ting till
next morning; that is to say, to delay the landing twelve hours. He
observed that Nelson could not return from Syria for several days.
Bonaparte listened to these representations with impatience and
ill-humour. He replied peremptorily, "Admiral, we have no time to lose.
Fortune gives me but three days; if I do not profit by them we are lost."
He relied much on fortune; this chimerical idea constantly influenced his
resolutions.

Bonaparte having the command of the naval as well as the military force,
the Admiral was obliged to yield to his wishes.

I attest these facts, which passed in my presence, and no part of which
could escape my observation. It is quite false that it was owing to the
appearance of a sail which, it is pretended, was descried, but of which,
for my part, I saw nothing, that Bonaparte exclaimed, "Fortune, have you
abandoned me? I ask only five days!" No such thing occurred.

It was one o'clock in the morning of the 2d of July when we landed on the
soil of Egypt, at Marabou, three leagues to the west of Alexandria. We
had to regret the loss of some lives; but we had every reason to expect
that our losses would have been greater.

At three o'clock the same morning the General-in-Chief marched on
Alexandria with the divisions of Kleber, Bon, and Menou. The Bedouin
Arabs, who kept hovering about our right flank and our rear, picked up
the stragglers.

Having arrived within gunshot of Alexandria, we scaled the ramparts, and
French valour soon triumphed over all obstacles.

The first blood I saw shed in war was General Kleber's. He was struck in
the head by a ball, not in storming the walls, but whilst heading the
attack. He came to Pompey's Pillar, where many members of the staff were
assembled, and where the General-in-Chief was watching the attack. I
then spoke to Kleber for the first time, and from that day our friendship
commenced. I had the good fortune to contribute somewhat towards the
assistance of which he stood in need, and which, as we were situated,
could not be procured very easily.

It has been endeavoured to represent the capture of Alexandria, which
surrendered after a few hours, as a brilliant exploit. The
General-in-Chief himself wrote that the city had been taken after a few
discharges of cannon; the walls, badly fortified, were soon scaled.
Alexandria was not delivered up to pillage, as has been asserted, and
often repeated. This would have been a most impolitic mode o