guarantee that
conquest to you!"--Cf. in Marmont's memoirs the way in which Bonaparte
plays the part of tempter in offering Marmont, who refuses, an
opportunity to rob a treasury chest.]

[Footnote 1236: Miot de Melito, I., 154. (June, 1797, in the gardens of
Montebello.) "Such are substantially the most remarkable expressions in
this long discourse which I have recorded and preserved."]

[Footnote 1237: Miot de Melito, I. 184. (Conversation with Bonaparte,
November 18, 1797, at Turin.) "I remained an hour with the general
tete-a-tete. I shall relate the conversation exactly as it occurred,
according to my notes, made at the time."]

[Footnote 1238: Mathieu Dumas, "Memoires," III., 156. "It is certain
that he thought of it from this moment and seriously studied the
obstacles, means, and chances of success." (Mathieu Dumas cites the
testimony of Desaix, who was engaged in the enterprise): "It seems that
all was ready, when Bonaparte judged that things were not yet ripe, nor
the means sufficient."--Hence his departure. "He wanted to get out of
the way of the rule and caprices of these contemptible dictators,
while the latter wanted to get rid of him because his military fame and
influence in the army were obnoxious to them."]

[Footnote 1239: Larevelliere-Lepaux (one of the five directors on duty),
"Memoires," II., 340. "All that is truly grand in this enterprise, as
well as all that is bold and extravagant, either in its conception or
execution, belongs wholly to Bonaparte. The idea of it never occurred to
the Directory nor to any of its members.... His ambition and his pride
could not endure the alternative of no longer being prominent or of
accepting a post which, however eminent, would have always subjected him
to the orders of the Directory."]

[Footnote 1240: Madame de Remusat, I., 142. "Josephine laid great stress
on the Egyptian expedition as the cause of his change of temper and of
the daily despotism which made her suffer so much."--"Mes souvenirs sur
Napoleon," 325 by the count Chaptal. (Bonaparte's own words to the poet
Lemercier who might have accompanied him to the Middle East and there
would have learned many things about human nature): "You would have
seen a country where the sovereign takes no account of the lives of
his subjects, and where the subject himself takes no account of his own
life. You would have got rid of your philanthropic 'notions."]

[Footnote 1241: Roederer, III., 461 (Jan. 12, 18