on the 7th of april, 1799, the promontory on which saint-jean-d'acre is built, the ancient ptolemais, seemed to be wrapped in as much thunder and lightning as was mount sinai on the day when the lord appeared to moses from the burning bush.
whence came those reports which shook the coast of syria as with an earthquake? whence came that smoke which covered the gulf of carmel with a cloud as thick as though mount elias had become a burning volcano?
the dream of one of those men, who with a few words change the whole destiny of the world, was accomplished. we are mistaken; we should have said, had vanished. but perhaps it had vanished only to give place to a reality of which this man, ambitious as he was, had never dared to dream.
on the 10th of september, 1797, when the conqueror of italy heard at passeriano of the 18th fructidor and the promulgation of the law which condemned two of the directors, fifty-four deputies, and a hundred and forty-eight private individuals to exile, he fell into a profound revery.
he was doubtless calculating, in his mind, the influence which would accrue to him from this coup d'état, which his hand had directed although augereau's had alone been visible. he was walking with his secretary, bourrienne, in the beautiful park of the palace. suddenly he raised his head and said without any apparent reference to what had gone before: "assuredly, europe is a mole-hill. there has never been a great empire or a great revolution save in the east, where there are six hundred millions of men."
[pg 573]
then when bourrienne, totally unprepared for this outburst, looked at him in astonishment, he seemed to lose himself again in revery.
on the 1st of january, 1798, bonaparte—who had been recognized in his box, in which he was trying to conceal himself, at the first performance of "horatius coclès," and saluted with an ovation and cries of "long live bonaparte!" which shook the building three times—returned to his house in the rue chantereine (newly named the rue de la victoire) wrapped in melancholy, and said to bourrienne, to whom he always confided his gloomy thoughts:
"believe me, bourrienne, nobody remembers anything in paris. if i should do nothing for six months i should be lost. one reputation in this babylon replaces another; they will not see me three times at the theatre before they will cease to look at me."
again, on the 29th of the same month, he said to bourrienne, still absorbed in the same dream: "bourrienne, i will not stay here; there is nothing to be done. if i do remain i am done for; everything goes to seed in france. i have already exhausted my glory. this poor little europe cannot furnish enough; i must go to the east."
finally, when he was walking down the rue sainte-anne, with bourrienne, about a fortnight before his departure on the 18th of april, his secretary, to whom he had not spoken a word since they left the rue chantereine, in order to break the silence which annoyed him, said: "then you have really decided to leave france, general?"
"yes," replied bonaparte, "i asked to be one of them, and they refused me. if i stay here i shall have to overthrow them and make myself king. the nobles would never consent to that; i have sounded the ground and the time has not yet come. i should be alone. i must dazzle the people. we will go to egypt, bourrienne."
therefore it was not to communicate with tippoo-sahib across asia, and to attack england in india, that bonaparte left europe.
[pg 574]
"i must dazzle the people." in those words lay the true motive for his departure.
on the 3d of may, 1798, he ordered all the generals to embark their troops. on the 4th he left paris. on the 8th he reached toulon. on the 19th he went aboard the admiral's vessel, the "orient." on the 25th he sighted leghorn and the island of elba. on the 13th of june he took malta. on the 19th he set sail again. on the 3d of july he took alexandria by assault. on the 13th he won the battle of chebrou?ss. on the 21st he crushed the mamelukes at the pyramids. on the 25th he entered cairo. on the 14th of august he learned of the disaster of aboukir. on the 24th of december he started, with the members of the institute, to visit the remains of the suez canal. on the 28th he drank at the fountains of moses, and, like pharaoh, was almost drowned in the red sea. on the 1st of january, 1799, he planned the expedition into syria. he had conceived the idea six months earlier.
at that time he wrote to kléber:
if the english continue to overrun the mediterranean, they will perhaps force us to do greater things than we at first intended.
there was a vague rumor concerning an expedition which the sultan of damascus was sending against the french, in which djezzar pasha, surnamed "the butcher," because of his cruelty, led the advance-guard.
the rumor had taken definite shape. djezzar had advanced by gaza as far as el-arich, and had massacred the few french soldiers who were there in the fortress.
among his young ordnance officers, bonaparte had the brothers mailly de chateau-renaud. he sent the younger with a flag of truce to djezzar, who, in defiance of military law, took him prisoner. this was a declaration of war. bonaparte, with his customary rapidity of decision, determined to destroy the advance-guard of the ottoman empire.
