capable than any
other of executing the plans he had formed; and Bonaparte was not the man
to sacrifice the interests of policy to personal resentment. It is
certainly true that he then put into practice that charming phrase of
Moliere's--"I pardon you, but you shall pay me for this!"

With respect to all whom he had left in Egypt Bonaparte stood in a very
singular situation. On becoming Chief of the Government he was not only
the depositary of all communications made to the Directory; but letters
sent to one address were delivered to another, and the First Consul
received the complaints made against the General who had so abruptly
quitted Egypt. In almost all the letters that were delivered to us he
was the object of serious accusation. According to some he had not
avowed his departure until the very day of his embarkation; and he had
deceived everybody by means of false and dissembling proclamations.
Others canvassed his conduct while in Egypt: the army which had triumphed
under his command he had abandoned when reduced to two-thirds of its
original force and a prey to all the horrors of sickness and want: It
must be confessed that these complaints and accusations were but too well
founded, and one can never cease wondering at the chain of fortunate
circumstances which so rapidly raised Bonaparte to the Consular seat.
In the natural order of things, and in fulfilment of the design which he
himself had formed, he should have disembarked at Toulon, where the
quarantine laws would no doubt have been observed; instead of which, the
fear of the English and the uncertainty of the pilots caused him to go to
Frejus, where the quarantine laws were violated by the very persons most
interested in respecting them. Let us suppose that Bonaparte had been
forced to perform quarantine at Toulon. What would have ensued? The
charges against him would have fallen into the hands of the Directory,
and he would probably have been suspended, and put upon his trial.

Among the letters which fell into Bonaparte's hands, by reason of the
abrupt change of government, was an official despatch (of the 4th
Vendemiaire, year VIII.) from General Kleber at Cairo to the Executive
Directory, in which that general spoke in very stringent terms of the
sudden departure of Bonaparte and of the state in which the army in Egypt
had been left. General Kleber further accused him of having evaded, by
his flight, the difficulties which he thus transferred to hi