May 3, 1798, Bonaparte and Josephine, after dining quietly with Barras at the Luxembourg, went to the Theatre Francais, where Talma was acting in Macbeth of Ducis. He was received as warmly as on the first days of his return. When the play was over, he went home, and started at midnight, taking with him, in his carriage, Eugene, Bourrienne, Duroc, and Lavalette.

Paris knew nothing of his departure; and the next morning, when every one thought that he was in the rue de la Victoire, he was already well on his way to the South. With the desire of outwitting the English spies, who were still in ignorance of the destination of the expedition, he had made all his preparations quietly, and had not even let Josephine go to Saint Germain to bid farewell to her daughter, before leaving. Yet Josephine still did not know how long she would be away, and Bonaparte had not told her whether he should allow her to accompany him on this mysterious expedition on which he was about to start.

In his Memoirs, Marmont records an incident that came near having serious results for the party. At nightfall they had reached Aix-en-Provence, on their hurried journey to Toulon. Being eager to push on, without stopping at Marseilles, where they would in all probability have been delayed, they took a more direct road, through Roquevaire, a highway, but one less frequently taken than the other: for some days the postillions had not been that way.

Suddenly, as they were rapidly going down the slope of a hill, the carriage was stopped by a violent shock. Every one sprang up, and got out of the carriage to see what was the matter. They found that a large branch of a tree stretching across the road had stopped the carriage. Ten steps further, at the foot of the descent, a bridge crossing a torrent over which they had to go had fallen down the previous evening. No one know anything about it; and the carriage would have gone over the precipice, had not this branch stopped them at the edge.

"Does not this seem like the hand of Providence?" asks Marmont. "Is not Bonaparte justified in thinking that it watches over him? Had it not been for this branch, so strangely placed, and strong enough to hold, what would have become of the conqueror of Egypt, the conqueror of Europe, whose power for fifteen years prevailed over the surface of the earth?"

On what trifles human destinies depend! In the eyes of Providence, men are but pygmies. If that branch had been a trifle thinner, it would have been all over with Napoleon: no battle of the Pyramids, no 18th Brumaire, no Consulate, no Empire, no coronation, no Austerlitz, no Waterloo! Were the ancients right when they said that those whom the gods love die young? And would it have been well for Napoleon to die at twenty-nine, before his greatest glories, but also before his misfortunes? Do not the men who are called indispensable live too long for themselves and for their country? Short as is human life, it is too long for them.

But in 1798 Bonaparte was far from making such reflections. When he reached Toulon, May 9, he was all pride, enthusiasm, hope. In Paris, he was smothering; at Toulon, he drew a full breath. In Paris, in the neighborhood of the Directors, he feared to seem to be their subordinate; and in his relations with them he assumed alternately an air of dignity and one of familiarity; but, as Madame de Stael said, "he failed in both. He is a man who is natural only when in command."

At Toulon, he felt himself the master. He meant, to quote Madame de Stael again, "to become a poetic person, instead of remaining exposed to the gossip of Jacobins, which in this popular form is no less ingenious than that of courts."

For all its animation and brilliancy, Paris had seemed a tomb, and he was glad to have lifted its heavy lid. In the presence of his army he felt himself a new man. The cheers of the soldiers and sailors, the clash of arms, the murmur of the waves, the voice of the trumpets, the roar of the drums, inspired him. He saw only the brilliant side of war.

No one knew whither he was going: to what coast his fleet was bound-whether to Portugal or to England; to the Crimea or to Egypt. Did he mean to conquer the land of the Pharaohs? To pierce the Isthmus of Suez? To capture Jerusalem like Godfrey of Bouillon, and to penetrate into India, like Alexander? Those mysteries fired the imagination of the masses. The great interest in the expedition was due to ignorance of its destination. The same uncertainty prevailed over Europe, Africa, and Asia. England was anxiously wondering where the thunderbolt would fall.

The more perilous the adventure, the greater its charm for Bonaparte. He was like those riders who care only for a restive horse. It was a keen joy to him to stake everything and defy fortune. Throughout his career we find this love of the extraordinary, of the unknown, this desire to cope with obstacles generally thought insuperable. He always pursued victory as a hunter pursues his prey, as the gambler tries to win, with a devouring passion. When he was about to leave his wife and country, any feeling of regret would have seemed to him unworthy of a man; a tear he would have thought a weakness. What he really loved, was no longer Josephine, but glory.

A few months before, he would perhaps have taken his wife with him to the wars; but now the lover has given place to the hero. He was to write to her no more love-letters such as he wrote from Italy. It was no longer Jean Jacques Rousseau who interested him; but Plutarch, the Bible, the Koran. As soon as they reached Toulon, he told Josephine that he could not take her to Egypt, since he was unwilling to expose her to the fatigues and dangers of the voyage, the climate, and the expedition. Josephine said that all these things had no terrors for a woman like her; that in three voyages she had already sailed more than five thousand leagues; that she was a creole and the heat of the East could do her no harm. Bonaparte, to console her, promised that she should follow within two months, when he should be settled in Egypt; and that he would send to fetch her the frigate Pomone, which had brought her to France the first time.

So Josephine wrote to her daughter, May 15: "My dear Hortense, I have been for five days at Toulon; I was not tired by the journey, but was very sorry to have left you so suddenly without being able to say good by to you and to my dear Caroline. But I am somewhat consoled by the hope of seeing you again very soon. Bonaparte does not wish me to sail with him, but wants me to go to some watering-place before undertaking the voyage to Italy. He will send for me in two months. So, dear Hortense, I shall soon have the pleasure of pressing you to my heart, and of telling you how much I love you. Good by, my dear girl."

