Chapter 9

ABOUKIR AND THE GREAT DESERTION[9]

[Footnote 9: Authorities as before.]

The Last of the Mamelukes -- Aboukir -- The News from Paris -- An Adventurer's Decision -- Preparations for Departure -- His Plans Concealed -- The Last Visit to Corsica -- A Narrow Escape -- Reception in France -- Conjugal Estrangement.

[Sidenote: 1799]

The Turkish army which had sailed from Rhodes numbered about twelve thousand men. The fleet which transported them appeared off Alexandria on July twentieth, and a landing was attempted. Repulsed by the forts, the ships drew off to Aboukir, where the effort was successful. The force was composed of infantry, and as nothing further could be done without cavalry, they began immediately to throw up breastworks, hoping to make a successful stand until the arrival of Murad. But this romantic personage, the last of the Mamelukes to enjoy undisputed sway, was able to come no farther than the Pyramids; the land at which he gazed from the summit of Cheops was never again to be his. Before he could reach his allies they had been overwhelmed, and before the evacuation of Egypt by its invaders he fell a victim to the plague. Mehemet Ali and the Albanians were to inherit his power. By July twenty-fourth the Turks had strongly fortified the peninsula of Aboukir with a double line of works. Not only did they hear nothing from Murad, but Ibrahim, who was expected from Syria, also failed them, and the lack of cavalry threw them on the defensive. (p.~078) But their presence, they hoped, would be sufficient to fan the rebellious spirit of the country, and they might maintain themselves until reinforcements should come by sea, or the belated cavalry arrive by land.

With his accustomed rapidity Bonaparte made ready to strike. Ibrahim was checked, Murad was finally driven back, and Desaix was called in from upper Egypt to keep order below while the contest was going on in the Delta. With six thousand men in the main army, and two thousand reserves under Kléber, Bonaparte set out. On July twenty-fifth the battle was joined. It was short and murderous. The enemy was first outflanked on the left, and that wing driven into the sea; then the right was caught in the same manner, and suffered a like fate. Finally, with a rush the infantry of Lannes surmounted a redoubt in the center. What was their surprise to find Murat with his cavalry already on the other side! The dashing riders had madly circumvented the line of intrenchment. There were but three thousand Turks now left, and these took refuge in a citadel which they had constructed at the apex of the peninsula. On August first, 1799, the anniversary of the battle of the Nile, the entire force surrendered. Bonaparte told the Directory that twelve thousand Turks were drowned. As he said in his despatch to Cairo, "Not a single man of the hostile army which had landed escaped." The French troops were now convinced that their general had always been invincible, and that somehow he would open the doors of their prison-house, and find a way for their return.

It was nearly six months since the date of the latest authentic news from Paris. At least so thought the general's adjutants and companions, and they were possibly right. They knew that he had been constantly forwarding news of their enterprise, and probably regular instructions, to the authorities at Paris. Bonaparte mentions in his correspondence the despatch of sixty vessels of various kinds with his letters, and some of them, at least, reached their destination. This certainty, with the wise adaptation of his subsequent course to his ultimate ends, has led to the supposition that he was in constant receipt of secret information from his brothers, by way of Genoa and Tunis. This he never explicitly denied, although he said at St. Helena that newspapers were sent ashore from the English fleet after the battle of Aboukir, adding, as a kind of ingenuous generalization, that, besides, news did not come from France by way of Tunis. Joseph declares in his memoirs that he himself sent a messenger to tell the sorry tale of French affairs to Napoleon. But there is no proof and no likelihood that this courier ever reached his destination. It is certain that Bonaparte learned at Acre of the new coalition against France from Phélippeaux in a parley held across the trenches; it is probable that his private news came by way of the Barbary States; it is unquestioned that his best information was obtained through the English fleet, which was now off Alexandria, negotiating for exchanges on behalf of Turkey. According to Marmont, Sir Sidney Smith, hoping to discourage his enemy, sent a packet of papers ashore, and declared that if the French army should strive to escape, in accordance with the desire of the Directory, he would endeavor to give an account himself to the fugitives.

