Since the revolution there had been no sort of worship in France. The idea even of a God had been almost entirely obliterated from the public mind. The French soldiers were mere animals, with many noble as well as depraved instincts. At the command of their beloved chieftain, they were as ready to embrace a religion as to storm a battery. Napoleon was accused of hypocrisy for pursuing this course in Egypt. "I never," said he, subsequently, "followed any of the tenets of the Mohammedan religion. I never prayed in the mosques. I never abstained from wine, or was circumcised. I said merely that we were friends of the Mussulmans, and that I respected their prophet; which was true. I respect him now." Napoleon remained in Alexandria but six days. During this time he devoted himself with a zeal and energy which elicited universal admiration, to the organization of equitable laws, the regulations of police, and the development of the resources of the country. The very hour of their establishment in the city, artisans, and artists, and engineers all were busy, and the life and enterprise of the West, were infused into the sepulchral streets of Alexandria. Preparations were immediately made for improving the harbor, repairing the fortifications, erecting mills, establishing manufactories, founding schools, exploring antiquities, and the government of the country was placed in the hands of the prominent inhabitants, who were interested to promote the wise and humane policy of Napoleon. Since that day half a century of degradation, ignorance, poverty, oppression, and wretchedness has passed over Egypt. Had Napoleon succeeded in his designs, it is probable that Egypt would now have been a civilized and a prosperous land, enriched by the commerce of the East and the West; with villas of elegance and refinement embellishing the meadows and headlands of the Nile, and steamers, freighted with the luxuries of all lands, plowing her majestic waves. The shores of the Red Sea, now so silent and lonely, would have echoed with the hum of happy industry, and fleets would have been launched from her forests, and thriving towns and opulent cities would have sprung up, where the roving Bedouin now meets but desolation and gloom. It is true that in the mysterious providence of God all these hopes might have been disappointed. But it is certain that while Napoleon remained in Egypt the whole country received an impulse unknown for centuries before; and human wisdom can not devise a better plan than he proposed, for arousing the enterprise, and stimulating the industry, and developing the resources of the land.