er of Miot de Melito)
and by Joseph himself. Talleyrand thanks the French Consul at
Tripoli for sending news from Egypt, and for letting Bonaparte know
what passed in Europe. See also Ragusa (Marmont), tome i. p. 441,
writing on 24th December 1798: "I have found an Arab of whom I am
sure, and who shall start to-morrow for Derne. . . . This means
can be need to send a letter to Tripoli, for boats often go there."]

Almost all those who endeavour to avert from Bonaparte the reproach of
desertion quote a letter from the Directory, dated the 26th of May 1799.
This letter may certainly have been written, but it never reached its
destination. Why then should it be put upon record?

The circumstance I have stated above determined the resolution of
Bonaparte, and made him look upon Egypt as, an exhausted field of glory,
which it was high time he had quitted, to play another part in France.
On his departure from Europe Bonaparte felt that his reputation was
tottering. He wished to do something to raise up his glory, and to fix
upon him the attention of the world. This object he had in great part
accomplished; for, in spite of serious disasters, the French flag waved
over the cataracts of the Nile and the ruins of Memphis, and the battles
of the Pyramids, and Aboukir were calculated in no small degree to
dazzle; the imagination. Cairo and Alexandria too were ours. Finding.
that the glory of his arms no longer supported the feeble power of the
Directory, he was anxious to see whether: he could not share it, or
appropriate it to himself.

A great deal has been said about letters and Secret communications from
the Directory, but Bonaparte needed no such thing. He could do what he
pleased: there was no power to check him; such had been the nature of
his arrangements an leaving France. He followed only the dictates of his
own will, and probably, had not the fleet been destroyed; he would have
departed from Egypt much sooner. To will and to do were with him one and
the same thing. The latitude he enjoyed was the result of his verbal
agreement with the Directory, whose instructions and plans he did not
wish should impede his operations.

Bonaparte left Alexandria on the 5th of August, and on the 10th arrived
at Cairo. He at first circulated the report of a journey to Upper Egypt.
This seemed so much the more reasonable, as he had really entertained
that design before he went to the Pyramids, and the fact was known t