CHAPTER VIII
EGYPT
Among the many misconceptions of the French revolutionists none was more insidious than the notion that the wealth and power of the British people rested on an artificial basis. This mistaken belief in England's weakness arose out of the doctrine taught by the Economistes or Physiocrates in the latter half of last century, that commerce was not of itself productive of wealth, since it only promoted the distribution of the products of the earth; but that agriculture was the sole source of true wealth and prosperity. They therefore exalted agriculture at the expense of commerce and manufactures, and the course of the Revolution, which turned largely on agrarian questions, tended in the same direction. Robespierre and St. Just were never weary of contrasting the virtues of a simple pastoral life with the corruptions and weakness engendered by foreign commerce; and when, early in 1793, Jacobinical zeal embroiled the young Republic with England, the orators of the Convention confidently prophesied the downfall of the modern Carthage. Kersaint declared that "the credit of England rests upon fictitious wealth: … bounded in territory, the public future of England is found almost wholly in its bank, and this edifice is entirely supported by naval commerce. It is easy to cripple this commerce, and especially so for a power like France, which stands alone on her own riches."[90]
Commercial interests played a foremost part all through the struggle. The official correspondence of Talleyrand in 1797 proves that the Directory intended to claim the Channel Islands, the north of Newfoundland, and all our conquests in the East Indies made since 1754, besides the restitution of Gibraltar to Spain.[91] Nor did these hopes seem extravagant. The financial crisis in London and the mutiny at the Nore seemed to betoken the exhaustion of England, while the victories of Bonaparte raised the power of France to heights never known before. Before the victory of Duncan over the Dutch at Camperdown (October 11th, 1797), Britain seemed to have lost her naval supremacy.
The recent admission of State bankruptcy at Paris, when two-thirds of the existing liabilities were practically expunged, sharpened the desire of the Directory to compass England's ruin, an enterprise which might serve to restore French credit and would certainly engage those vehement activities of Bonaparte that could otherwise work mischief in Paris. On his side he gladly accepted the command of the Army of England.
"The people of Paris do not remember anything," he said to Bourrienne. "Were I to remain here long, doing nothing, I should be lost. In this great Babylon everything wears out: my glory has already disappeared. This little Europe does not supply enough of it for me. I must seek it in the East: all great fame comes from that quarter. However, I wish first to make a tour along the [northern] coast to see for myself what may be attempted. If the success of a descent upon England appear doubtful, as I suspect it will, the Army of England shall become the Army of the East, and I go to Egypt."[92]
In February, 1798, he paid a brief visit to Dunkirk and the Flemish coast, and concluded that the invasion of England was altogether too complicated to be hazarded except as a last desperate venture. In a report to the Government (February 23rd) he thus sums up the whole situation:
"Whatever efforts we make, we shall not for some years gain the naval supremacy. To invade England without that supremacy is the most daring and difficult task ever undertaken…. If, having regard to the present organization of our navy, it seems impossible to gain the necessary promptness of execution, then we must really give up the expedition against England, be satisfied with keeping up the pretence of it, and concentrate all our attention and resources on the Rhine, in order to try to deprive England of Hanover and Hamburg:[93] … or else undertake an eastern expedition which would menace her trade with the Indies. And if none of these three operations is practicable, I see nothing else for it but to conclude peace with England."
The greater part of his career serves as a commentary on these designs. To one or other of them he was constantly turning as alternative schemes for the subjugation of his most redoubtable foe. The first plan he now judged to be impracticable; the second, which appears later in its fully matured form as his Continental System, was not for the present feasible, because France was about to settle German affairs at the Congress of Rastadt; to the third he therefore turned the whole force of his genius.
The conquest of Egypt and the restoration to France of her supremacy in India appealed to both sides of Bonaparte's nature. The vision of the tricolour floating above the minarets of Cairo and the palace of the Great Mogul at Delhi fascinated a mind in which the mysticism of the south was curiously blent with the practicality and passion for details that characterize the northern races. To very few men in the world's history has it been granted to dream grandiose dreams and all but realize them, to use by turns the telescope and the microscope of political survey, to plan vast combinations of force, and yet to supervise with infinite care the adjustment of every adjunct. Cæsar, in the old world, was possibly the mental peer of Bonaparte in this majestic equipoise of the imaginative and practical qualities; but of Cæsar we know comparatively little; whereas the complex workings of the greatest mind of the modern world stand revealed in that storehouse of facts and fancies, the "Correspondance de Napoléon." The motives which led to the Eastern Expedition are there unfolded. In the letter which he wrote to Talleyrand shortly before the signature of the peace of Campo Formio occurs this suggestive passage: