es off the coast of Egypt. So far, his reasons for the Syrian
campaign are intelligible and sound. But he also gave out that,
leaving Desaix and his Ethiopian supernumeraries to defend Egypt, he
himself would accomplish the conquest of Syria and the East: he would
raise in revolt the Christians of the Lebanon and Armenia, overthrow
the Turkish power in Asia, and then march either on Constantinople or
Delhi.

It is difficult to take this quite seriously, considering that he had
only 12,000 men available for these adventures; and with anyone but
Bonaparte they might be dismissed as utterly Quixotic. But in his case
we must seek for some practical purpose; for he never divorced fancy
from fact, and in his best days imagination was the hand-maid of
politics and strategy rather than the mistress. Probably these
gorgeous visions were bodied forth so as to inspirit the soldiery and
enthrall the imagination of France. He had already proved the immense
power of imagination over that susceptible people. In one sense, his
whole expedition was but a picturesque drama; and an imposing climax
could now be found in the plan of an Eastern Empire, that opened up
dazzling vistas of glory and veiled his figure in a grandiose mirage,
beside which the civilian Directors were dwarfed into ridiculous
puppets.

If these vast schemes are to be taken seriously, another explanation
of them is possible, namely, that he relied on the example set by
Alexander the Great, who with a small but highly-trained army had
shattered the stately dominions of the East. If Bonaparte trusted to
this precedent, he erred. True, Alexander began his enterprise with a
comparatively small force: but at least he had a sure base of
operations, and his army in Thessaly was strong enough to prevent
Athens from exchanging her sullen but passive hostility for an
offensive that would endanger his communications by sea. The Athenian
fleet was therefore never the danger to the Macedonians that Nelson
and Sir Sidney Smith were to Bonaparte. Since the French armada
weighed anchor at Toulon, Britain's position had became vastly
stronger. Nelson was lord of the Mediterranean: the revolt in Ireland
had completely failed: a coalition against France was being formed;
and it was therefore certain that the force in Egypt could not be
materially strengthened. Bonaparte did not as yet know the full extent
of his country's danger; but the mere fact that he would have to bear
the pressu