That terrible battle had a disastrous effect on the army: even Bonaparte was momentarily overwhelmed by it, and exclaimed with Augustus: "Varus! what have you done with my legions?" He cried out several times, "Brueys! Brueys! what have you done with our ships?" The uncertainty of his return to France troubled Bonaparte more than all. The fleet destroyed, he was no longer master of his actions; and the prospect of remaining six years in Egypt, which he had faced so calmly, now looked unendurable to him. When Bourrienne tried one day to comfort him, by telling him to rely on the Directory, he exclaimed: "Your Directory! You know well enough it is only a set of damned idiots, who hate me and are jealous of me.... They will leave me to perish here. Don't you see all those faces? It will be a race who shall get away first." This last outburst was excited by the reports brought to Bonaparte of the general discontent. Kléber was not spared in these reports any more than my father had been. He knew that Bonaparte spoke of him as an opponent, and, on August the 22nd, 1798, he wrote him the following letter:-- "You would be unjust, Citizen General, if you mistake the vehemence with which I have laid my needs before you, for signs of weakness or of discouragement. It matters little to me whether I live or die, provided that I live for the glory of our arms, and that I die as I have lived. You may rely therefore on me, and on all whom you place under my orders, to stand by you through thick and thin. I have already sent you word that the events of the 14th[3] have had no other effect than to rouse indignation among the soldiers and a desire for vengeance." To this Bonaparte replied:-- "Rest assured of the value I attach to your esteem and friendship. I am afraid we had drifted a little apart.... You would be doing me injustice were you to doubt the sorrow this has caused me.... When there are any clouds over the land of Egypt they pass off in six hours; with me, if clouds arise, they are gone in three. "I have just as high a regard for you as you have hitherto shown towards me." There is a wide distance between these chilly letters and the enthusiastic admiration which Kléber felt when he exclaimed, as he laid his hand on Bonaparte's shoulder: "General, you are a world in yourself." Truly it is the poet who makes history, and the history he makes is the finest of all histories. Erase Bonaparte's noble saying at the Pyramids, erase Kléber's words to Bonaparte, and you take away the golden halo which encircled that great Egyptian expedition--the most wild and futile of expeditions, if not the most gigantic and poetic.