But he also gave out that, leaving Desaix and his Ethiopian supernumeraries to defend Egypt, he himself would accomplish the conquest of Syria and the East: he would raise in revolt the Christians of the Lebanon and Armenia, overthrow the Turkish power in Asia, and then march either on Constantinople or Delhi.
It is difficult to take this quite seriously, considering that he had only 12,000 men available for these adventures; and with anyone but Bonaparte they might be dismissed as utterly Quixotic.

But in his case we must seek for some practical purpose; for he never divorced fancy from fact, and in his best days imagination was the hand-maid of politics and strategy rather than the mistress.

Probably these gorgeous visions were bodied forth so as to inspirit the soldiery and enthrall the imagination of France.

He had already proved the immense power of imagination over that susceptible people.

In one sense, his whole expedition was but a picturesque drama; and an imposing climax could now be found in the plan of an Eastern Empire, that opened up dazzling vistas of glory and veiled his figure in a grandiose mirage, beside which the civilian Directors were dwarfed into ridiculous puppets.
If these vast schemes are to be taken seriously, another explanation of them is possible, namely, that he relied on the example set by Alexander the Great, who with a small but highly-trained army had shattered the stately dominions of the East.