ANNA'LS 



ov 



PHILOSOPHY. 



MARCHy 182,5. 



Article I. 



Oh the Life and Writings of Claude-Louis Berthollet. 

 By Mr. Hugh Colquhoun. 



(^Concluded from p. 96.) 



After seeing the iiTiportant services which the distinguished 

 friends Berthollet and Monge rendered to France in the early 

 years of her revohitionary warfare, the public confidence which 

 the men of science then generally acquired, and the political 

 weight which in a manner devolved upon them, nothing seems 

 more natural than that men like these friends, who were as 

 remarkable foriheir taste as for their talent, should be deputed 

 by the Directory in 1796, on the occasion of that brilliant and 

 wonderful campaign of Bonaparte which completely subjugated 

 Italy, to proceed to that land, and select those works of science 

 and art, with which the Louvre was to be filled and adorned. 

 While engaged in the prosecution of that duty, they became 

 acquainted with the victorious general. To know such men was 

 to esteem them : and Napoleon had penetration enough to feel 

 how important their friendship might ultimately prove. He, 

 therefore, cultivated their acquaintance, and was happy after- 

 wards to possess them, with nearly a hundred other philoso- 

 phers, as his companions in the next expedition which he under- 

 took. In this instance, he no doubt expected that his conquests, 

 and their researches, while they both redounded to the honour 

 of their country, would also equally tend to surround the Com- 

 mander-in-Chief with an eclat which might favour the develop- 

 ment of his schemes of future greatness. This expedition was 

 the invasion of Egypt. 



This attempt, which had long been regarded with a favourable 

 eye by the French cabinet, as likely to furnish, after a few brilliant 

 yet ea.sy victories, a soil which should become colonized by and 

 tributary to France, and which promised to produce rice, sugar, 

 corn, and coffee, in abundance, to the injury of the Indian pos- 

 sessions of Britain, was at length in 17y8 embarked in, under 



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