[pg 575]
in case of success, he himself would tell later what were his hopes. if repulsed, he would raze the walls of gaza, jaffa, and acre, ravage the country and destroy all the supplies, making it impossible for an army, even a native one, to cross the desert.
on the 11th of february, 1799, bonaparte entered syria at the head of twelve thousand men. he had with him that galaxy of gallant men who gravitated around him during the first and most brilliant part of his life.
he had kléber, the handsomest and bravest horseman in the army. he had murat, who disputed this double title with kléber. he had junot, who was such a remarkable shot that he could split a dozen balls in succession on the point of a knife. he had lannes, who had already earned his title of duc de montebello, but had not yet assumed it. he had reynier, who was destined to decide the victory of heliopolis. he had caffarelli, who was doomed to lie in that trench which he had dug.
and in subordinate positions he had for aides-de-camp eugene de beauharnais, our young friend of strasbourg, who had brought about the marriage between josephine and bonaparte by going to ask the latter for his father's sword. he had croisier, gloomy and taciturn ever since he had faltered in an encounter with the arabs and the word "coward" had escaped bonaparte's lips. he had the elder of the two maillys, who was determined to deliver or avenge his brother. he had the young sheik of aher, chief of the druses, whose name, if not his power, extended from the dead sea to the mediterranean.
and, finally, he had an old acquaintance of ours, roland de montrevel, whose habitual intrepidity had, since the day of his capture at cairo, been doubled by that strange desire for death which we have seen him display in "the companions of jehu."
on the 17th of february the army reached el-arich. the soldiers had suffered greatly from thirst during the journey. only once did they find refreshment and amuse[pg 576]ment at the end of their day's stage. that was at messoudiah, or "the fortunate spot," on the shores of the mediterranean, at a place composed of small dunes of fine sand. here chance led a soldier to imitate moses' miracle. as he thrust his stick into the ground, the water gushed forth as from an artesian well. the soldier tasted it, and finding it excellent, he called his comrades and shared his discovery with them. every one then punched his own hole and had his own well. nothing more was needed to restore the soldiers to cheerfulness.
el-arich surrendered at the first summons. on the 28th of february the green and fertile plains of syria came in sight. at the same time, mountains and valleys, recalling those of europe, could be plainly discerned through a light rain—a rare thing in the east.
on the 1st of march they camped at ramleh—the ancient rama, where rachel gave way to her great despair, which the bible describes in this nobly pathetic verse:
in rama was there a voice heard, lamentations and weepings and great mourning; rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted because they were not.
jesus, the virgin mary, and joseph passed by rama on their way to egypt. the church which the monks gave bonaparte for a hospital was built on the very spot where the holy family stopped to rest.
the well whose fresh, pure water slaked the thirst of the whole army was the very same which, seventeen hundred and ninety-nine years before, had refreshed the holy fugitives. he also was from rama, that disciple joseph, whose pious hand wrapped the body of our lord jesus christ in the shroud.
perhaps not one man in the whole vast multitude knew the sacred tradition. but one thing they did know, and that was that they were not more than eighteen miles from jerusalem.
as they walked beneath the olive trees which are per[pg 577]haps the most beautiful in all the east, and which the soldiers ruthlessly cut down to make their bivouac fires, bourrienne asked bonaparte: "general, shall you not go to jerusalem?"
"oh, no," he replied, carelessly; "jerusalem is not within my line of operations. i do not care to get into trouble with the mountaineers on these bad roads; and then on the other side of the mountain i should be attacked by a large body of cavalry. i have no ambition to emulate the fate of crassus."
crassus, it will be remembered, was massacred by the parthians.
there is this that is strange in bonaparte's life, that while he was at one time within eighteen miles of jerusalem (the cradle of christ) and at another within eighteen miles of rome (the cradle of the papacy), he had no desire to see either rome or jerusalem.
