Buonaparte.-Honor to Allah! Who is the calif who caused this pyramid to be opened, and troubled the ashes of the dead?

Mohamed. It is believed that it was Mahomet, the commander of believers, who reigned many ages ago at Bagdat. Others imagine it was the renowned Aaron Raschild (God pardon him!), who thought of finding hidden treasures. But when they had by his orders entered this apartment, tradition relates, they found nought but mummies, and this inscription on the wall: The wicked shall commit iniquity without fruit, but not without remorse.'

Buonaparte.-Bread obtained by the wicked by stealth shall fill his mouth with gravel. Mahomed (bowing).—It is the essence of wisdom.

Buonaparte.-Glory to Allah! there is no other God but God. Mahomet is his prophet, and I am one of his friends.

Solyman. The blessings of peace and health to him, sent from God; and also to you, invincible general, favorite of Mahomet.

Buonaparte.-Mufti, I thank you: the divine Koran is the delight of my mind, and the attention of my eyes. I love the prophet, and I intend before long to go to see and honor his tomb in the sacred city; but my mission is previously to exterminate the Mamelukes.

Ibrahim-May the angels of victory sweep away the dust in your way, and cover you with their wings. The Mameluke has deserved

death.

Buonaparte. He has been struck and delivered up to the black angels, Moukir and Quaki. God, on whom all depend, has commanded his dominion to be destroyed.

Solyman. He extended the hand of rapine over the lands, the harvests, and horses of Egypt.

Buonaparte.-And also over the most beautiful slaves, very holy mufti. Allah has dried up and withered his hand. If Egypt is his farm, let him show the deed that God has granted it to him; but God is just and merciful to his people.

Ibrahim. O thou bravest man amongst the children of Issa (Jesus Christ), Allah will command the exterminating angel to follow you, to deliver the land of Egypt.

Buonaparte.-This land was delivered up to twenty-four oppressors, all rebels to the grand seignior, our ally (may God encompass him with glory!), and to 10,000 slaves assembled from Čircassia and Georgia. Adriel, the angel of death, has breathed on them; we are come, and they have disappeared.

Mohamed.-Noble successor of Scander (Alexander) honor be to your invincible arms, and to the unexpected thunder, which issues from the midst of your warriors on horseback (the flying artillery).

Buonaparte.-Believest thou this thunder is the work of the children of men? Dost thou believe it? Allah has placed it in my hands by the genius of war.

Ibrahim. We acknowledge, in your works, Allah who sends you. Would you be a conqueror if Allah had not permitted it? The Delta

and all the neighbouring countries resound with thy miracles.

Buonaparte.-A heavenly car (the balloon) shall ascend by my orders into the regions of the clouds, and lightning shall descend on the earth along a metal wire (the electric conductor) as soon as I shall command it.

Solyman.-And the great serpent that issued out from the foot of Pompey's pillar on the day of your triumphal entry into Scandarich (Alexandria), and which remained dried up at the base of the pillar; was not that another wonder performed by your hand?

Buonaparte.-Lights of the age! you are destined to see still greater wonders, for the days of regeneration are arrived.

Ibrahim. The divine Unity regards you with an eye of love, adorer of Issa; and makes you to be the support and prop of the children of the prophet.

Buonaparte. Has not Mahomet said, 'Every man who adores God and performs good actions (whatever his religion may be) shall be saved ?' Solyman, Mohamed, Ibrahim (bowing).-He has said it.

Buonaparte.-And if I have (by order from on high) humbled the pride of the vicar of Issa (the pope) by diminishing his terrestrial possessions, to heap on him heavenly ones; tell me, was it not to render glory to God, whose mercy is infinite?

Mohamed (with a timid air).-The mufti of Rome was rich and powerful, but we are very poor muftis.

Buonaparte.-I know it, fear not; you have been weighed in the balance of Belshazzar, and you have been found light. Does not this pyramid then contain any treasure known to you?

Solyman (his hands on his breast).-None, lord; we swear it by the holy city of Mecca.

Buonaparte.-Misfortune, and thrice misfortune, wait on those who seek after perishable riches, and who covet gold and silver like clay.

Solyman.-Thou hast spared the vicar of Issa, and treated him with clemency and kindness.

Buonaparte. He was an old man I honored (may God fulfil his wishes, when they are regulated by justice and truth!), but he was wrong in condemning to eternal flames all Mussulmen, and God forbids all intolerance.

Ibrahim.-Glory to Allah and his prophet, who has sent thee in the midst of us, to rekindle the faith of the weak, and open again to the faithful the gates of the seventh heaven.

Buonaparte.-You have said well, too zealous muftis! Be faithful to Allah, the sovereign master of the seven wonderful heavens; to Mahomet his vizier, who traverses through all these heavens in a night. Be the friends of France, and Allah, Mahomet, and the French will reward you.

Ibrahim. May the prophet himself cause you to sit on his left hand, in the day of resurrection, after the third sound of the trumpet.

Buonaparte.-Let him who hath ears to understand, hear! The hour of political resurrection is come, for all the people who groaned under oppression. Muftis, imans, mullaks, dervises, calenders, instruct the people of Egypt;

encourage them to join themselves to us, to annihilate the beys and Mamelukes. Favor the commerce of France in your countries, and their enterprises to arrive from hence in the ancient country of Brama. Offer them a staple in your ports, and drive far from you the islanders of Albion, cursed amongst the children of Issa, such is the will of Mahomet. The treasures, industry, and friendship of the French, shall be your portion, until you ascend to the seventh heaven, and that seated by the sides of houris, with black eyes, always young, and always virgins, you repose under the shade of the laba, whose branches will spontaneously offer to true Mussulmen every thing they can possibly wish for. Solyman (bowing).-You have spoken as the wisest of the mullaks: we place confidence and faith in thee and thy words; we will serve thy cause, and God hears us.

Buonaparte.-God is great, and his works are marvellous; his peace be on you, most holy muftis.

As soon as convenient, after this interview, Buonaparte organised the government of Cairo, established there an institute, a library, and a laboratory for chemistry. Order and quiet reigned for a time throughout the city, when all on a sudden a terrible and unforeseen insurrection burst forth; general Dupuy was killed, the house of Caffarelli was pillaged, his guards and his agents all strangled, and every Frenchman who came in the way of the rebels experienced the same fate. The Arabs presented themselves at the gate of the city, the generale was beat, the French were immediately in arms, and formed themselves in moving columns: they attacked the insurgents, made amongst them a horrible slaughter, and gained a complete victory. Buonaparte then put a stop to the sanguinary conflict, and addressed the following proclamation to the inhabitants of Cairo:

Those men, whom ye have suffered your selves to be deluded by; those victims to their obstinacy, are no more. God commands us to be merciful, and I have been merciful towards

you.

'I have only been wroth with you, because you rebelled against me. I deprived you of your divan: I this day restore it to you. Scherifs, imans, expounders of the law of Mahomet, let the people know that those who nourish enmity in their hearts against me, shall have no peace in this world, nor in that to come. Is there any man blind enough not to see that all I undertake is predestinated? Is there any one who is such an infidel as to conceive a doubt against that belief which teaches us that predestination governs this vast universe, and that all is subject to the empire of Fate? Let the people know, that, ever since the beginning of the world, it was written, that after having destroyed the enemies of Ismaelism, and broken in pieces the cross, I should arrive from the utmost part of the west to fulfil my appointed task? Open the Koran, and prove to the multitude, by more than twenty passages in that sacred book, that what has now happened, and what is yet to come to pass, by me, is there foretold.

Let those who are only prevented from exe

crating us by the terror of our arms, change their sentiments; for, in calling down the anger of heaven upon us, they are only pronouncing their own destruction. Let the true believers lift up their prayers, unceasingly, for the success of our arms. I can penetrate into the secret recesses of your hearts. Nothing is hid from me; I am acquainted with those thoughts to which utterance never was yet given. A day will come, when all the world will clearly see that I have been acting by the commands of heaven, and that all human efforts can avail nothing against me. Blessed are the faithful who will be the first to follow me!'

This proclamation produced such an effect that a hymn to the praise of the French general was sung in the principal mosque of Cairo. One of the strophes contains the following sen

tences:

'The warriors of the West are worshippers of the mighty Allah. They honor the laws of his prophet, they love and cherish the human race, and succour the oppressed. Therefore is the favored son of victory the chosen of the mighty Allah! Therefore are the warriors of the West protected by the invincible shield of the mighty Allah!'

On the 26th of December, 1798, Buonaparte arrived at Suez; the following day was spent in viewing the town and coast, and ordering such works and fortifications as he deemed necessary for their defence. On the 28th of December he passed the Red Sea at a ford near Suez, which is practicable at low water, and proceeded to the fountains of Moses, about three leagues and a half from Suez, in Asia; these fountains are formed by five springs, which rise from the tops of low sand-hills; the water is sweet, but a little brackish; near them were the remains of a small modern aqueduct, which conveyed the water to cisterns near the sea-shore. Buonaparte returned the same evening to Suez, but, it being high water, he was obliged to ascend to the extremity of the Red Sea. This route was the more tedious, from the guide having lost his way in the marshes, where they were sometimes up to the middle in water. Thus, like a second Pharaoh, he narrowly escaped drowning. This,' said he, 'would have furnished all the preachers of Christianity with a splendid text against me.' On reaching the Arabian coast he received a deputation of the Cenobite monks of mount Sinai, who came to implore his protection, and to request him to inscribe his name on the ancient register of their charters, with which he complied.

About the 17th of March, 1799, Napoleon, after having defeated the Mamelukes, and taken possession of Alexandria and Cairo, led a detachment of 12,000 men into Palestine, with the intention, it has been said, of taking possession of Jerusalem, and restoring the Jews. Acre is a small town on the sea-coast, thirty-seven miles north of Jerusalem. To this town, which was wretchedly fortified, and garrisoned only by a few Turks, he laid siege in form, and the gover nor would have surrendered at discretion, had he not been assisted by Sir Sidney Smith, and several ships of war, to make a vigorous resist

ance. By the persevering valor of the British, and the brute force of their semi-barbarous allies, Buonaparte was detained before Acre sixty-nine days. Foiled in eleven different attempts to carry the place by assault, and losing upon an average sixty men a day, he was ultimately obliged to retreat.

At this siege a shell, thrown by Sir Sidney Smith, fell close at Buonaparte's feet. Two soldiers who were near him seized and closely embraced him before and behind, making a rampart of their bodies against the effects of the shell, which exploded and overwhelmed them all with sand. Neither of these soldiers were wounded, but they sunk into the hole occasioned by the explosion. He made them both officers.

On the 17th of May Napoleon addresssed the following historical proclamation to the French army:

'Soldiers! You have traversed the desert which separates Africa from Asia with more rapidity than the army of the Arabs. The army which marched to invade Egypt is annihilated; its campaign equipage, its baggage, its stores, and its camels. You have taken all the strong places which defend the wells of the forest. You have scattered over the plains of Mount Tabor that cloud of men that came from every part of Asia, with the hope of plundering Egypt. The thirty sail which you have seen arrive before Acre, but twelve days ago, brought that army that was to lay siege to Alexandria. Compelled to retreat to Acre, they met the end which fate had assigned them. A part of the enemy's colors will grace your entry into Egypt. In short, after having with only a handful of men carried on the war for three months in the very heart of Syria, taken forty field pieces, fifty colors, made 6000 prisoners, razed the fortifications of Gazah, Jaffa, Caiffa, and Acre, we are going to return to Egypt. It is now the time for me to go on shore.

'Yet a few days longer, and you may hope to seize the Pacha himself, in the midst of his palace; but just now the taking of the castle of Acre is not worth the loss of our time: those brave men also who might chance to fall are now wanted to execute operations infinitely more essential.

'Soldiers! We have a course to pursue replete with peril and fatigue. After we shall have reduced the East to a state incapable of acting against us in this campaign, we may perhaps find it necessary to push our conquests to a part of the West. You will there find fresh opportunities of acquiring glory; and, if amongst so many battles, each day should be marked with the death of a hero, new warriors will spring up, and enrol themselves amongst those few who derive enthusiasm from danger, in the cause of freedom.'

The army having crossed the desert; by the rapidity of its movements had certainly disconcerted the plans of its Asiatic enemies. It had scattered on the plains of Edredon and Mount Tabor 85,000 horse and 10,000 foot. The vainglorious hope of seizing Dgezzar Pacha in his palace at Acre did not impose upon Buonaparte.

While preparations were making for a return to Egypt, the army withstood several sorties of the enemy; but at length, finding it requisite to raise the siege, the general-in-chief, according to what he wrote to the directory, erected a battery of twenty-four guns and mortars, which kept up a constant fire for seventy hours, razed the houses of Dgezzar level with the ground, and destroyed the principal monuments: he added, that the whole town was a constant blaze of fire.

After experiencing fatigues almost incredible, he gave orders for the departure of the army, and on the 15th of June they arrived at Cairo, in 'parade order.'

Sidney Smith, Buonaparte acknowledged, was a brave officer: he displayed considerable ability in the treaty of El Arish, for the evacuation of Egypt by the French. He took advantage of the discontent which prevailed among the French troops at being so long away from France, and other circumstances. He also showed great honor in sending immediately to Kleber the refusal of lord Keith to ratify the treaty, which saved the French army; if he had concealed that fact seven or eight days longer, Cairo would have been given up to the Turks, and the French army necessarily obliged to surrender to the English. He also showed great humanity and honor in all his proceedings towards the French who fell into his hands. He landed at Havre on account of some foolish bet that he had made, according to some, to go to the theatre; others said it was to obtain some information: however, he was arrested, and confined in the temple. Shortly after Buonaparte returned from Italy he wrote to him, requesting his intercession in his behalf: but, under the circumstances in which he was taken, Napoleon could do nothing for him. Buonaparte added, He is active, intelligent, intriguing, and indefatigable; but I believe that he is mezzo pazzo.'

About the middle of August, after his return to Cairo, Buonaparte learned the disembarkation of the Turks at Aboukir, the surrender of the place, and the dangerous situation of Alexandria. Mustapha Pacha, and about 18,000 men, were intrenching themselves in the peninsula of Aboukir, where a great number of cannon had already been disembarked. The obstinacy of the Turkish troops, in defending themselves, was beyond description; and never was French valor put to so severe a test in that part of the world. At length the Turks, confounded and terror-struck, on finding their retreat cut off, beheld death on every side: the infantry charged them with the bayonet, the cavalry cut them down with the sabre; no alternative but the sea remained. 10,000 men committed themselves to the waves amidst showers of musquetry and grape-shot, and not one man was saved. Among the cannon taken, were two pieces presented to the grand seignior by the court of London.

On the landing of the Turks here, the French had fallen back to concentrate their forces. The pacha who commanded them was delighted: he mistook this movement for that of fear; and, on perceiving Murad Bey, he exclaimed, 'So, these are your terrible French! See how they fly before me!'- Pacha,' replied the indignant

Murad Bey, render thanks to the prophet; if they should return you will disappear before them like dust before the wind!' A prediction but too fatally verified.

Napoleon always shared the fatigues of the army; and their privations were sometimes so great that they were compelled to contend with eath other for the smallest comforts. Once, in the deserts, the soldiers would scarcely allow the general to dip his hands in a muddy stream of water. Passing the ruins of Pelusium, almost suffocated with the heat, a soldier gave up to him a fragment of an ancient door-way, beneath which he contrived to shade his head for a few minutes; and this,' said Napoleon, was no trifling favor.'

The discontent of the French troops in Egypt, which was at times very high, was happily spent in jokes and sarcasms. This humor bears a Frenchman through a number of difficulties. General Caffarelli, supposed to have been one of the promoters of the expedition, was by no means liked. He had a wooden leg, having lost the other on the banks of the Rhine. Whenever the soldiers saw him hobbling along they would say, loud enough for him to hear, That fellow cares for nothing amongst us: he is certain, happen what may, to have one leg in France.'

In reference to the six or seven acres of land that Buonaparte had promised his troops on his departure from France; when they afterwards found themselves in the midst of the desert, surrounded by the boundless ocean of sand, they pretended to cheer one another with a view of it; they said their general ' had been very moderate in promising so little; he might have made us a more unlimited offer; we should not abuse his good nature.' On their first entering the desert, they called to one another to look at the six acres awarded to each of them by the government.

