return from Egypt from that which is generally accepted.
"Fate led me one evening to the theatre next to a box occupied by two very pretty women who were unknown to me. During the performance a message was brought to them. I noticed that it caused great and joyous commotion. They left, and I soon afterwards learnt that they were the sisters of Bonaparte, and that he had landed on French soil."
But Pasquier goes on to declare: "The effect produced on me by the knowledge of this fact, and on the greater number of those who received it simultaneously with me, was in no way prophetic of the consequences which were to follow." For at this period Napoleon was not thought so much of. "The expedition to Egypt, which has since appealed so strongly to the imagination, was then hardly looked upon as anything but a mad undertaking."
"What had especially struck people in these bulletins was a certain declaration in favour of the Mohammedan creed, the effect of which, though it might be somewhat great in Egypt, had in France only called forth ridicule. I state all this because a number of people, believing, apparently, that they were adding to their hero's greatness, have since sought to represent him as ardently and impatiently expected. I am of opinion that they have not spoken truly, and deceived themselves
