In the year 1792 Berthollet was named one of the commissioners of the Mint, into the processes of which he introduced considerable improvements. In 1794 he was appointed a member of the Commission of Agriculture and the Arts: and in the course of the same year he was chosen professor of chemistry at the Polytechnic School and also in the Normal School. But his turn of mind did not fit him for a public teacher. He expected too much information to be possessed by his hearers, and did not, therefore, dwell sufficiently upon the elementary details. His pupils were not able to follow his metaphysical disquisitions on subjects totally new to them; hence, instead of inspiring them with a love for chemistry, he filled them with langour and disgust. In 1795, at the organization of the Institute, which was intended to include all men of talent or celebrity in France, we find Berthollet taking a most active lead; and the records of the Institute afford abundant evidence of the perseverance and assiduity with which he laboured for its interests. Of the committees to which all original memoirs are in the first place referred, we find Berthollet, oftener than any other person, a member, and his signature to the report of each work stands generally first. In the year 1796, after the subjugation of Italy by Bonaparte, Berthollet and Monge were selected by the Directory to proceed to that country, in order to select those works of science and art with which the Louvre was to be filled and adorned. While engaged in the prosecution of that duty, they became acquainted with the victorious general. He easily saw the importance of their friendship, and therefore cultivated it with care; and was happy afterwards to possess them, along with nearly a hundred other philosophers, as his companions in his celebrated expedition to Egypt, expecting no doubt an eclat from such a halo of surrounding science, as might favour the development of his schemes of future greatness. On this expedition, which promised so favourably for the French nation, and which was intended to inflict a mortal stab upon the commercial greatness of Great Britain, Bonaparte set out in the year 1798, accompanied by a crowd of the most eminent men of science that France could boast of. That they might co-operate more effectually in the cause of knowledge, these gentlemen formed themselves into a society, named "The Institute of Egypt," which was constituted on the same plan as the National Institute of France. Their first meeting was on the 6th Fructidor (24th of August), 1798; and after that they continued to assemble, at stated intervals. At these meetings papers were read, by the respective members, on the climate, the inhabitants, and the natural and artificial productions of the country to which they had gone. These memoirs were published in 1800, in Paris, in a single volume entitled, "Memoirs of the Institute of Egypt."