But, though the devotedness and attachment of the army of Egypt had evidently performed so much for their general-in-chief, we have his own authority for asserting, that no army was less fit for that quarter of the world. It would be difficult to describe the disgust, the discontent, the melancholy, the despair of that army, on its first arrival in Egypt. Buonaparte saw two dragoons rush out of the ranks, and throw themselves into the Nile. Bertrand had seen the most distinguished generals, such as Lannes and Murat, in momentary fits of rage, throw their laced hats in the sand, and trample on them. This army,' said Napoleon, had been satiated with wealth, rank, pleasure, and consideration; they were not fit for the deserts and fatigues of Egypt.' More than one conspiracy was formed to carry away the flags from Alexandria, and other things of the same sort. The influence, the character, and the glory of the general, could alone restrain the troops. One day, Napoleon, loosing his temper in his turn, rushed among a group of discontented generals, and, addressing himself to the tallest, said, You have held mutinous language; take care that I don't fulfil my duty; your five foot ten should not save you from being shot in a couple

of hours.'

The remains of this army, two years after

Napoleon had left Egypt, notwithstanding climate, and the almost incessant combats in which they had been engaged, during the space of seven or eight and twenty months, were still so numerous, when they defiled as prisoners before the British army, as to excite considerable surprise.

La Cases says, the French force, at its landing in Egypt, amounted to 30,000 men: it was augmented by the wrecks of the naval battle of the Nile, and some partial arrivals from France, and yet the total loss of the army amounted only to 8915; viz.

Feeling no doubt the rashness of his eastern enterprise, his troops baffled, himself little better than a prisoner, and in danger of falling the victim of the first ebullition of discontent, Buonaparte turned his eyes to Europe, and to France. He saw in the disturbances which shook the latter the natural field of his ambition; and with his characteristic heartlessness he abandoned his soldiers; but not without soothing them by the following hypocritical proclamation:

'Soldiers! The affairs of Europe recall me to France. I leave the command of the army to general Kleber. The army shall soon have intelligence of me. It is painful to leave soldiers to whom I am so much attached; but it shall not be for long. The general whom I have left with them possesses both my confidence and that of government.'

On the 23rd of August, 1799, accompanied by Berthier, Murat, Lannes, and Marmont, he embarked on board the frigates La Muiron and La Carere. An English cutter was in sight of the two frigates; the officers who accompanied him drew the most dismal presages from this circumstance, and said it would be difficult to escape the vigilance of the enemy.-True!' exclaimed Buonaparte, but we shall arrive--Fortune has never abandoned us; we shall arrive in spite of the English.' They set sail in the night; and Gantheaume, perfect master of his manœuvres, ranged along the coast of Africa, choosing a longer but more certain route of navigation.

On the 30th of September, 1799, the two frigates entered the Gulf of Ajaccio. Whilst lying to, for a boat they had sent in, a sudden squall obliged them to come to anchor in the gulf, in the native country of Buonaparte. He was thought to have been dead ; and, when chance thus brought him home, nothing could be more touching than the reception he experienced: the batteries saluted on all sides; the whole population rushed to the boats, and surrounded the French frigates; the public enthusiasm had even triumphed over the fear of infection, and the vessels were immediately boarded by crowds, crying out to Buonaparte, 'It is we that have the plague, and must owe our deliverance to you.' Here Buonaparte learned that the fruits of all

his triumphant victories in Italy had been lost in two battles; that the Russians were upon the French frontiers, and that confusion and dismay reigned in the interior.

On the 8th of October, being in sight of the coast of France, they perceived an English fleet of from eight to ten sail. Admiral Gantheaume was desirous to tack about immediately, and return to Corsica.- No, no,' said Buonaparte, 'that manœuvre would conduct us to England; and my will is to arrive in France.' On the 9th of October, 1799, Buonaparte disembarked near Frejus, in the South of France, after a surprising voyage of forty-one days, and upon a sea covered with the enemy's ships. Here he landed without having performed the customary duty of quarantine, and arrived at Paris on the 16th of October. Nothing could have been more unexpected than this arrival. From the first moment it occurred, the news of it spread with the rapidity of lightning. Scarcely had the flag of a commander-in-chief been displayed, when the shore about Frejus was covered with people, who, in accents of the most intense desire, exclaimed, 'Buonaparte!' France herself poured forth her thousands before him who was destined to restore her splendor, and already from her frontiers anticipated from him the revenge of Marengo.

