Tacitus uttered a profound truth when he said, "Major e longinquo reverentia," which may be thus translated: "Distance adds to glory."

Bonaparte in Egypt became for the Parisians an epic hero; the Pyramids were the pedestal of his glory. The forty centuries of their history became the prologue of his career. Egypt, Palestine, Syria, those famous and wonderful names, what memories they called forth: the Pharaohs, the Holy Land, Christ, the Crusaders, the Bible, the Gospel, the Delivery of Jerusalem! Bonaparte, who wrapt himself in his fame, like Talma in a Roman toga; Bonaparte, who said, "It's imagination that rules the world"; Bonaparte, who during all the acts of the great drama of his life, kept thinking of the Parisians as Alexander ever thought the Athenians, had conjectured the effect which such an expedition would produce on the democratic chivalry, sprung from the Revolution, and felt the same courage, the same thirst for adventures as old French nobility.

Did the Crusaders display more audacity or heroism than the companions of the conqueror of the Pyramids, and is there a Golden Book greater than the collection of his proclamations, in which are inscribed the imperishable names of so many brave men?

Heated by the sun, fired by perpetual victory, the young general conceived gigantic plans. Nowhere did this poet who carried out in life his visions feel so fully at ease as in this old land of Egypt, which opened its vast and brilliant horizons before him. Even after his coronation, after Austerlitz, he was to regret this land of his dreams, where he had planned the conquest of Africa, and Asia, and then of Europe, attacked from behind. Plutarch was not enough for this soul tormented by a colossal ambition. His books were the Bible and the Koran. His Titanic imagination filled with Hebrew and Mahometan poetry, strayed in unknown and infinite regions.

Later he told Madame de Remusat what he felt at this strange period of his life, when nothing seemed impossible. "In Egypt," he said, "I found myself free from the bonds of a hindering civilization; I dreamed strange dreams and saw the way to put them into action; I created a religion; I fancied myself on the way to Asia on an elephant's back, a turban on my head, and in my hand a new Alcoran, composed by me. In my enterprises I should have concentrated the experiences of two worlds, exploring for my own use the region of all histories, attacking the English power in India, and thereby renewing my relations with the old Europe."

What a succession of amazing pictures! What varied scenes! What picturesque visions! The Nile, the Pyramids, the Mamelukes, their terrible cavalry dashing itself to pieces against the squares; the triumphal entrance into Cairo; the Arabs in the mosque singing, "Let us sing the loving-kindness of the great Allah! Who is he who has saved from the perils of the sea and the wrath of his enemies the son of Victory? Who is he who has led to the shores of the Nile the brave men of the West? It is the great Allah, who is no longer wroth with us!"

Listen to the Oriental dialogue between Bonaparte and the Mufti in the Pyramid:

"Bonaparte. Glory be to Allah! There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his prophet. The bread stolen by the wicked man turns to dust in his mouth.

"The Mufti. Thou hast spoken like the wisest of Mullahs.

"Bonaparte. I can bring down from heaven a chariot of fire and drive it on earth.

"The Mufti. Thou art the greatest captain, and art armed with power."

Bonaparte's condition in Egypt was at the same time one of grandeur and of distress. If at certain moments his ambition and pride fired him with the belief that he was not merely a conqueror but also a prophet, the founder of a religion, a demigod, at other times he was brought back to the, reality by the cruel force of destiny. His soul was filled with mingled enthusiasm and melancholy, with a frantic passion for glory and an utter contempt for all earthly vanities.

The melancholy from which he had already suffered in the Italian campaign attacked him again in Egypt, and perhaps more severely. It inspired this letter to his brother Joseph, written at Cairo, July 25th, 1798:

"You will see in the public prints the result of the battles and the conquest of Egypt, which was hotly enough disputed to add a new leaf to the military glory of this army...I have many domestic trials...Your friendship is very dear to me; nothing is needed to make me a misanthrope except to lose you and see you betray me. It is a sad condition to have at once every sort of feeling for the same person in one heart. Arrange for me to have a country-place when I return, either near Paris or in Burgundy. I mean to pass the winter there in solitude; I am disgusted with human nature; greatness palls upon me; my feelings are all withered. Glory is trivial at twenty-nine; nothing is left me but to become a real egoist. I mean to keep my house; I shall never give it to any one whatsoever. I have not enough to live on. Farewell, my only friend; I have never been unjust to you."

