Editing French Directory (section)

==== Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt (May 1798) ====
{{main|French campaign in Egypt and Syria}}
The idea of a French military expedition to Egypt had been proposed by [[Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord]] in a memoir to the [[Institut de France]] as early as 3 July 1797, and in a letter the following month from Talleyrand to Bonaparte. The Egyptian expedition had three objectives: to cut the shortest route from England to [[Company rule in India|British India]] by occupying the [[Isthmus of Suez]]; to found a colony which could produce cotton and sugar cane, which were in short supply in France due to the British blockade; and to provide a base for a future French attack on British India. It also had several personal advantages for Bonaparte: it allowed him to keep a distance from the unpopular Directory, while at the same time staying in the public eye.{{sfn|Tulard|Fayard|Fierro|1998|p=245}}

[[File:The Battle of the Nile.jpg|thumb|300px|''The Destruction of 'L'Orient' at the Battle of the Nile, 1 August 1798'', oil on canvas by George Arnald (1825-1827). Defeat at the Battle of the Nile left Bonaparte and his army stranded in Egypt. [[National Maritime Museum]], [[Greenwich]], England]]
The Directory itself was not enthusiastic about the idea, which would take its most successful general and his army far from Europe just at the time that a major new war was brewing. Director La Révellière-Lépeaux wrote: "The idea never came from the Directory or any of its members. The ambition and pride of Bonaparte could no longer support the idea of not being visible, and of being under the orders of the Directory."

The idea presented two other problems: Republican French policy was opposed to colonization, and France was not at war with the Ottoman Empire, to which Egypt belonged. Therefore, the expedition was given an additional scientific purpose: "to enlighten the world and to obtain new treasures for science." A large team of prominent scientists was added to the expedition; twenty-one mathematicians, three astronomers, four architects, thirteen naturalists and an equal number of geographers, plus painters, a pianist and the poet [[François-Auguste Parseval-Grandmaison]].{{sfn|Tulard|Fayard|Fierro|1998|pp=245–246}}

On 19 May 1798, two hundred ships carrying Bonaparte, and 35,000 men comprising the [[Order of battle of the Armée d'Orient (1798)|''Armée d'Orient'']], most of them veterans of Bonaparte's Army of Italy, sailed from [[Toulon]]. The British fleet under [[Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson|Nelson]], expecting a French expedition toward [[Constantinople]], was not in position to stop them. The French fleet stopped briefly at [[Malta]], capturing the island, the [[Hospitaller Malta|government of which]] offered little resistance. Bonaparte's army landed in the bay of [[Alexandria]] on 1 July, and captured that city on 2 July, with little opposition. He wrote a letter to the [[Pasha]] of [[Egypt Eyalet|Egypt]], claiming that his purpose was to liberate Egypt from the tyranny of the [[Mamluk]]s. His army marched across the desert, despite extreme heat, and defeated the Mamluks at the [[Battle of the Pyramids]] on 21 July 1798. A few days later, however, on 1 August, the British fleet under Admiral Nelson arrived off the coast; the French fleet was taken by surprise and destroyed in the [[Battle of the Nile]]. Only four French ships escaped. Bonaparte and his army were prisoners in Egypt.{{sfn|Tulard|Fayard|Fierro|1998|pp=246–247}}