Bonaparte knew from the movements of the English that he had better be off without delay, but contrary winds kept him detained for ten days at Toulon.

He spent this time in addressing the army, completing the loading, and organizing a system of tactics. Five hundred sail were about to set forth on the Mediterranean. The fleet, which was supplied with water for a month, and with food for two months, carried about forty thousand men of all sorts, and ten thousand sailors. Five hundred grenadiers, accustomed to artillery, were placed on each three-decker, with orders, in case the English fleet was sighted, to bear down on it, and range alongside in order.

Never had so vast a naval expedition been seen. Soldiers and sailors were full of confidence. Yet cooler heads, not carried away by warlike ardor and by the twofold fervor of youth and courage, were well aware of the great dangers which rendered the success of the expedition improbable, if not impossible.

Arnault, who sailed with the army, said that if the fleet had met the enemy on the voyage, it would have been lost, not because the flower of the Army of Italy was not present in sufficiently large numbers, but for the very opposite reason. Since they were distributed about in ships with their full quota of men already on board, the soldiers tripled on each ship the number of men necessary for its defence; and in such case everything superfluous is a positive disadvantage.

If a fight had taken place, their movements would have been confused, the handling of the ships encumbered, and cannon-balls of the enemy would necessarily have found three men where, in ordinary circumstances, it would have found one or no one at all. Arnault also mentions the inconvenience produced by the artillery and its material: the shrouds were obstructed, the decks littered by it. "In case of attack, all would have had to be thrown into the sea, and we should have begun by sacrificing to defence the means of conquest. Even a victory would have ruined the expedition. We prayed Heaven that the generalissimo would not find himself compelled to win one!"

Marmont says the same thing, and that he would not undertake to justify an expedition made in the face of so many adverse chances. He adds that the ships were insufficiently equipped, the crew shorthanded and ignorant, the men-of-war encumbered with troops and the artillery material which prevented proper handling; that this vast fleet, composed of sloops and vessels of every sort, would have been of necessity scattered, and even destroyed, by meeting any squadron; that it was impossible to count upon a victory, and even then a victory would not have saved the convoy.

"For the expedition to succeed," Marmont goes on, "there was required a smooth voyage, and no sight of the enemy; but how expect such good luck in view of the enforced slowness of our progress, and of the pause we were to make before Malta? All the probabilities were then against us; we had not one chance in a hundred; we were sailing with a light heart to almost certain ruin. It must be acknowledged that we were playing a costly game, which even success would scarcely warrant."

Yet Bonaparte could not admit that Fortune would be unkind to him. He had won so many favors from her that he deemed her his slave. He feared storms no more than he feared Nelson's ships. In his eyes obstacles were idle dreams. Returning, as well as going, he never thought of fearing the English cruisers. He said to himself, What can there be to fear for the ship that carries me and my fortune? But he was not alone in this faith in his destiny; he succeeded in communicating it to his companions. He believed in himself, and they believed in him.

He had, in fact, reached one of those moments when great men sincerely imagine themselves above human nature, and look upon themselves as demi-gods.

May 19, the day of the departure, Nelson, the English admiral, was guarding the port. A violent squall, which damaged only one of the French frigates, drove the English fleet into the offing, and damaged it so severely that Nelson was obliged to withdraw for repairs, and he could not resume his station before Toulon till June 1, twelve days after the French fleet had sailed.

The farewell of Bonaparte and Josephine was most touching. "All who have known Madame Bonaparte," says Bourrienne, "know that there have been few women so amiable. Her husband loved her passionately. He had carried her with him to Toulon, to see her until the last moment; could he know when he parted from her when he should see her again, even whether he should ever see her?"

The hour of departure had come. Bonaparte's proclamation had found the hearts of all his men. "Soldiers, you have fought on mountain, plains, in sieges; there remains war at sea for you. The Roman legions, whom you have sometimes imitated, but not yet equalled, fought Carthage both on this sea and on the plains of Zama. Victory never deserted them, because they were brave, patient to endure fatigue, disciplined and united. The Genius of Liberty, which, since its birth, has made France the arbiter of Europe, demands that she become that of the seas and of the remotest nations."

The fleet awaited the signal; the cannon of the ships replied to those of the forts. A vast multitude covering the heights above the port gazed with patriotic emotion on the imposing spectacle, which was lit by a brilliant sun. Josephine was on a balcony of the Intendant's house, trying to make out her husband, who was already embarked, through a spyglass.

What was to become of the French fleet? Would it be able to get supplies at Malta? Would the impregnable fortress open its doors? Would he get to Egypt? Would they be able to land? Would they have to fight, not merely against the Mamelukes, but also against the numberless hordes of Turkey? What did it matter? Bonaparte believed himself master of fortune.

Josephine was at once alarmed and proud, alarmed at seeing her husband brave the equally fickle waves of the sea and of destiny; and proud of the cheers that saluted the departing hero. At a signal from the admiral's flagship, the sails were bent, the ships started, with a strong breeze from the northwest. But it was not without difficulty that the fleet got out of the roadstead. Many ships drag their anchors and are helpless.

The Orient, carrying one hundred and twenty guns, on board of which was Bonaparte, careened so much as to cause great anxieties among the spectators upon the shore. Josephine trembled, but soon she was reassured; the vessel righted, and while the cheers of the multitude mingled with the music of the departing bands and the roar of the guns from the fleet and the forts, it sailed forth majestically upon the open sea.