On La Reveilliere-Lepeaux the young commander worked with a skill that veiled the choicest irony.

This Director was the high-priest of a newly-invented cult, termed _Theo-philanthropie_, into the dull embers of which he was still earnestly blowing.

To this would-be prophet Bonaparte now suggested that the eastern conquests would furnish a splendid field for the spread of the new faith; and La Reveilliere was forthwith converted from his scheme of revolutionizing Europe to the grander sphere of moral proselytism opened out to him in the East by the very chief who, on landing in Egypt, forthwith professed the Moslem creed.
After gaining the doubtful assent of the Directory, Bonaparte had to face urgent financial difficulties.

The dearth of money was, however, met by two opportune interventions.

The first of these was in the affairs of Rome.