ic would have
less reason to complain of their proverbial slowness?

In order to exhibit, under one point of view, the various administrative
duties of our indefatigable colleague, I should have to show him to you
on board the English fleet, at the instant of the capitulation of Menou,
stipulating for certain guarantees in favour of the members of the
Institute of Egypt; but services of no less importance and of a
different nature demand also our attention. They will even compel us to
retrace our steps, to ascend even to the epoch of glorious memory when
Desaix achieved the conquest of Upper Egypt, as much by the sagacity,
the moderation, and the inflexible justice of all his acts, as by the
rapidity and boldness of his military operations. Bonaparte then
appointed two numerous commissions to proceed to explore in those remote
regions, a multitude of monuments of which the moderns hardly suspected
the existence. Fourier and Costas were the commandants of these
commissions; I say the commandants, for a sufficiently imposing military
force had been assigned to them; since it was frequently after a combat
with the wandering tribes of Arabs that the astronomer found in the
movements of the heavenly bodies the elements of a future geographical
map; that the naturalist collected unknown plants, determined the
geological constitution of the soil, occupied himself with troublesome
dissections; that the antiquary measured the dimensions of edifices,
that he attempted to take a faithful sketch of the fantastic images with
which every thing was covered in that singular country,--from the
smallest pieces of furniture, from the simple toys of children, to those
prodigious palaces, to those immense facades, beside which the vastest
of modern constructions would hardly attract a look.

The two learned commissions studied with scrupulous care the magnificent
temple of the ancient Tentyris, and especially the series of
astronomical signs which have excited in our days such lively
discussions; the remarkable monuments of the mysterious and sacred Isle
of Elephantine; the ruins of Thebes, with her hundred gates, before
which (and yet they are nothing but ruins) our whole army halted, in a
state of astonishment, to applaud.

Fourier also presided in Upper Egypt over these memorable works, when
the Commander-in-Chief suddenly quitted Alexandria and returned to
France with his principal friends. Those persons then were very much
mistaken