400 JOSEPH FOURIER. 



delicate occasions, amply compensated him for an unjust 

 omission. 



I arrive, Gentlemen, at the epoch so suggestive of 

 painful recollections, when the Agas of the Janissaries 

 who had fled into Syria, having despaired of vanquishing 

 our troops so admirably commanded, by the honourable 

 arms of the soldier, had recourse to the dagger of the 

 assassin. You are aware that a young fanatic, whose 

 imagination had been wrought up to a high state of 

 excitement in the mosques by a month of prayers and 

 abstinence, aimed a mortal blow at the hero of Heliopolis 

 at the instant when he was listening, without suspicion, 

 and with his usual kindness, to a recital of pretended 

 grievances, and was promising redress. 



This sad misfortune plunged our colony into profound 

 grief. The Egyptians themselves mingled their tears 

 with those of the French soldiers. By a delicacy of 

 feeling which we should be wrong in supposing the 

 Mahometans not to be capable of, they did not then 

 omit, they have not since omitted, to remark, that the 

 assassin and his three accomplices were not born on the 

 banks of the Nile. 



The army, to mitigate its grief, desired that the funeral 

 of Kleber should be celebrated with great pomp. It 

 wished, also, that on that solemn day, some person should 

 recount the long series of brilliant actions which will 

 transmit the name of the illustrious general to the re- 

 motest posterity. By unanimous consent this honourable 

 and perilous mission was confided to Fourier. 



There are very few individuals, Gentlemen, who have 

 not seen the brilliant dreams of their youth wrecked one 

 after the other against the sad realities of mature age. 

 Fourier was one of those few exceptions. 