In Egypt, as in Italy, Bonaparte's heart was torn with jealousy. He had doubts of Josephine's feelings, of her fidelity, and this thought pursued him even in his military occupations in Syria. Amid all these adventures and perils his imagination often turned to Paris. He forgot the East in thinking of the little house in the rue de la Victoire, and the fair image of Josephine appeared to him, always fascinating, but at times disturbing. He imagined her at the Luxembourg, at the entertainments of Barras, surrounded by young musicians and adorers whom perhaps she encouraged by her smiles. This is what is narrated by Bourrienne, who was present at an outburst of suspicious wrath before the fountains of Messudiah, near El-Arish.

Bonaparte was walking alone with Junot; his face, always pale, had become paler than usual. His features were uneasy, his eye wild. After talking with Junot for a quarter of an hour, he left him and went up to Bourrienne.

"You are not devoted to me," he said roughly. "Women! Josephine! If you were devoted to me, you would have told me what I have just learned from Junot. He is a true friend. Josephine and I'm six hundred leagues away! You ought to have told me. Josephine! To deceive me in that way! She! Confound them! I will wipe out the whole brood of coxcombs and popinjays! As for her! Divorce! Yes, divorce! A public divorce! A full exposure! I must write! I know everything. You ought to have told me."

Is not this like Shakspeare's Othello?

"Look here, Iago;
All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven: 'tis gone.
Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow hell!
Yield up, O love! thy crown, and hearted throne,
To tyrannous hate! swell, bosom, with thy fraught.

Bonaparte's face changed, his voice broke.

O! Beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on: that cuckold lives in bliss,
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger:
But, O! What damned minutes tells he o'er,
Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet strongly loves!

Bourrienne tried to calm the general; he blamed Junot for a lack of generosity in thus lightly accusing a woman who was absent and unable to defend herself.

"No," he went on; "Junot does not prove his devotion by adding domestic trials to the uneasiness you feel over the situation of his companions at the beginning of a hazardous enterprise." Bonaparte was not pacified; he kept muttering something about divorce.

Bourrienne spoke to him about his glory. "My glory!" he replied; "I don't know what I wouldn't give to know that what Junot has told me is not true, so much do I love that woman! If Josephine is guilty, a divorce must separate us forever. I don't wish to be the laughing-stock of all the idlers in Paris. I am going to write to my brother Joseph; he will see to the divorce."

Nevertheless, Bonaparte softened a little, and Bourrienne at once availed himself of the moment to say:

"A letter may be intercepted; it will betray the anger that dictated it; as for the divorce, there is time enough for that later, when you shall have reflected." Bourrienne in this case was a wiser counsellor than Junot and Bonaparte did well to listen.

His jealousy was so wild at this time, that he discussed it with his step-son, Josephine's own child, Eugene de Beauharnais, who says in his Memoirs: "The commander-in-chief began to have great causes of annoyance, from the discontent which prevailed in a certain part of the army, especially among some generals, as well as from news he received from France, where attempts were made to undermine his domestic happiness. Though I was young, I inspired him with so much confidence that he spoke to me of his sufferings. It was generally in the evening that he made his complaints and confidence, striding up and down his tent. I was the only one to whom he could unbosom himself freely. I tried to soften his anger; I consoled him as well as I could, so far as my youth and my respect for him permitted."

The situation of a youth of seventeen receiving confidences of that sort is, at the least, a delicate one. In the whole matter he showed tact and a precocious wisdom, for which Bonaparte was grateful.

