Read the excerpt from "The Rosetta Stone.”Then chance stepped in. In 1798, Napoleon went to Egypt to protect its trade interests. In addition to an army, he brought along Egyptian scholars who were charged with copying the inscriptions and studying the architecture.The following year, the French bolstered their defenses by rebuilding a fort in the town of Rosetta. In the midst of the fortification, the Rosetta Stone was discovered. Ironically, this large stone tablet was found not by one of the scholars but by a soldier. Luckily, he recognized that the inscriptions must have value. Militarily, Napoleon's Egyptian campaign was a disaster—the British decimated the French navy—but historically, it was of long-lasting importance.