On his return Buonaparte found the government enfeebled to the impotence of childhood; the directors, contemptible in their personal characters, had alienated all parties; the Russians had destroyed the elite of the French army in Italy, and France was in a state of mixed indignation and terror, ripe for any violence or any change. Now was the time for a generous and noble patriotism in the prince of the chief of armies, and the idol of the nation, to establish social order on the basis of rational liberty. Napoleon held in his simple grasp the destinies of his country-henceforth he is to be her benefactor or her scourge-her noble liberator or her remorseless oppressor. His previous character but too well argued the part he would act. He could not be a Washington; and, if a tyrant, his tyranny would partake of all the energy of his grasping and ambitious spirit. The story of his rise to supreme power is soon told. He took advantage of the state of hostility which existed between the two legislative bodies, the Council of Ancients and the council of Five Hundred. He intrigued with Sieyes, and flattered him by allowing him to prepare a new constitution which it never was his intention to adopt. Having secured the Council of Ancients, and many of the members of the Council of Five Hundred, of which his brother Lucien was president; having induced by his agents both councils to change their usual place of meeting to St. Cloud, where they would be unawed and unmolested by the Parisians, often so formidable to the national assembly and convention; and, above all, having obtained an edict from the council of ancients, delegating to general Buonaparte full power to see the measure of their removal carried into effect; and vesting him, for that purpose, with the military command of the department; Buonaparte proceeded to take the decisive step; which, had it failed, would have hurried him to

the guillotine, but which, proving successful, raised him to imperial greatness.

On the morning of the eventful day which commenced this sudden and perfect revolutiona revolution effected without murders or massacres, Buonaparte sallied forth on horseback at the head of a gallant cavalcade of officers. His first movement was to assume the command of the three regiments of cavalry already drawn up in the Champs Elysées and to lead them to the Thuilleries, where the council of ancients expected him. He entered their hall surrounded by his military staff, and by those other generals whose names carried the memory of so many victories. You are the wisdom of the nation,' he said to the council, I come, surrounded by the generals of the republic, to promise you their support. I name Lefebvre my lieutenant. Let us not lose time looking for precedents: nothing in history ever resembled the end of the eighteenth century-nothing in the eighteenth century resembled this moment: your wisdom has devised the necessary measure-our arms shall put it into execution.' He announced to the military the will of the council, and the command with which they had entrusted him, and it was received with loud shouts.

In the mean while the three directors Barras, Gohier, and Moulins, who were not in the secret of the morning, began too late to take the alarm. Moulins proposed to send a battalion to surround the house of Buonaparte, and make prisoner the general and whomsoever else they found there. But they had no longer the least influence over the soldiery, and had the mortification to see their own personal guard, when summoned by an aide-de-camp of Buonaparte, march away to join the forces which he commanded, and leave them defenceless. Barras sent his secretary Bottot to expostulate with Buonaparte; the general received him with great haughtiness, and publicly, before a large group of officers and soldiers, upbraided him with the reverses of the country; not in the tone of an ordinary citizen, possessing but his own individual interest in the fate of a great nation, but like a prince who, returning from a distant expedition, finds that in his absence his deputies have abused their trust, and misruled his dominions-what have you done, he said, for that fine France which I left you in such a brilliant condition? I left you peace; I have found war. I left you the wealth of Italy; I have found taxation and misery-where are the 100,000 Frenchmen whom I have known, all of them my companions in glory-they are dead.' It was plain, that even now when his enterprise was but commenced, Buonaparte had already assumed that tone which seemed to account every one answerable to him for deficiencies in the public service, and he himself responsible to no one.

Barras overwhelmed and stunned, and afraid perhaps of impeachment for his alleged peculations, belied the courage which he was once supposed to possess, and submitted in the most abject terms to the will of the victor. He sent in his resignation, in which he states that the weal of the republic, and his zeal for liberty alone, could have ever induced him to undertake