t ferme talia, incuriosa fine_; these cynical
words, with which the historian of the Roman Empire blasted the
movements of his age, may almost serve as the epitaph to Bonaparte's
early enthusiasms. Proclaiming at the beginning of his Italian
campaigns that he came to free Italy, he yet finished his course of
almost unbroken triumphs by a surrender which his panegyrists have
scarcely attempted to condone. But the fate of Venice was almost
forgotten amidst the jubilant acclaim which greeted the conqueror of
Italy on his arrival at Paris. All France rang with the praises of the
hero who had spread liberty throughout Northern and Central Italy,
had enriched the museums of Paris with priceless masterpieces of art,
whose army had captured 150,000 prisoners, and had triumphed in 18
pitched battles--for Caldiero was now reckoned as a French
victory--and 47 smaller engagements. The Directors, shrouding their
hatred and fear of the masterful proconsul under their Roman togas,
greeted him with uneasy effusiveness. The climax of the official
comedy was reached when, at the reception of the conqueror, Barras,
pointing northwards, exclaimed: "Go there and capture the giant
corsair that infests the seas: go punish in London outrages that have
too long been unpunished": whereupon, as if overcome by his emotions,
he embraced the general. Amidst similar attentions bestowed by the
other Directors, the curtain falls on the first, or Italian, act of
the young hero's career, soon to rise on oriental adventures that were
to recall the exploits of Alexander.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VIII

EGYPT

Among the many misconceptions of the French revolutionists none was
more insidious than the notion that the wealth and power of the
British people rested on an artificial basis. This mistaken belief in
England's weakness arose out of the doctrine taught by the
_Economistes_ or _Physiocrates_ in the latter half of last century,
that commerce was not of itself productive of wealth, since it only
promoted the distribution of the products of the earth; but that
agriculture was the sole source of true wealth and prosperity. They
therefore exalted agriculture at the expense of commerce and
manufactures, and the course of the Revolution, which turned largely
on agrarian questions, tended in the same direction. Robespierre and
St. Just were never weary of contrasting the virtues of a simple
pastoral life with the corrupt