Kleber, who was a sincere republican, saw and dreaded for his country's
sake the secret views and inordinate ambition of Bonaparte. He was a
grumbler by nature; yet he never evinced discontent in the discharge of
his duties as a soldier. He swore and stormed, but marched bravely to
the cannon's mouth: he was indeed courage personified. One day when he
was in the trench at St. Jean d'Acre, standing up, and by his tall
stature exposed to every shot, Bonaparte called to him, "Stoop down,
Kleber, stoop down!"--"Why;" replied he, "your confounded trench does
not reach to my knees." He never regarded the Egyptian expedition with a
favourable eye. He thought it too expensive, and utterly useless to
France. He was convinced that in the situation in which we stood,
without a navy or a powerful Government, it would have been better to
have confined our attention to Europe than to have wasted French blood
and money on the banks of the Nile, and among the ruined cities of Syria.
Kleber, who was a cool, reflecting man, judged Bonaparte without
enthusiasm, a thing somewhat rare at that time, and he was not blind to
any of his faults.

Bonaparte alleged that Kleber said to him, "General, you are as great as
the world!" Such a remark is in direct opposition to Kleber's character.
He was too sincere to say anything against his conviction. Bonaparte,
always anxious to keep Egypt, of which the preservation alone could
justify the conquest, allowed Kleber to speak because he acted at the
same time. He knew that Kleber's sense of military duty would always
triumph over any opposition he might cherish to his views and plans.
Thus the death of his lieutenant, far from causing Bonaparte any feeling
of satisfaction, afflicted him the more, because it almost totally
deprived him if the hope of preserving a conquest which had cost France
so dear, and which was his work.