Memoirs of Napoleon, vol 4 | Page 5

head of the State he wished to turn
Egypt, which he had conquered as a general, to the advantage of his
policy as Consul. If Bonaparte triumphed over a feeling of dislike in
consigning the command of the army to Kleber, it was because he knew
Kleber to be more capable than any other of executing the plans he had
formed; and Bonaparte was not the man to sacrifice the interests of
policy to personal resentment. It is certainly true that he then put into
practice that charming phrase of Moliere's--"I pardon you, but you shall
pay me for this!"
With respect to all whom he had left in Egypt Bonaparte stood in a very
singular situation. On becoming Chief of the Government he was not
only the depositary of all communications made to the Directory; but
letters sent to one address were delivered to another, and the First
Consul received the complaints made against the General who had so
abruptly quitted Egypt. In almost all the letters that were delivered to us
he was the object of serious accusation. According to some he had not
avowed his departure until the very day of his embarkation; and he had
deceived everybody by means of false and dissembling proclamations.
Others canvassed his conduct while in Egypt: the army which had
triumphed under his command he had abandoned when reduced to
two-thirds of its original force and a prey to all the horrors of sickness
and want: It must be confessed that these complaints and accusations

were but too well founded, and one can never cease wondering at the
chain of fortunate circumstances which so rapidly raised Bonaparte to
the Consular seat. In the natural order of things, and in fulfilment of the
design which he himself had formed, he should have disembarked at
Toulon, where the quarantine laws would no doubt have been observed;
instead of which, the fear of the English and the uncertainty of the
pilots caused him to go to Frejus, where the quarantine laws were
violated by the very persons most interested in respecting them. Let us
suppose that Bonaparte had been forced to perform quarantine at
Toulon. What would have ensued? The charges against him would have
fallen into the hands of the Directory, and he would probably have been
suspended, and put upon his trial.
Among the letters which fell into Bonaparte's hands, by reason of the
abrupt change of government, was an official despatch (of the 4th
Vendemiaire, year VIII.) from General Kleber at Cairo to the Executive
Directory, in which that general spoke in very stringent terms of the
sudden departure of Bonaparte and of the state in which the army in
Egypt had been left. General Kleber further accused him of having
evaded, by his flight, the difficulties which he thus transferred to his
successor's shoulders, and also of leaving the army "without a sou in
the chest," with pay in arrear, and very little supply of munitions or
clothing.
The other letters from Egypt were not less accusatory than Kleber's;
and it cannot be doubted that charges of so precise a nature, brought by
the general who had now become commander-in-chief against his
predecessor, would have had great weight, especially backed as they
were by similar complaints from other quarters. A trial would have
been inevitable; and then, no 18th Brumaire, no Consulate, no Empire,
no conquest of Europe- but also, it may be added, no St. Helena. None
of these, events would have ensued had not the English squadron, when
it appeared off Corsica, obliged the Huiron to scud about at hazard, and
to touch at the first land she could reach.
The Egyptian expedition filled too important a place in the life of
Bonaparte for him to neglect frequently reviving in the public mind the

recollection of his conquests in the East. It was not to be forgotten that
the head of the Republic was the first of her generals. While Moreau
received the command of the armies of the Rhine, while Massena, as a
reward for the victory of Zurich, was made Commander-in-Chief in
Italy, and while Brune was at the head of the army of Batavia,
Bonaparte, whose soul was in the camps, consoled himself for his
temporary inactivity by a retrospective glance on his past triumphs. He
was unwilling that Fame should for a moment cease to blazon his name.
Accordingly, as soon as he was established at the head of the
Government, he caused accounts of his Egyptian expedition to be from
time to time published in the Moniteur. He frequently expressed his
satisfaction that the accusatory correspondence, and, above all, Kleber's
letter, had fallen into his own hands.' Such was Bonaparte's perfect
self-command that immediately after perusing that letter he dictated to
me the following proclamation,