Bonaparte wrote an urgent letter to General Lannes, directing him to
expedite the transit of the booty to Toulon, where three million
francs were forthwith expended on the completion of the armada.

This letter, and also the testimony of Madame de Stael, Barras,
Bourrienne, and Mallet du Pan, show that he must have been a party to
this interference in Swiss affairs, which marks a debasement, not only
of Bonaparte's character, but of that of the French army and people.
It drew from Coleridge, who previously had seen in the Revolution the
dawn of a nobler era, an indignant protest against the prostitution of
the ideas of 1789:

"Oh France that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind,
Are these thy boasts, champion of human kind?
To mix with Kings in the low lust of sway,
Yell in the hunt and join the murderous prey? ...
The sensual and the dark rebel in vain
Slaves by their own compulsion. In mad game
They burst their manacles: but wear the name
Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain."

The occupation by French troops of the great central bastion of the
European system seemed a challenge, not only to idealists, but to
German potentates. It nearly precipitated a rupture with Vienna, where
the French tricolour had recently been torn down by an angry crowd.
But Bonaparte did his utmost to prevent a renewal of war that would
blight his eastern prospects; and he succeeded. One last trouble
remained. At his final visit to the Directory, when crossed about some
detail, he passionately threw up his command. Thereupon Rewbell, noted
for his incisive speech, drew up the form of resignation, and
presenting it to Bonaparte, firmly said, "Sign, citizen general." The
general did not sign, but retired from the meeting apparently
crestfallen, but really meditating a _coup d'etat_. This last
statement rests on the evidence of Mathieu Dumas, who heard it
through General Desaix, a close friend of Bonaparte; and it is clear
from the narratives of Bourrienne, Barras, and Madame Junot that,
during his last days in Paris, the general was moody, preoccupied, and
fearful of being poisoned.

At last the time of preparation and suspense was at an end. The aims
of the expedition as officially defined by a secret decree on April
12th included the capture of Egypt and the exclusion of the English
from "all their possessions in the East to which the general can
come"; Bonaparte was also to have the isthmus of Suez cut through; to
"assu