 This difficulty, which constituted the darkest cloud on the diplomatic horizon, was first raised by Talleyrand on 27 January 1803.Three days later was published a report filling eight pages of the "Moniteur" from Colonel Sebastiani, who had been sent by Napoleon upon a special mission of inquiry to Egypt.In this report military information was freely interspersed with remarks disparaging to England, in which country the document was plausibly interpreted as a preface to a second invasion of Egypt by the French.