his vessels were repaired and urgent orders were received from the First
Consul, he again delayed, on account of an accident which had happened to
one of his ships, and it was only on the 22nd that he finally put to sea.
On the 26th he was delayed by the collision of two vessels at Cape
Carbonara in Sardinia, and becoming discouraged and uneasy, the admiral
again entered Toulon on the 5th of April, at the moment when the English
fleet were passing Rosetta. The town was badly defended and fell into the
hands of the enemies, who thus became masters of the mouth of the Nile;
and sending some gun-boats up as far as Foueh, they soon took it. Generals
Lagrange and Morand held Ramanieh; and Menou delaying to lend the
assistance which he promised, Lagrange fell back upon Cairo, and
communication with Alexandria was interrupted. General Billiard, who
commanded in the capital of Egypt, made a sally to repulse the vizier's
troops; but in spite of several skirmishes he could not reach the main
body of the army, and returning to the town, he offered to capitulate. The
English were anxious to finish, being afraid of one of those strokes of
good fortune to which the French arms had so often owed their success. The
most honorable conditions were granted to the army, the troops evacuating
Egypt being carried back to France at the expense of England, and in their
vessels (27th June, 1801). Almost at the same moment (24th June), Admiral
Ganteaume, with his squadron reduced by sickness, at last anchored before
Derne, several marches from Alexandria; but as the people on the coast
opposed his landing, and the undertaking was hazardous and the land route
difficult, he again put to sea, thinking himself fortunate in finding in
the Straits at Candia an English ship, which he captured and brought
triumphantly to Toulon. General Menou, now alone, and shut up in
Alexandria, obstinately and heroically resisted in vain. When at last he
surrendered, he had been long forgotten in his isolation. Thus though
Bonaparte's thoughts often went back to that famous and chimerical
conquest of his youth, Egypt was definitively lost to France.