It is fortunate that a contemporary, who saw Napoleon at this time, has committed his observations to paper. “I beheld with deep interest and extreme attention that extraordinary man,” he writes, “who has performed such great deeds, and about whom there is something which seems to indicate that his career is not yet terminated. I found him much like his portraits, small in stature, thin, pale, with an air of fatigue, but not, as has been reported, in ill-health. He appeared to me to listen with more abstraction than interest, as if occupied rather with what he was thinking of, than with what was said to him. There is great intelligence in his countenance, along with an expression of habitual meditation, which reveals nothing of what is passing within. In that thinking head, in that daring mind, it is impossible not to suppose that some designs are engendering which will have their influence on the destinies of Europe.” The magnificent reception accorded to Napoleon by the Directory in the Luxembourg on the 10th December 1797 surpassed all others. Madame de Staël, that witty woman whom Napoleon detested because of her meddling in politics, tells us that “Bonaparte arrived, dressed very simply, followed by his aides-de-camp, all taller than himself, but nearly bent by the respect which they displayed to him. M. de Talleyrand, in presenting Bonaparte to the Directory, called him ‘the Liberator of Italy, and the Pacificator of the Continent.’ He assured them that ‘General Bonaparte detested luxury and splendour, the miserable ambition of vulgar souls, and he loved the poems of Ossian particularly, because they detach us from the earth.’” Napoleon, who had a keen sense of the dramatic, knew very well that the plainer he dressed on such an occasion the more conspicuous he would be in a crowd of such magnificence. One sentence of his short but telling speech is worthy of notice: “From the peace you have just concluded,” he said, “dates the era of representative governments.” In a certain sense this was true, notwithstanding that his own despotism was destined to have its day. Napoleon was now given command of the so-called Army of England, which the Government fondly hoped would plant its standards on the banks of the Thames. The general soon dispelled this delusion. The time was not yet come for his gigantic preparations to subdue “perfidious Albion.” The glamour of the East beckoned him. “All great fame comes from that quarter,” he told Bourrienne. An expedition to Egypt and the restoration of French rule in India were more to his liking at the moment and offered more possibilities of enhanced fame. Not slow to read the signs of the times, and knowing the Directors were jealous of his reputation, Napoleon felt that an absence from France might have the desired effect of showing how very useful he was to the Republic. CHAPTER X The Expedition to Egypt (1798)