In any case, what was now definitely made known to Bonaparte was not unwelcome information. He was assured that war had broken out, as he expected and perhaps knew; that the French arms had suffered disgrace in Italy; and that a fleet under Admiral Bruix had been despatched to conquer the Mediterranean and to bring home the Army of Egypt. No doubt he guessed that the Directory was showing hopeless incapacity. What he could not know was that on May twenty-sixth they had actually despatched a special courier to express the hope that he himself would return to take command of the armies of the republic. This messenger, we know, never landed in Egypt, but his services were not required; for no sooner was Bonaparte convinced that the crisis he had long foreseen was actually occurring than the resolution he had twice foreshadowed in his letters to Paris was finally taken. He told Marmont that the state of things in Europe compelled him to return: the French armies defeated, all the fruits of his hard-earned victories in Italy lost! Of what use were these incapables who were at the head of affairs? With them all was hesitation, stupidity, and corruption. "I--I alone have borne the burden, and by constant victory have given strength to this administration, which without me would never have lifted its head. On my departure everything had, of necessity, to crumble. Let us not wait until the destruction is complete; the evil would be irremediable.... The news of my return will be heard in France simultaneously with that of the destruction of the Turkish army at Aboukir. My presence will elevate men's spirits, restore to the army its lost confidence, and to the good people the hope of a prosperous future." No commentary could make this language clearer.

His arrangements were quickly made. A few trusted men were confidentially informed of the situation, and Kléber was appointed to the chief command of the army, which was so dishonorably to be abandoned in a most critical situation, reduced as it was to half its original numbers, destitute of provisions and ammunition, surrounded by a hostile, fanatical population, and confronted by the powerful fleet of its most unrelenting enemy. Secretly, and by night, the two frigates in the harbor of Alexandria were prepared, and anchored off a remote point of the shore. In the early hours of August twenty-second the fugitive general embarked, accompanied by a few devoted and choice friends--capable generals like Murat, Lannes, Marmont, Berthier, Duroc, Bessières, Lavalette, Ganteaume, and Andréossy; equally fine political scholars like Monge, Denon, and Berthollet. It was arranged that Junot and Desaix should come later.

The great deserter could easily persuade himself that this was an act of heroism--risking his life on hostile waters in order to save France. It was not hard to reason speciously that it was a colony which had been intended, and a colony which had been planted; that in his return he was using the discretion granted by the Directory, and carrying out a plan announced from the outset. But it needed no verdict of posterity to declare that it would have been more heroic to remain and share the consequences of a scheme so largely his own. His conscience asserted as much, for he deceived the brilliant and acute Kléber in an appointment to say farewell, which was not kept; while the Grand Council of Cairo was told that he had gone to take command of his fleet, and would return in three months. Orders were left that if fifteen hundred soldiers should die of the pest, Kléber should open negotiations for evacuating the country. An angry and emphatic protest was written by the victimized general; but it was intercepted by the English cruisers, and did not fall into the hands of his betrayer until after he had become First Consul. At St. Helena, Napoleon declared that the failure of the expedition was clear to him from the moment of Nelson's victory; for any force which cannot be recruited must melt away and eventually surrender.

Sir Sidney Smith, not thinking either that a general would abandon his army, or that vessels would sail for Europe against the adverse winds of that season, had made for Cyprus to renew his supply of water. In this interval the two French frigates gained the open sea, their captains entertaining the vague hope of reaching Toulon direct, by some reversal of nature's laws. But the prevalent breezes continued, and compelled them to coast along the African shore. It was three weeks before they even sighted the headlands of Tunis. At last a favoring wind began to blow. With lights extinguished, they passed at night the strait which separates Africa from Sicily, escaping the observation of the English cruisers sent from Nelson's fleet to patrol those waters. Skirting Sardinia, the flotilla reached Corsica early in October. Though, as Bonaparte declared, he was "deeply moved by the sight of his native town," no remnant of his early enthusiasm could sweeten for him the enforced delay of several days in the harbor of Ajaccio. He had left far behind the emotions of that primitive society, and, evidently fretting to be gone, was rather impatient at the abounding caresses of all the friends who thronged the town when he was ashore and crowded the decks when he was afloat. Some deeds have been recorded to his credit: all the money he had by him, about forty thousand francs, he distributed to the garrison, which had not been paid for over a year and a half; his features, it is also said, relaxed with evident joy as he tenderly returned the greeting of the old woman who had been his earliest attendant. It was his last visit to the island of his birth, but not the last time the accents of its dialect fell on his ears, for it was a Corsican who troubled his dying hours at St. Helena.

