The advent of a south-east wind, a rare event there at that season of the year, led him hastily to embark at Alexandria in the night of August 22nd-23rd. His two frigates bore with him some of the greatest sons of France; his chief of the staff, Berthier, whose ardent love for Madame Visconti had been repressed by his reluctant determination to share the fortunes of his chief; Lannes and Murat, both recently wounded, but covered with glory by their exploits in Syria and at Aboukir; his friend Marmont, as well as Duroc, Andréossi, Bessières, Lavalette, Admiral Gantheaume, Monge, and Berthollet, his secretary Bourrienne, and the traveller Denon. He also left orders that Desaix, who had been in charge of Upper Egypt, should soon return to France, so that the rivalry between him and Kléber might not distract French councils in Egypt. There seems little ground for the assertion that he selected for return his favourites and men likely to be politically serviceable to him. If he left behind the ardently republican Kléber, he also left his old friend Junot: if he brought back Berthier and Marmont, he also ordered the return of the almost Jacobinical Desaix. Sir Sidney Smith having gone to Cyprus for repairs, Bonaparte slipped out unmolested. By great good fortune his frigates eluded the English ships cruising between Malta and Cape Bon, and after a brief stay at Ajaccio, he and his comrades landed at Fréjus (October 9th). So great was the enthusiasm of the people that, despite all the quarantine regulations, they escorted the party to shore. "We prefer the plague to the Austrians," they exclaimed; and this feeling but feebly expressed the emotion of France at the return of the Conqueror of the East. And yet he found no domestic happiness. Josephine's _liaison_ with a young officer, M. Charles, had become notorious owing to his prolonged visits to her country house, La Malmaison. Alarmed at her husband's return, she now hurried to meet him, but missed him on the way; while he, finding his home at Paris empty, raged at her infidelity, refused to see her on her return, and declared he would divorce her. From this he was turned by the prayers of Eugène and Hortense Beauharnais, and the tears of Josephine herself. A reconciliation took place; but there was no reunion of hearts, and Mme. Reinhard echoed the feeling of respectable society when she wrote that he should have divorced her outright. Thenceforth he lived for Glory alone. * * * * * CHAPTER X BRUMAIRE Rarely has France been in a more distracted state than in the summer of 1799. Royalist revolts in the west and south rent the national life. The religious schism was unhealed; education was at a standstill; commerce had been swept from the seas by the British fleets; and trade with Italy and Germany was cut off by the war of the Second Coalition.