s from
the Mediterranean, Cherbourg, Boulogne and the Scheldt, and threaten
England with an array of 200,000 fighting men.[241]

In March, 1811, this plan was modified, possibly because, as in 1804,
he found the difficulties of a descent on our coasts greater than he
first imagined. He now seeks merely to weary out the English in the
present year. But in the next year, or in 1813, he will send an
expedition of 40,000 men from the Scheldt, as if to menace Ireland;
and, having thrown us off our guard, he will divide that force into
four parts for the recovery of the French and Dutch colonies in the
West Indies. He counts also on having a part of his army in Spain free
for service elsewhere: it must be sent to seize Sicily or Egypt.

But this was not all. His thoughts also turn to the Cape of Good Hope.
Eight thousand men are to sail from Brest to seize that point of
vantage at which he had gazed so longingly in 1803. Of these plans,
the recovery of Egypt evidently lay nearest to his heart. He orders
the storage at Toulon of everything needful for an Egyptian
expedition, along with sixty gun-vessels of light draught suitable for
the navigation of the Nile or of the lakes near the coast.[242] Decres
is charged to send models of these craft; and we may picture the eager
scrutiny which they received. For the Orient was still the pole to
which Napoleon's whole being responded. Turned away perforce by wars
with Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Spain, it swung round towards Egypt
and India on the first chance of European peace, only to be driven
back by some untoward shock nearer home. In 1803 he counted on the
speedy opening of a campaign on the Ganges. In 1811 he proposes that
the tricolour shall once more wave on the citadel of Cairo, and
threaten India from the shores of the Red Sea. But a higher will than
his disposed of these events, and ordained that he should then be
flung back from Russia and fight for his Empire in the plains of
Saxony.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXII

THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN

Two mighty and ambitious potentates never fully trust one another.
Under all the shows of diplomatic affection, there remains a thick
rind of reserve or fear. Especially must that be so with men who
spring from a fierce untamed stock. Despite the training of Laharpe,
Alexander at times showed the passions and finesse of a Boyar. And who
shall say that the early Jacobinism and later culture of Na