"The harmony existing between my step-father and me," he says, "was nearly broken by the following incident: General Bonaparte had been paying attentions to an officer's wife, and sometimes drove out with her in a barouche. She was a clever woman, and not bad-looking. At once the rumor ran that she was his mistress; so that my position as aide-de-camp and step-son of the General became very painful. Since it was part of my duty to accompany the General, who never went out without an aide-de-camp, I had already had to follow this barouche; but I felt so humiliated that I called on General Berthier to ask for a place in his regiment. A somewhat lively interview between my step-father and me was the result of this step; but from that moment he discontinued his drives in a barouche with that lady, and he never treated me any less well on account of it."

Of the eight aides-de-camp whom Bonaparte took with him to Egypt, four perished there, Julien, Sulkowski, Croisier, and Guibert; two were wounded, Duroc and Eugene de Beauharnais; Merlin and Lavalette alone got through safe and sound. If there was a dangerous duty, to ride into the desert and reconnoitre the bands of Arabs or Mamelukes, Eugene was always the first to volunteer.

One day, when he was hastening forward with his usual eagerness, Bonaparte called him back, saying, "Young man, remember that in our business we must never seek danger; we must be satisfied with doing our duty, and doing it well, and leave the rest to God! "

Another time, during the siege of Saint Jean d'Acre, the commander-in-chief sent an officer with an order to the most exposed position; he was killed. Bonaparte sent another, who was also killed; and so with a third. The order had to go, and Bonaparte had only two aides with him -- Eugene de Beauharnais and Lavalette. He beckoned to the latter to come forward, and said to him in a low voice, so that Eugene should not hear: "Lavalette, take this order. I don't want to send this boy, and have him killed so young; his mother has entrusted him to me. You know what life is. Go!"

Another day, also before Saint Jean d'Acre, a piece of shell struck Eugene de Beauharnais in the head: he fell, and lay for a long time under the ruins of a wall which the shell had knocked down. Bonaparte thought he was killed, and uttered a cry of grief. Eugene was only wounded, and at the end of nineteen days he asked leave to resume his post, in order to take part in the other assaults, which failed, like the first, in spite of Bonaparte's obstinacy.

"This wretched hole," he said to Bourrienne, "has cost me a good deal of time and a great many men; but things have gone too far; I must try one last assault. If it succeeds, the treasury, the arms of Djezzar, whose fierceness all Syria curses, will enable me to arm three hundred thousand men. Damascus calls me; the Druses are waiting for me; I shall enlarge my army; I shall announce the abolition of the tyranny of the pashas, and shall reach Constantinople at the head of these masses. Then I shall overthrow the Turkish Empire, and found a new and great one; I shall make my place for posterity, and then perhaps I shall return to Paris by Vienna, destroying the house of Austria."

All this was but a dream. It was in vain that Bonaparte's obstinacy lashed itself into a fury. It was to no purpose that he stood on a redoubt, with arms crossed, his eye fixed, a target for all the guns of the town, and commanded a final effort. His army, being destitute of artillery, had to raise the siege and return to Egypt. There was an end to the conquest of Asia Minor, the entrance into Constantinople, the attack on Europe in the rear, and a triumphal return to France by the banks of the Danube and Germany!

Bonaparte was not to be the Emperor of the East, and in speaking with vexation of the English commodore who defended Saint Jean d'Acre, he said: "That Sidney Smith made me miss my fortune."

But how skilfully he managed to conceal his failure, and to paint the Syrian expedition with brilliant colors! What cleverness in his proclamation of May 17, 1799: "Soldiers, you have crossed the desert that separates Africa from Asia more swiftly than an Arab army. The army which was marching to invade Egypt is destroyed; you have captured its general, its wagons, its supply of water, its camels. You have taken possession of all the strong places that defended the oases. You have scattered in the fields of Mount Tabor the swarms of men who had gathered from all parts of Asia, in the hope of pillaging Egypt...A few days more, and you hoped to take the Pasha himself in his palace; but, at this season, the capture of the fortress of Acre is not worth the loss of a few days; the brave men whom I should have had to lose there are now required for more important operations."

In spite of great privations and of a heat of 107 degrees F., the army took only twenty-five days, seventeen of which were spent in marching, to make the one hundred and nineteen leagues that separate Saint Jean d'Acre from Cairo. Bonaparte re-entered this city like an ancient general on the day of his triumph. The procession resembled that of a conquering Pharaoh, with its Oriental magnificence, its music, and the applause. The captured enemy opened the march; then came soldiers bearing the flags taken from the Turks.

