as a kind of licensed pirate and went from strength to strength until his
disgrace in I 807.
Having by the most brutal methods raised the funds for his expedition,
Napoleon faced the next problem, that of persuading the French people
that their hero had embarked on a worthwhile, prestigious and glorious
venture. His ploy was to surround the expedition with the aura of
scientific discovery. Without telling his chosen candidates exactly where
they were going, Napoleon invited scores of eminent scientists to
accompany him on a tropical voyage of adventure. Given that they were
taking a leap into the unknown, it is surprising how few of the savants
turned him down; it was doubtless his role and status at the Institute that
persuaded them. If the British had intercepted and sunk Napoleon's
Egyptian flotilla, much of France's intellectual talent would have gone to
the bottom.
Among the celebrities who accepted his invitation were Gaspard
Monge, the highly talented mathematician, physicist and inventor of
descriptive geometry; Jean-Baptiste Fourier, the equally brilliant mathe
matician; Claude-Louis Berthollet, the great pioneering chemist; Geoff
roy St-Hilaire, the naturalist, Nicholas Conte, the inventor and balloon
ing expert; Gratet de Dolomieu, the mineralogist for whom the Dolomite
mountains are named; Matthieu de Lesseps, father of Ferdinand, whose
journey to Egypt sowed the idea of a Suez canal which he passed on to his
son; Vivant Denon the engraver, and a host of others, including
astronomers, civil engineers, geographers, draughtsmen, printers, gun
powder experts, poets, painters, musicians, archaeologists,
orientalists and linguists. In all, over I so distinguished members of the
Institute answered Bonaparte's call.
It was a brilliant stroke of propaganda genius to include these
'ideologues' as it enabled Napoleon to obfuscate the true motives for the
Egyptian expedition. His claim to be engaged on a civilizing mission has
fooled many people and the myth persists even today. To seek out new
worlds in order to enhance pure knowledge and to bring the light of
Western civilization to benighted regions of the globe provided superb
ideological rationalization for an enterprise that was always part hard
headed Machiavellian calculation and part romantic fantasy. The two
sides of Napoleon, ruthless, cynical, down-to-earth pragmatist on the one
hand, and dreamer and fantasist on the other, were rarely so perfectly
dovetailed. The ideological camouflage provided in add ition by the
scientists and intellectuals who accompanied him makes the Egyptian
venture something of a motivational masterpiece.
Finally, Napoleon had to keep his destination secret. This he did with
marcin
(Marcin)
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