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CHAP.

XLII.

well as soldiers. Massena succeeded Berthier, but was unable to enforce his authority. At Mantua a similar mutiny took place. A narrative of the events reached Bonaparte as well as the Directory. But the former, who saw in this but the necessary results of such a system of rapine and disorder as the government of Barras, Rewbell, and Lepaux, shrugged his shoulders and declined, as far as was prudent and decorous, all responsibility.

To avoid sharing in it, yet without setting up any flagrant opposition, to augment his military reputation and glory without imperilling both in the exclusive service of the Directory and furtherance of its ideas, and to do this upon some scene too remote for either subordination or recall, was what Bonaparte sought. And he found precisely what he wanted in an expedition to Egypt. The project of invading England he resolutely declined, after having made a survey of the enemy's coasts. The Directory could not but be aware that the despatch of their best general and soldiers across the Mediterranean, at a time when the English were strongest at sea, and when they themselves were exciting revolution and provoking Austria to renew the war, was an act little short of insanity. But it had at least the advantage of getting rid of Bonaparte, and in all probability of damaging or sinking his reputation.

The great difficulty was how to find money for the purpose. The cancelling of the assignats, and the obligation to pay taxes in gold had but scantily supplied the treasury. Bonaparte had to send money from Italy, the produce of its spoils, to aid the Directory to establish its tyranny in Fructidor. As to credit, the government had shut the door in the face of it by the first use it made of its absolute power, which was to cancel two-thirds of the debt, whether inscribed or floating. But there was Switzerland with a certain amount of treasure deposited at Berne, easy and convenient to rob.

Barras and his two colleagues had long turned thither their greedy eyes; Carnot protested against the barefaced spoliation and subjugation of a republic. But Carnot's voice was heard no more. One of the consequences of the revolution of Fructidor was to fill every place with Jacobins, and active revolutionists. These men kept down for a time, started up again and treated all the countries adjoining France as their prey. Since Bonaparte had left Italy, they were let loose upon it.* And they soon overran Switzerland under the guidance of a personal friend and relative of the Director Rewbell. The apt name of this individual was Rapinat.

Early in 1798 insurrections broke out in different parts of Switzerland, the chief one being that of the Vaudois against Berne. The French who had already invaded a portion of Basle Canton, marched at once to occupy Lausanne. The Diet of the country summoned its little army, which under D'Erlach stood on its defence. But the days of a handful of Swiss with pikes and halberds defending their country against Burgundian hordes were passed. Marshal Brune found the Swiss without artillery and cavalry. Notwithstanding the gallant defence they offered, the French forced their way into Berne, March the 3rd, where they seized some 17,000,000 of livres in lingots, besides arms and provisions in abundance. This was not enough. An equal sum was ordered by the French Directory to be levied on the property of the Swiss proprietors--Rapinat was appointed police minister to superintend the wholesale robbery.

The chief excuse of the dilapidation of Roman and of Swiss treasure, was that immense sums were required for the expedition which was preparing under the supervision of Bonaparte in the ports of Italy as well

* The letters of Bonaparte, however, plainly show that he contributed to the revolutionising Swit

zerland, and that he enjoined the
authorities of the Cisalpine to aid
in producing the disorder.

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XLII.

СНАР.
XLII.

as France. The army destined for it, and called that of the East, was ordained secretly on the 12th of April by the Directory. It was to capture Malta, take possession of Egypt, cut through the Isthmus of Suez, and thus open a way to Hindostan. It was to consist of 36,000 men, a rather insufficient number for the conquest of Asia. It was accompanied by almost a corps of scientific men. Bonaparte, elected member of the Institute, had either felt or affected more sympathy for men of science than any other class. And he hoped to derive subsidiary glory from their labours on the scientific field of Egypt, whilst he reduced the Mamelukes and restored the empire of the Pharaohs.

