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XLIII.

CHAP. could not be a party to bringing it within a few marches of the Austrians, when these were about to fight a decisive battle for the possession of Italy. Unfortunately the Turkish vizier had acted upon the convention, and brought his disorderly army of horse to the gates of Cairo, which he expected to be delivered to him. Kleber of course refused, and a battle ensued between the French and Turks at Heliopolis, near Cairo (20th March). The French infantry in squares defied the Turkish horse, which, far superior in numbers, galloped round them in vain, to be finally shot down and routed by destructive volleys of grape. But Cairo itself had risen in insurrection. And it proved a far more perilous and difficult work for the subdue this. They succeeded however. natic Arab assassinated Kleber a few weeks subsequent to his victory (June 14th).

French to When a fa

The command then devolved upon Menou, a French general not unwilling to enact the part of Sultan of Egypt. From this dream he was awakened at Cairo by the news, that 15,000 English had landed in the bay of Aboukir, on the 8th of March, 1801. He instantly marched to encounter them, and was able to bring up a force about equal to that of the English general, Abercrombie. The landing at Aboukir resembled the recent landing at the Helder; the English had* then to advance along a narrow peninsula to attack Amsterdam, now to capture Alexandria. Had Menou acted like Brune in Holland, that is, stood on the defensive, he probably would have proved victorious. But having an undue contempt for his enemy, he attacked them on the 21st. He soon found the British soldier indomitable in defending his positions. The French were repulsed and lost the action,† Abercrombie was killed.

* Bunbury's Narrative.

Bunbury, Moore, Regnault, &c.

He was excessively short-sighted, and his successor, Hutchinson, was equally so, a proof of a similar defect of vision in the English war office. Hutchinson, however, made the most of the victory; he succeeded in separating the French army, and in compelling one after the other to surrender, one half at Cairo, on May the 22nd, the other in Alexandria, August the 31st, on condition of being transferred to France. The battle of Marengo had been fought, the peace of Luneville concluded, there was no longer a reason for objecting to the return of the survivors of the French army of Egypt to their homes.

Negotiations for peace between France and England had long preceded the catastrophe of Egypt, or the fall of Malta. To restore the former to the Porte, but keep the latter as a stepping-stone to recapture it was the first desire of Bonaparte. But he soon found it impossible of accomplishment. He continued therefore to threaten England in Portugal, in Hanover, and in the Channel by the construction of an invading flotilla at Boulogne. Nelson, in August, made a vain attempt to destroy it. Portugal, invaded by the Prince of the Peace, acceded to his demands in the treaty of Badajos, which the First Consul rejected as not procuring him. the chief object, for the moment, of the war-a Portuguese province to restore, and thus serve as an equivalent in the making of peace. England, however, defeated this design by seizing Madeira. Negotiations nevertheless proceeded, and the difficult question of Malta was solved by the compromise of restoring it to the knights. France demanded of England the restoration of all her colonial conquests. This being refused, the French consented to her keeping Ceylon, formerly appertaining to Holland. The English also desired to keep Martinique or Trinidad. On this there ensued another dispute and stand-still. But being or pretending to be dissatisfied with the Spanish court, Talleyrand gave up also Trinidad. The preliminaries of peace were thus signed on the 1st of

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CHAP. October, 1801, and Lauriston, who brought them from Paris, was drawn in triumph by the mob of London, partly glad of peace, partly in admiration of Bonaparte.

The signing of the preliminaries scarcely facilitated that of the final peace, as the hostile parties were thus enabled to know each other better and divine each other's motives. English politicians were sore and mortified, Bonaparte exultant and too ardent to condescend to the necessary decorum of diplomatic hypocrisy.

