For the Orient was still the pole to which Napoleon's whole being responded.

Turned away perforce by wars with Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Spain, it swung round towards Egypt and India on the first chance of European peace, only to be driven back by some untoward shock nearer home.

In 1803 he counted on the speedy opening of a campaign on the Ganges.

In 1811 he proposes that the tricolour shall once more wave on the citadel of Cairo, and threaten India from the shores of the Red Sea.

But a higher will than his disposed of these events, and ordained that he should then be flung back from Russia and fight for his Empire in the plains of Saxony.
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