Chapter 8 EGYPT

Among the many misconceptions of the French revolutionists none was more insidious than the notion that the wealth and power of the British people rested on an artificial basis. This mistaken belief in England's weakness arose out of the doctrine taught by the Economistes or Physiocrates in the latter half of last century, that commerce was not of itself productive of wealth, since it only promoted the distribution of the products of the earth; but that agriculture was the sole source of true wealth and prosperity.

They therefore exalted agriculture at the expense of commerce and manufactures, and the course of the Revolution, which turned largely on agrarian questions, tended in the same direction. Robespierre and St. Just were never weary of contrasting the virtues of a simple pastoral life with the corruptions and weakness engendered by foreign commerce; and when, early in 1793, Jacobinical zeal embroiled the young Republic with England, the orators of the Convention confidently prophesied the downfall of the modern Carthage. Kersaint declared that "the credit of England rests upon fictitious wealth: ... bounded in territory, the public future of England is found almost wholly in its bank, and this edifice is entirely supported by naval commerce. It is easy to cripple this commerce, and especially so for a power like France, which stands alone on her own riches."[90]

Commercial interests played a foremost part all through the struggle. The official correspondence of Talleyrand in 1797 proves that the Directory intended to claim the Channel Islands, the north of Newfoundland, and all our conquests in the East Indies made since 1754, besides the restitution of Gibraltar to Spain.[91] Nor did these hopes seem extravagant. The financial crisis in London and the mutiny at the Nore seemed to betoken the exhaustion of England, while the victories of Bonaparte raised the power of France to heights never known before. Before the victory of Duncan over the Dutch at Camperdown (October 11th, 1797), Britain seemed to have lost her naval supremacy.

The recent admission of State bankruptcy at Paris, when two-thirds of the existing liabilities were practically expunged, sharpened the desire of the Directory to compass England's ruin, an enterprise which might serve to restore French credit and would certainly engage those vehement activities of Bonaparte that could otherwise work mischief in Paris. On his side he gladly accepted the command of the Army of England.

"The people of Paris do not remember anything," he said to Bourrienne. "Were I to remain here long, doing nothing, I should be lost. In this great Babylon everything wears out: my glory has already disappeared. This little Europe does not supply enough of it for me. I must seek it in the East: all great fame comes from that quarter. However, I wish first to make a tour along the [northern] coast to see for myself what may be attempted. If the success of a descent upon England appear doubtful, as I suspect it will, the Army of England shall become the Army of the East, and I go to Egypt."[92]

In February, 1798, he paid a brief visit to Dunkirk and the Flemish coast, and concluded that the invasion of England was altogether too complicated to be hazarded except as a last desperate venture. In a report to the Government (February 23rd) he thus sums up the whole situation:

"Whatever efforts we make, we shall not for some years gain the naval supremacy. To invade England without that supremacy is the most daring and difficult task ever undertaken.... If, having regard to the present organization of our navy, it seems impossible to gain the necessary promptness of execution, then we must really give up the expedition against England, be satisfied with keeping up the pretence of it, and concentrate all our attention and resources on the Rhine, in order to try to deprive England of Hanover and Hamburg:[93] ... or else undertake an eastern expedition which would menace her trade with the Indies. And if none of these three operations is practicable, I see nothing else for it but to conclude peace with England."

The greater part of his career serves as a commentary on these designs. To one or other of them he was constantly turning as alternative schemes for the subjugation of his most redoubtable foe. The first plan he now judged to be impracticable; the second, which appears later in its fully matured form as his Continental System, was not for the present feasible, because France was about to settle German affairs at the Congress of Rastadt; to the third he therefore turned the whole force of his genius.

