His opinion of women would not have been enhanced by the behaviour of Josephine. On his departure for Rastatt he had left her in Milan, from where she was to travel directly to Paris. She prolonged her journey in order to spin out her amours with Lieutenant Charles, who was travelling with her. Once she reached Paris, she dismissed her maid Louise, who had displeased her by having a fling with Junot on their way out to Italy. Louise took her revenge by spilling the beans to Bonaparte about Hippolyte Charles. He angrily reproached his wayward wife, but she managed to placate him.10
By mid-January 1798 it had become clear that Bonaparte’s presence was not after all required at Rastatt, which left him with no excuse to delay an invasion of England he had no intention of embarking on. He had gradually worked his way into the confidence of the Directors, whom he saw regularly, and contemplated joining them, but being less than forty years old he did not qualify.11
He was being urged by many to stage a coup against them, but felt the time was not ripe and remained uncertain as to the depth or durability of his popularity. There were rumours of plots to poison him, and he was aware that he had enemies at both extremities of the political spectrum. It was time he returned to his real trade and took command of an army – in the midst of which he would be safe.12
Since England was such an unpromising objective, the only viable alternative was the invasion of Egypt, which Talleyrand was advocating. On 25 January news reached Paris of the death of the French ambassador in Constantinople. While the implications were being discussed by the Directors, Bonaparte set to work with Talleyrand on a fresh report which the minister delivered to them the following day. It repeated the old arguments, adding that the Porte had effectively lost control of Egypt and would not mind France administering the colony provided it remained its nominal sovereign: the corrupt and backward Mameluke administration would simply be replaced by a French one, and the Porte might actually benefit from such an arrangement. French diplomats in the area were of one voice that Mameluke rule was unpopular with the Egyptians themselves, who longed for deliverance. Talleyrand proposed to go to Constantinople himself to arrange matters.13
The Directors were divided in their opinions, and ostensibly still favoured an invasion of England. On 23 February, after visiting Etaples, Ambletuese, Boulogne, Calais, Dunkirk, Nieuport, Ostend, Ghent and Antwerp, Bonaparte reported that an invasion was impracticable. The following day he discussed his findings with the Directors and declared that he would not take on the job, offering to resign his commission. Reubell, who hated him, handed him a pen. The gesture was a dig at his vanity, but no more – the Directory did not want a disgruntled war hero hanging about Paris, and they needed to find him an assignment. On 5 March they sanctioned the plan to invade Egypt.14
Financing the expedition was not a problem. The weak and largely conservatively-ruled confederation of Swiss cantons provided a base for British secret agents and military access to the borders not only of France but of her Cisalpine ‘sister republic’, which had long bothered the Directory. Bonaparte had already sliced off the Valtelline and added it to the Cisalpine Republic, thereby gaining control of the Simplon Pass. The Directory encouraged Jacobins bent on revolution in various parts of the country, and French troops marched in to support them in overthrowing the most conservative of all the cantonal governments, that of Berne, whose treasure, as well as its two emblematic bears, were sent to Paris at the beginning of March.
Bonaparte set to work planning the expedition. The new Army of the Orient would be composed mostly of men from the Army of Italy. They would embark at Toulon, Marseille, Ajaccio, Genoa and Civitavecchia. The respective fleets were to assemble off Malta, which was to be captured for France as the first step in denying the Royal Navy bases in the Mediterranean. The next step would be to land in Egypt, overthrow the Mamelukes and organise the country. A naval base was to be created at Suez which would connect with the French colony of Île de France (Mauritius), whose strategic position in the Indian Ocean could be exploited for trade and military purposes. As soon as it was practicable, the Isthmus of Suez was to be pierced with a canal. The plan could only work if the British navy stayed out of the Mediterranean, so it was kept a secret and preparations for the invasion of England proceeded.
Bonaparte was thinking of more than conquest. While they were both in Italy, Monge had drawn his attention to the disparity between how much was known about Greco-Roman civilisation and how little about the Egyptian, and when they discussed the possibility of an invasion he had suggested that a commission of experts should accompany it to study the pyramids and other remains. Bonaparte agreed, and his boundless interests suggested something more. He had a vision of extending the fruits of the Enlightenment to backward lands; the regeneration of what he referred to as the cradle of civilisation by the new metropolis that was France. The venture was to be beneficial to mankind, a voyage of discovery as well as one of illumination. He therefore decided to take with him the most eminent figures in the arts and sciences, as well as engineers and technicians who would develop the country. With the greatest secrecy, he began approaching them without telling them where they would be going. Some, like the painter David, refused. The composer Méhul also backed out, as did the poet Ducis and the renowned baritone François Lays, whom Bonaparte had imagined singing Ossianic odes at the head of the troops on the march. He had the greatest difficulty in persuading Monge, who felt too old and was currently still in Italy; Bonaparte personally visited Madame Monge, pressing her to use her influence on her husband.15
He bade Bourrienne put together a travelling library, arranged in the following categories: 1. Sciences & Arts, 2. Geography & Travels, 3. History, 4. Poetry, 5. Novels, 6. Political Sciences (which contained the Old and New Testaments, the Koran and the Vedanta). Pride of place in the poetry section went to Ossian; Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Héloïse and Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther were among the novels. He also had 2,000 bottles of good Burgundy sent to Toulon. To keep the soldiers happy, he wanted to take along a troupe of actors from the Comédie-Française. He also, it seems, had ‘a leather helmet richly embroidered with gold’ run up which made him look ‘like an actor in an opera’.16
As there was a risk of the fleet being intercepted by the British, Josephine would not be sailing with him. He would send a frigate to fetch her once he had landed and pacified Egypt. Their marriage had gone through yet another trauma in mid-March when a delighted Joseph presented his brother with evidence that his wife was shamelessly carrying on her affair with Lieutenant Charles under his very nose, meeting him regularly in the afternoon at the house of a supplier to the military in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. A natural liar, Josephine denied everything and challenged Bonaparte to divorce her. To Charles, she wrote in torrid terms of her love for him and her hatred for all the Bonapartes. ‘Hippolyte, I will kill myself,’ she wrote on 17 March. ‘Yes, I must end [a life] which will be a burden to me if it cannot be devoted to you. […] Oh, they can torment me as much as they like, but they will never part me from my Hippolyte: my last breath will be for him. […] Adieu, my Hippolyte, a thousand kisses as ardent as my heart, and as loving.’ As usual, she managed to placate Bonaparte, to whom she seems to have grown sincerely attached. He bought the house in the rue de la Victoire, inserting a clause giving her life tenure in the event of his death. He also agreed to her plan of buying a house outside Paris, at La Malmaison.17
On 17 April he ordered Admiral Brueys, who was to command the fleet, to prepare to sail within ten days. There is some evidence that he made one last proposal to the Directors to share power with them, pointing out that if the war with Austria were to resume they would need a strong man.