Just as all was ready and the expedition about to start, it was suspended by one of those popular tumults which the French diplomacy of the day was sure to excite. Bernadotte had been sent ambassador to Vienna, with orders to show more arrogance than courtesy. He was enjoined to hoist the tricolour flag in front of his hotel in Vienna, an unusual act in that capital. The flag appeared on the very day of a national and patriotic fête, and the Viennese crowd assembled for this purpose, took umbrage at the tricolour, and pulled it down. Bernadotte intervened personally with his staff, as Joseph Bonaparte had done at Rome, and on a pistol-shot being fired by one of them, the Austrian mob retaliated, broke into the embassy, and destroyed the furniture. A guard of troops alone saved Bernadotte and his family from being captured and outraged. Notwithstanding the protest of the Imperial Government, that the émeute provoked by the French flag was most contrary to its policy and offensive to its wishes, Bernadotte left Vienna. The Directory felt their wonted propensities favoured by these means. To throw up the Egyptian expedition and send Bonaparte to conquer Vienna, was the first thought. But the general declined. A war with Austria was not to be improvised but prepared for.

And the Directory had made preparations on the contrary for weakness and defeat. It had no money, its troops were in mutiny for want of pay and management. The institution of the Roman Republic had provoked the Catholic world, and the Swiss revolution had disgusted every man of liberality and humanity. The Directory, he said, had better make peace with Vienna and not allow Bernadotte's folly and presumption to precipitate the country into war. He on his part was bent on proceeding to the Nile, not the Danube.

The expedition sailed from Toulon on the 19th of May, 1798. Until the month of October in the following year Bonaparte was lost to France, the Directory pushing its fortunes and its policy alone. The events of the Egyptian campaign are thus almost strangers to those of France, and England and its forces have taken so large a part in them, that they may be consulted more at length in English than in French history. The principal circumstances will thus be no more than briefly recorded here. An amazing fact it was that the English were unprepared with a fleet to blockade Toulon, to watch or intercept the expedition. But Nelson was moving about at first with a few vessels, and not till after the French had sailed, with sufficient to combat or arrest them. Yet Bonaparte took twenty days to reach Malta from Toulon. Jacobin emissaries had already done their work with the knights and population.* The Order of Malta, established to combat the Turks, had long forgotten its mission, and gave up at once its own existence and the island to the French. In the relative position of the naval forces of the countries, this was but conquering the island for England. The French general had gone out of his way to brave his principal foe on its own element. And Bonaparte had scarcely landed in Egypt, when Nelson attacked the

* Napoleon's Correspondence.

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French fleet on the 1st of August, at anchor in the bay of Aboukir, ran between it and the land, and destroyed three-fourths of it, the remainder escaping. Whilst the French army was thus losing its communications with Europe, it had advanced to Cairo and totally routed the Mameluke cavalry in the battle of the Pyramids, presenting solid squares to their flying horse, and then slaughtering them with grape.

*

In possession of Egypt, and shut out from communication with home, it became necessary to levy large contributions from the different towns as well as enforce the old taxes. To this was added the spoil of even the families of the conquered. † Such extortion drove the people of Cairo into rebellion, which was only put down by bombardment, and wide destruction of edifices as well as men. This discontent emboldened the dispossessed beys to try to recover their domination, and a Turkish force was collected in Syria for the purpose. Bonaparte lost no time in marching against them. He took the frontier fortress of El Arisch in mid February and Jaffa on the 7th of March, the successful storming of which led to the most indiscriminate massacre. § On the 18th was commenced the siege of Acre. The French commander had won the adhesion of the mountain tribes, at least of the Druses and Mettualis, || and the reduction of Acre would have made him master of Syria as well as of Egypt. But Djezzar, pacha of that town, declined all his offers, and reinforced by the guns and sailors of Sir Sydney Smith's fleet defied the French assaults, and repelled them with unexpected vigour. It was this admiral, indeed, whom Bonaparte denounced as a madman, that

See the amount in the Napoleon correspondence.

†The women of the Harem were obliged to give up their jewels, or redeem them.

See Napoleon's letter ordering the destruction of the great Mosque.

Napoleon says he never saw anything so hideous.

Correspondence.

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