points for embarking an
invading force. For this service he was eminently qualified; and many
local improvements of great importance, long afterwards effected, were
first suggested by him at this period. But, if he had really thought
otherwise beforehand (which M. de Bourienne denies), the result of his
examination was a perfect conviction that the time was not yet come for
invading England. He perceived that extensive and tedious preparations
were indispensable ere the French shipping on that coast could be put
into a condition for such an attempt; and the burst of loyalty which
the threat of invasion called forth in every part of Britain--the
devotion with which all classes of the people answered the appeal of the
government--the immense extent to which the regular and volunteer forces
were increased everywhere--these circumstances produced a strong
impression on his not less calculating than enterprising mind. He had
himself, in the course of the preceding autumn, suggested to the
minister for foreign affairs, the celebrated Talleyrand, the propriety
of making an effort against England in another quarter of the world:--of
seizing Malta, proceeding to occupy Egypt, and therein gaining at once a
territory capable of supplying to France the loss of her West Indian
colonies, and the means of annoying Great Britain in her Indian trade
and empire. To this scheme he now recurred: the East presented a field
of conquest and glory on which his imagination delighted to brood:
"Europe," said he, "is but a molehill, all the great glories have come
from Asia." The injustice of attacking the dominions of the Grand
Seignior, an old ally of France, formed but a trivial obstacle in the
eyes of the Directory: the professional opinion of Buonaparte that the
invasion of England, if attempted then, must fail, could not but carry
its due weight: the temptation of plundering Egypt and India was great;
and great, perhaps above all the rest, was the temptation of finding
employment for Napoleon at a distance from France. The Egyptian
expedition was determined on: but kept strictly secret. The attention of
England was still riveted on the coasts of Normandy and Picardy, between
which and Paris Buonaparte studiously divided his presence--while it was
on the borders of the Mediterranean that the ships and the troops really
destined for action were assembling.

Buonaparte, having rifled to such purpose the cabinets and galleries of
the Italian pr