One of the first acts of the French government after the signature of the preliminaries was to despatch an expedition under the brother-in-law of Bonaparte for the reconquest of San Domingo. So mistrustful were the English of the object of the expedition that they despatched a fleet to watch it. Complete success at first attended the enterprise, and could the French commander have respected and conciliated the able coloured chiefs, who, like Bonaparte himself, had been thrown forward by the revolution, he might have succeeded in recovering the colony. But General Leclerc kidnapped Toussaint, and sent him prisoner to France. And hence when war with England subsequently broke out, the French had not a friend. With a similar view of resuscitating French colonial power, Bonaparte negotiated the retrocession of Louisiana by Spain to France. An expedition for the purpose of occupying it was subsequently prepared, and in the ports of the Low Countries, which inspired the English government, unaware of the object of the expedition, with fresh mistrust. But what alarmed it, more than efforts or designs of this kind, in the East or West Indies, was the persistence of Bonaparte's views upon Egypt, and the prospect of replacing Malta in the hands of a weak and neutral power. One of the great links between the Emperor Paul and the First Consul had been the project of a combined invasion of India, Egypt being

This

the first stage, and the first conquest of France. chimera of subduing India inflated the hopes of the French government, and the fears of the English during these years, as much and even more than the many real and substantial causes of rivalry between them.

In England the anti-Gallican opposition were loud in denouncing these forward steps to domination, which the First Consul did not shrink from making even between the signatures of the preliminaries and of the peace itself. His assuming the Presidency of the Italian republic, his seizure of Elba and progress in San Domingo, offered fertile themes for declamation. But the British government were determined on making the experiment of peace. Accordingly it was agreed that England should restore Malta to the knights, of whom none should be French or English, within three months, or to a Neapolitan garrison if the knights were ready with no other. In this way the treaty was patched up and signed at Amiens at the end of March, 1802. It was popular with the masses, but no more. Every gentleman was against it, and every blackguard for it, wrote Fox. There were loud rejoicings on the part of both peoples. "We shall have peace in a week, and war in a month," observed an English statesman, and George the Third considered the reply to be truthful and just.*

The First Consul had thus some leisure allowed him for that rearrangement of civil government which suited his position and his designs. He had assumed power with a sincere desire to make use of it for the reconciliation of parties, and the oblivion of past quarrels. A large amnesty was extended to all the proscribed. Not only those moderate politicians, Constitutionalists or Royalists, imprisoned or transported by the Directory, had leave to return, but the obnoxious men of extreme parties such as Barrère and Carnot, as well as noted

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XLIII.

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CHAP. Chouans, were allowed to tread the soil of the republic. The list of émigrés was closed, and the Council of State declared them as apt for employ as other citizens. The Royalists indeed were so encouraged by these favours, that some of their chiefs ventured to ask the French Consul to restore the Bourbons. He replied, that their only path to the throne lay over half-a-million of corpses. But whilst rudely rejecting the demands of the Royalists, the government sought to remove all the grievances of their humble followers. The churches were reopened, full liberty of worship restored, and every indulgence announced in a proclamation to the departments of the West. These concessions did not satisfy the fanatics of either party, who, denied the means of open insurrection, had recourse to secret plots. In October, 1801, the police discovered, and itself assisted to mature, a plot of some ultra-revolutionists to assassinate the First Consul. Those who meditated it, Ceracchi, Arena, and others, were arrested and sent to be tried.

Two carriages left the Tuileries for a concert at the Opera-house on Christmas-eve of the same year, 1801. In the first were Bonaparte and his aide-decamp, in the second Josephine. In the narrow rue St. Nicaise, the escort pushed aside what appeared to be a water-carrier's barrel, drawn by one horse, and the horse held by a girl. The consular carriage drove rapidly past, whilst Josephine's was at some distance behind. Between them the machine exploded, driving horse and girl into fragments, killing seven persons, one of them a cavalier of the guard, and wounding twentyseven others. The First Consul was welcomed at the Opera with acclamations of sympathy; he had most narrowly escaped destruction. Who had done this ? Bonaparte said instantly, it was the Jacobins. The

previous plots corroborated this opinion. But Fouché declared it must be the Chouans or dregs of the Royalists. And there ensued a long dispute between the

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