assembled company that he wanted to stay with them but now had no
choice. It was fortunate for him that on 26 May the Directors had sent
him a dispatch authorizing him to evacuate if he thought it necessary; this
precious document would later give him a tenuous ex post focto
justification for his decision to cut and run.
What Napoleon did not tell his generals was that he was deeply
disturbed by a strong rumour that in Paris Sieyes was trying to engineer a
coup and had called in General Joubert as his 'sword'. On 17 August
Admiral Ganteaume informed his leader that the Anglo-Turkish fleet had
left Egyptian waters. This was the chance Napoleon was waiting for. On
17 August he left Cairo for the coast and six days later put to sea in the
Muiron. He took just a handful of his favourites and most trusted
personnel with him. Of the savants, only Monge and Berthollet were
allowed to accompany him; of the generals only Berthier, Lannes and
Murat made the journey. Marmont, Bessieres, Duroc, Eugene de
Beauharnais, Bourrienne, the newly acquired Mameluke servant Roustam
and two hundred Guides were among the favoured few; notable for her
absence was Pauline Foures.
Command devolved on Kleber, who later claimed he had been
presented with a fait accompli and knew of Bonaparte's departure only
after he had gone. Choking back the fury he felt, Kleber read to his
troops the brief communique Napoleon had left: 'Extraordinary circum
stances alone have persuaded me, in the interests of my country and its
glory and of obedience to pass through the enemy lines and return to
Europe.' In his instructions to Kleber, which included the order to send
Desaix back to France in November, Napoleon claimed that he would
move heaven and earth to reinforce the army in Egypt: 'The arrival of our
Brest squadron at Toulon and of the Spanish squadron at Cartagena
leaves no doubt as to the possibility of transporting to Egypt the muskets,
sabres, pistols and ammunition of which you and I have an exact list,
together with enough recruits to make good the losses of two campaigns
... You can appreciate how important the possession of Egypt is for
France.' He also authorized Kleber, in the event that no reinforcements
arrived by May 18oo or if plague cut a swathe through the army, to
conclude a peace with Turkey, even if this meant evacuating Egypt, but
he thought the most likely outcome was that the future of Egypt would
be subsumed in a general European peace treaty.
Did Napoleon simply abandon the French army in Egypt to its fate, in
the full and cynical knowledge that Egypt was a lost cause? Kleber
certainly thought so. After he had read the instructions he told his
brother officers: 'He's left us with his breeches full of shit. We'll go back