The French garrison of Cairo and the leading men of the city went as far as the suburb of Couble to see the man whom the Arabs called Sultan Kebir, the Sultan of Fire. The Sheik el Bekri, a revered descendant of the Prophet, offered him a magnificent horse, with a saddle adorned with gold and pearls, and the young slave who held his bridle. This slave was Rustan, the Mameluke of the future Emperor.

Other presents were also offered: slaves, white and black, superb arms, costly rings, dromedaries renowned for their speed, scent-boxes filled with incense and perfumes. Preceded by the Muftis and Ulemas of the mosque of Gama el Azhar, the hero of Mount Tabor, with all the majesty of a Sesostris, entered Cairo by the Gate of Victories, Bab el Nasr.

A few days later the Turkish army, which had assembled at Rhodes, appeared, escorted by Sidney Smith's fleet, in sight of Alexandria, and anchored at Aboukir. The Turks landed, to the number of eighteen thousand. Bonaparte marched out to meet them, and, July 24, destroyed the entire army. That evening K1eber said, as he embraced him, "General, you are as great as the world!"

But the hour was drawing nigh when the hero of Aboukir was about to return to France. Fate had robbed him of his Oriental glory; his fortune was going to change the scene. He was to be neither an Alexander nor a Mahomet, but a Charlemagne. For six months he had received no news from France. He sent a flag of truce to the enemy's fleet to try to get some information under pretext of arranging an exchange of prisoners.

Sidney Smith took a malign pleasure in communicating to Bonaparte a long list of disasters: the coalition victorious; the natural boundaries of France abandoned; the Rhine recrossed; Italy lost; the fruits of so many efforts and so many victories destroyed. "Knowing General Bonaparte to be deprived of news," said the English commodore, "I hope to be agreeable to him in sending him a fresh batch of papers."

Bonaparte received them in the night of August 3, and read them till morning with a mixture of curiosity and wrath. At that moment his plan was formed; he determined to return to France, in spite of the vigilance of the English cruisers. A lack of water and an accident to one of the ships compelled the enemy to raise the blockade, and so favored his departure. Meanwhile he kept his secret to himself, went up the Nile to Cairo, stayed there six days, pretended to be summoned to an inspection in the province of Damietta, and returned mysteriously to the neighborhood of Alexandria. He made Rear-Admiral Gantheaume prepare two frigates, the Huiron and the Carriere, and two despatch-boats, the Revanche and the Fortune. It was between the arm of the Nile and Pharillon that he was to embark with a few companions, Murat, Berthier, Eugene de Beauharnais, Bourrienne, and one or two others, in the night of August 22. Sidney Smith did not even suspect so rash and unlikely a project.

Prince Eugene, in his Memoirs, thus describes this departure, which reads like a bit of romance:

"As we drew near Alexandria, I was sent down to the edge of the sea to ascertain if our preparations for departure had been observed. On my return, the General interrogated me somewhat anxiously, but his face was soon lit with satisfaction when I told him that I had seen two frigates, but that they seemed to carry the French flag. In fact, he had every reason to be satisfied, since he saw his plan successful; for these two frigates were to carry us to France. He informed me of this at once, saying, 'Eugene, you are going to see your mother.' These words did not give me the joy I should have expected. We embarked that very night, and I noticed that my companions shared my awkwardness and sadness. The mystery surrounding our departure, regret at leaving our brave companions, the fear of being captured by the English, and our faint hope of ever seeing France, may explain this feeling."

Bonaparte alone had no doubts of a safe journey. A dead calm delayed the frigate in which he had just embarked. Gantheaume was discouraged, and proposed that he return to shore.

"No," he answered the admiral. "Don't be uneasy; we shall get off."

The next day, August 23, at sunrise, the calm continued, but at nine in the morning the wind rose, and Bonaparte, bidding Egypt an eternal farewell, put out to sea, sure that fortune would not betray him.