What moved him really and deeply was the news of French disasters on the Trebbia and at Novi, of Joubert's death, of the dissolution of the Italian republics, and of Moreau's last stand in the Piedmont fortresses. What probably moved him most was the further news that the old Directory had virtually fallen on the thirtieth of Prairial, and that Sieyès, who had returned but partly successful from Berlin, had been chosen as a member of the new one, to preserve at least a semblance of respect for the institution. Finally, the favoring breeze sprang up, and on October eighth sail was made again, not for Italy, to restore the fortunes of the army, as Bourrienne says had been planned during the voyage, but direct for France. Suddenly, at sunset, a British squadron loomed on the horizon. Was Fortune at last to desert her child? It seemed so. The captain of Bonaparte's vessel gave orders to make again for Ajaccio, and prepared a long-boat for the solitary landing of his passenger on the wild shores of the island in case of extremity. But a dark night revived his courage. The English, deceived by the apparent angle of their enemy's yards, mistook his course, and sailed in a wrong direction. The French kept directly on. Next morning the adventurer set foot once more on French soil near Fréjus. A few nights later news of Bonaparte's landing was brought to his sisters in their box at the theater. They received it with exultation, but apparently with no manifestation of surprise.

How was he received, this thwarted leader of a costly fiasco, this general who for nothing had left the bones of thousands to whiten upon Eastern deserts, who had deserted in a plague-stricken land many thousands more of the finest troops which France could furnish? With a passion of delight! From Fréjus through Lyons to Paris, along the old familiar route, the people knew nothing of their hero's failures. They had not forgotten his Italian victories, which only a short year before had made them masters where now their armies were in disgrace and their name was execrated; they knew only too well the widespread legends of the same man's triumphs in the romantic East, before Cairo and at the feet of the Pyramids. With all this they contrasted the valley of humiliation through which the republic had been dragged by the incapacity of their leaders. Was it wonderful that at Lyons the fêtes were like a jubilee, through which Bonaparte, aware that his goal was near, moved like one already elevated among his fellows--conciliating, deprecating, mysterious?

It was on October sixteenth that he arrived at his house on Victory street, in Paris. Mme. Bonaparte was not there to give him a welcome. During the absence of her husband she had made her house the center of a brilliant society which numbered among its members the ablest men of the time. This circle was untiring in its devotion to Bonaparte's interests, making friends for him at home, plotting in his behalf abroad, turning every political incident to his advantage, and building up a strong party which believed that he was the only possible savior of France. In conduct the associates were gay and even dissolute; occasionally a select inner coterie withdrew to Plombières, nominally for repose, but probably for a seclusion not altogether innocent. Into this loyal but licentious company the sudden announcement of Bonaparte's approach brought something like consternation. Josephine, in particular, having been recklessly unfaithful during his absence, was now over-anxious to display a feigned devotion to her husband. Doubtless she had heard of his desperate licentiousness in Egypt; she must have recalled her own orgies of faithlessness during his absence, in Italy first and now again in Egypt; she may have learned that his family were already hinting divorce and that his ears were only too attentive to the suggestion. But she knew her powers and resolved to stake all on another cast. Learning of his approach, she went out some distance to meet him, but took the wrong road, and passed him unawares. Hurrying back, she found the door of his chamber barred, her absence being of course a confirmation of the general's jealous suspicions. For hours her entreaties and tears were vain. At last Eugène and Hortense joined theirs with their mother's, and the door was opened. The breach was apparently healed, but rather to avoid a scandal than from sincere forgiveness.