NAPOLEON I. 373 NAPOLEON I. Alps, he soon carried everything before him. In a year and a half, the "Little Corporal," as he came to be called by NAPOLEON I. AS EMPEROR his admiring soldiery, had either routed or destroyed five armies, each stronger than his own — that of the Piedmontese, at Mondovi, that of Beaulieu, at Cairo, Montenotte, Millesimo, Dego, and the bridge of Lodi, that of Wiirmser, at Castiglione, Roverdo, and Bassano; that of Alvinzi, at Arcole, Rivoli, and Mantua; and that of Prince Charles, whom he pursued into Germany as far as Leoben, on the road to Vienna. The result of this unexampled career of vic- tory was the treaty of Campo-Formio, which secured to France a vast acces- sion of territory. The young general was now the most popular man in France, and the Directory, eager to get rid of their dangerous rival, accepted a proposal made by him for the invasion of Egypt, and appointed him command- er-in-chief of a finely equipped expedi- tion which sailed for the East in 1798. He took Alexandria, gained over Mourad Bey the battle of the Pyramids, and, though the fleet had been destroyed by Nelson at Aboukir, the French were soon masters of Egypt. Wishing then to join Syria to his conquests Napoleon crossed the desert which separates Asia and Africa, stormed Jaffa, and laid siege to Acre; but after a siege of 57 days, the murmurings of his army, decimated with hunger and pestilence compelled him to raise the siege. He retreated to Egypt after having, with 2,000 men, defeated 20,000 Ottomans with great slaughter, at Mount Tabor. Napoleon next engaged 20,000 Janissaries, whom the English landed in the bay of Aboukir, and nearly annihilated them. The political condition in France impelled him to return there. After narrowly missing capture by the English cruisers he appeared unex- pectedly at Paris at the end of the year 1799. Bonaparte at once became the head of a very powerful party, and, aided by Sieyes, his brother Lucien and General Leclerc, he overthrew the Directory on the famous 18th Brumaire, year 8, of the Republic (Nov. 9, 1799), caused him- self to be named First Consul, having for his colleagues Cambaceres, and Lebrun, each also dig-nified by the title of consul, but mere tools to his ambition. In 1800 he placed himself at the head of the army of Italy, crossed the Alps, and gained the battle of Marengo. General Moreau having about the same time beaten the Austrians at Hohenlinden, the peace of Luneville was signed with Aus- tria in 1801, and in the following year the treaty of Amiens with England con- cluded the second war of the French NAPOLEON I. IN 1813 Revolution. In the same year he was proclaimed consul for life. The peace, however, proved only an armed truce. Both parties were only gaining breath
