ew life, only that his wondrous gifts and
sublime self-confidence might tower aloft the more conspicuously,
bewildering alike the malcontents of Paris, the generals of the old
Empire, the peoples of the Levant, and the statesmen of Britain. Of
all these triumphs assuredly the last was not the least. The Peace of
Amiens left France the arbitress of Europe, and, by restoring to her
all her lost colonies, it promised to place her in the van of the
oceanic and colonizing peoples.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XV

A FRENCH COLONIAL EMPIRE

ST. DOMINGO--LOUISIANA--INDIA--AUSTRALIA

"Il n'y a rien dans l'histoire du monde de comparable aux forces
navales de l'Angleterre, a l'etendue et a la richesse de son
commerce, a la masse de ses dettes, de ses defenses, de ses moyens,
et a la fragilite des bases sur lesquelles repose l'edifice immense
de sa fortune."--BARON MALOUET, _Considerations historiques sur
l'Empire de la Mer_.

There are abundant reasons for thinking that Napoleon valued the Peace
of Amiens as a necessary preliminary to the restoration of the French
Colonial Empire. A comparison of the dates at which he set on foot his
oceanic schemes will show that they nearly all had their inception in
the closing months of 1801 and in the course of the following year.
The sole important exceptions were the politico-scientific expedition
to Australia, the ostensible purpose of which insured immunity from
the attacks of English cruisers even in the year 1800, and the plans
for securing French supremacy in Egypt, which had been frustrated in
1801 and were, to all appearance, abandoned by the First Consul
according to the provisions of the Treaty of Amiens. The question
whether he really relinquished his designs on Egypt is so intimately
connected with the rupture of the Peace of Amiens that it will be more
fitly considered in the following chapter. It may not, however, be out
of place to offer some proofs as to the value which Bonaparte set on
the valley of the Nile and the Isthmus of Suez. A letter from a spy at
Paris, preserved in the archives of our Foreign Office, and dated
July 10th, 1801, contains the following significant statement with
reference to Bonaparte: "Egypt, which is considered here as lost to
France, is the only object which interests his personal ambition and
excites his revenge." Even at the end of his days, he thought
longingly of the land of t