he sent an envoy to the Turkish admiral under the pretext of negotiating an exchange of prisoners, but in reality in the hope that Sir Sidney Smith would stop this officer on the way and enlighten him as to recent events; whether, as might be expected, these had been unfavourable to the Republic. The General calculated rightly. Sir Sidney had the envoy brought to his ship and received him there with honour. Having entered into conversation, the English commander soon learnt that the Syrian army was totally without despatches or information of any kind. He showed the Frenchman the newspapers lying open on the table and, with perfidious courtesy, invited him to take them away with him.
Bonaparte spent the night in his tent reading them. In the morning he had resolved to return to France in order to assume the government in the place of those who were on the point of being overthrown. Once he had set foot on the soil of the Republic, he would crush the weak and violent government which was rendering the country a prey to fools and rogues, and he alone would occupy the vacant place. Before he could carry out his plan, however, he must cross the Mediterranean in defiance of adverse winds and British squadrons. But Bonaparte could see nothing save his purpose and his star. By an extraordinary stroke of good luck he had received the Directory's permission to leave the Egyptian army and to appoint his own successor.
He summoned Admiral Gantheaume, who had been at head-quarters since the destruction of the fleet, and instructed him quickly and secretly to arm two Venetian frigates, which were at Alexandria, and to direct them to a certain lonely point upon the coast. In a sealed document he appointed General Kléber Commander-in-Chief. Then, under the pretext of making a tour of inspection, taking with him a squadron of guides, he went to the Marabou inlet. On the evening of the 7th of Fructidor in the year VII, at the junction of two roads, whence the sea was visible, he came face to face with General Menou, who was returning with his escort to Alexandria. Finding it impossible and unnecessary to keep his secret any longer, he took a brusque farewell of these soldiers, urged them to acquit themselves well in Egypt and said:
"If I have the good luck to set foot in France, the reign of the chatterboxes will be over!"