i S 8 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



for her part, in centuries past, had the ambition to 

 possess. This point is Egypt, k the direct route to 

 India Egypt, which has been more than once dyed 

 with French blood. 



"It is superfluous to go into the motives which 

 could not allow England to see Egypt fall into the 

 hands of a rival nation without offering the most 

 desperate resistance ; but a fact which must be also 

 taken into full account is that France in her turn, 

 though not so materially interested, could not, in 

 obedience to her glorious traditions, and under the 

 impulse of other sentiments more instinctive than 

 logical and for that very reason all powerful upon 

 her impressionable inhabitants allow England to 

 take peaceable possession of Egypt. It is evident 

 that as long as the route to India is open and 

 safe, that the state of the country guarantees facility 

 and promptitude of communication, England will not 

 voluntarily create for herself the gravest difficulties 

 in order to appropriate to herself a territory which, 

 in her eyes, is only valuable as a transit route. It 

 is equally clear that France, whose policy for the last 

 fifty years has consisted in contributing to the pros- 

 perity of Egypt, as well by her counsels as by the 

 assistance of a great many Frenchmen distinguished 

 in science, in administration, and in all the arts of 

 war and peace, will not, for her part, attempt to 

 realise the projects of another age so long as England 

 does not set foot there. 



