It is true, that, so far from dreading the English forces which were likely to be employed against them, the French regarded as a recommendation to the conquest of Egypt, that it was to be the first step to the destruction of the British power in India; and Napoleon continued to the last to consider the conquest of Egypt as the forerunner of that of universal Asia. His eye, which, like that of the eagle, saw far and wide, overlooking, however, obstacles which distance rendered diminutive, beheld little more necessary than the toilsome marches of a few weeks, to achieve the conquests of Alexander the Great. He had already counted the steps by which he was to ascend to Oriental Monarchy, and has laid before the world a singular reverie on the probabilities of success. "If Saint John d'Acre had yielded to the French arms," said he, "a great revolution would have been accomplished in the East; the general-in-chief would have founded an empire there, and the destinies of France would have undergone different combinations from those to which they were subjected."[361]
In this declaration we recognise one of the peculiarities of Buonaparte's disposition, which refused to allow of any difficulties or dangers save those, of which, having actually happened, the existence could not be disputed. The small British force before Acre was sufficient to destroy his whole plans of conquest; but how many other means of destruction might Providence have employed for the same purpose! The plague—the desert—mutiny among his soldiers—courage and enterprise, inspired by favourable circumstances into the tribes by whom his progress was opposed—the computation of these, and other chances, ought to have taught him to acknowledge, that he had not been discomfited by the only hazard which could have disconcerted his enterprise; but that, had such been the will of God, the sands of Syria might have proved as fatal as the snows of Russia, and the scimitars of the Turks as the lances of the Cossacks. In words, a march from Egypt to India is easily described, and still more easily measured off with compasses upon the map of the world. But in practice, and with an army opposed, as the French would probably have been, at every step, if it had been only from motives of religious antipathy, when the French general arrived at the skirts of British India, with forces thus diminished, he would have had in front the whole British army, commanded by officers accustomed to make war upon a scale almost as enlarged as he himself practised, and accustomed to victories not less decisive.[362]
We should fall into the same error which we censure, did we anticipate what might have been the result of such a meeting. Even while we claim the probability of advantage for the army most numerous, and best provided with guns and stores, we allow the strife must have been dreadful and dubious. But, if Napoleon really thought he had only to show himself in India, to ensure the destruction of the British empire there, he had not calculated the opposing strength with the caution to have been expected from so great a general. He has been represented, indeed, as boasting of the additions which he would have made to his army, by the co-operation of natives trained after the French discipline. But can it be supposed that these hasty levies could be brought into such complete order as to face the native troops of British India, so long and so justly distinguished for approaching Europeans in courage and discipline, and excelling them, perhaps, in temperance and subordination?
In a word, the Egyptian expedition, unless considered with reference to the private views of the Directory, and of their General, must have been regarded from the beginning, as promising no results in the slightest degree worthy of the great risk incurred, by draining France of the flower of her army.
Meanwhile, the moment of departure approached. The blockading squadron, commanded by Nelson, was blown off the coast by a gale of wind, and so much damaged that they were obliged to run down to Sardinia. The first and most obvious obstacle to the expedition was thus removed. The various squadrons from Genoa, Civita Vecchia, and Bastia, set sail and united with that which already lay at Toulon.
Yet it is said, though upon slender authority, that even at this latest moment Buonaparte showed, some inclination to abandon the command of so doubtful and almost desperate an expedition, and wished to take the advantage of a recent dispute between France and Austria, to remain in Europe. The misunderstanding arose from the conduct of Bernadotte, ambassador for the republic at Vienna, who incautiously displayed the national colours before his hotel, in consequence of which a popular tumult arose, and the ambassador was insulted. In their first alarm, lest his incident should occasion a renewal of the war, the Directory hastily determined to suspend Buonaparte's departure, and despatch him to Rastadt, where the congress was still sitting, with full powers to adjust the difference. Buonaparte accepted the commission, and while he affected to deplore the delay or miscarriage of "the greatest enterprise which he had ever meditated," wrote in secret to Count Cobentzel, now minister of foreign affairs at Vienna, inviting him to a conference at Rastadt, and hinting at political changes, by which the difficulties attending the execution of the treaty of Campo Formio might be taken away. The tenor of this letter having become known to the Directory, and it appearing to them that Buonaparte designed to make that mission a pretext for interesting Cobentzel in some change of government in France, in which he deemed it advisable to obtain the concurrence of Austria, they instantly resolved, it is said, to compel him to set sail on the expedition to Egypt. Barras, charged with the commission of notifying to the general this second alteration of his destination, had an interview with Buonaparte in private, and at his own house. The mien of the director was clouded, and, contrary to his custom, he scarcely spoke to Madame Buonaparte. When he retired, Buonaparte shut himself up in his own apartment for a short time, then gave directions for his instant departure from Paris for Toulon. These particulars are given as certain by Miot;[363] but he alleges no authority for this piece of secret history.[364] There seems, however, little doubt, that the command of the Egyptian expedition was bestowed on Buonaparte by the Directory as a species of ostracism, or honourable banishment from France.
At the moment of departure, Buonaparte made one of those singular harangues which evince such a mixture of talent and energy with bad taste and bombast. He promised to introduce those who had warred on the mountains and in the plains, to maritime combat; and to a great part of the expedition he kept his word too truly, as Aboukir could witness. He reminded them that the Romans combated Carthage by sea as well as by land—he proposed to conduct them, in the name of the Goddess of Liberty, to the most distant regions and oceans, and he concluded by promising to each individual of his army seven acres of land.[365] Whether this distribution of property was to take place on the banks of the Nile, of the Bosphorus, or the Ganges, the soldiers had not the most distant guess, and the commander-in-chief himself would have had difficulty in informing them.
SAILS FROM TOULON.
May 19.
On the 19th of May, 1798, this magnificent armament set sail from Toulon, illuminated by a splendid sunrise, one of those which were afterwards popularly termed the suns of Napoleon. The line-of-battle ships extended for a league, and the semi-circle formed by the convoy was at least six leagues in extent. They were joined on the 8th June, as they swept along the Mediterranean, by a large fleet of transports, having on board the division of General Desaix.