The conquest of Egypt and the restoration to France of her supremacy in India appealed to both sides of Bonaparte's nature. The vision of the tricolour floating above the minarets of Cairo and the palace of the Great Mogul at Delhi fascinated a mind in which the mysticism of the south was curiously blent with the practicality and passion for details that characterize the northern races. To very few men in the world's history has it been granted to dream grandiose dreams and all but realize them, to use by turns the telescope and the microscope of political survey, to plan vast combinations of force, and yet to supervise with infinite care the adjustment of every adjunct. C?sar, in the old world, was possibly the mental peer of Bonaparte in this majestic equipoise of the imaginative and practical qualities; but of C?sar we know comparatively little; whereas the complex workings of the greatest mind of the modern world stand revealed in that storehouse of facts and fancies, the "Correspondance de Napoléon." The motives which led to the Eastern Expedition are there unfolded. In the letter which he wrote to Talleyrand shortly before the signature of the peace of Campo Formio occurs this suggestive passage:

"The character of our nation is to be far too vivacious amidst prosperity. If we take for the basis of all our operations true policy, which is nothing else than the calculation of combinations and chances, we shall long be la grande nation and the arbiter of Europe. I say more: we hold the balance of Europe: we will make that balance incline as we wish; and, if such is the order of fate, I think it by no means impossible that we may in a few years attain those grand results of which the heated and enthusiastic imagination catches a glimpse, and which the extremely cool, persistent, and calculating man will alone attain."

This letter was written when Bonaparte was bartering away Venice to the Emperor in consideration of the acquisition by France of the Ionian Isles. Its reference to the vivacity of the French was doubtless evoked by the orders which he then received to "revolutionize Italy." To do that, while the Directory further extorted from England Gibraltar, the Channel Islands, and her eastern conquests, was a programme dictated by excessive vivacity. The Directory lacked the practical qualities that selected one great enterprise at a time and brought to bear on it the needful concentration of effort. In brief, he selected the war against England's eastern commerce as his next sphere of action; for it offered "an arena vaster, more necessary and resplendent" than war with Austria; "if we compel the [British] Government to a peace, the advantages we shall gain for our commerce in both hemispheres will be a great step towards the consolidation of liberty and the public welfare."[94]

For this eastern expedition he had already prepared. In May, 1797, he had suggested the seizure of Malta from the Knights of St. John; and when, on September 27th, the Directory gave its assent, he sent thither a French commissioner, Poussielgue, on a "commercial mission," to inspect those ports, and also, doubtless, to undermine the discipline of the Knights. Now that the British had retired from Corsica, and France disposed of the maritime resources of Northern Italy, Spain, and Holland, it seemed quite practicable to close the Mediterranean to those "intriguing and enterprising islanders," to hold them at bay in their dull northern seas, to exhaust them by ruinous preparations against expected descents on their southern coasts, on Ireland, and even on Scotland, while Bonaparte's eastern conquests dried up the sources of their wealth in the Orient: "Let us concentrate all our activity on our navy and destroy England. That done, Europe is at our feet."[95]

But he encountered opposition from the Directory. They still clung to their plan of revolutionizing Italy; and only by playing on their fear of the army could he bring these civilians to assent to the expatriation of 35,000 troops and their best generals. On La Réveillière-Lépeaux the young commander worked with a skill that veiled the choicest irony. This Director was the high-priest of a newly-invented cult, termed Théo-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 Réveillière 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. The disorders of the preceding year in that city had culminated at Christmas in a riot in which General Duphot had been assassinated; this outrage furnished the pretext desired by the Directory for revolutionizing Central Italy. Berthier was at once ordered to lead French troops against the Eternal City. He entered without resistance (February 15th, 1798), declared the civil authority of the Pope at an end, and proclaimed the restoration of the Roman Republic. The practical side of the liberating policy was soon revealed. A second time the treasures of Rome, both artistic and financial, were rifled; and, as Lucien Bonaparte caustically remarked in his "Memoirs," the chief duty of the newly-appointed consuls and qu?stors was to superintend the packing up of pictures and statues designed for Paris. Berthier not only laid the basis of a large private fortune, but showed his sense of the object of the expedition by sending large sums for the equipment of the armada at Toulon. "In sending me to Rome," wrote Berthier to Bonaparte, "you appoint me treasurer to the expedition against England. I will try to fill the exchequer."

The intervention of the Directory in the affairs of Switzerland was equally lucrative. The inhabitants of the district of Vaud, in their struggles against the oppressive rule of the Bernese oligarchy, had offered to the French Government the excuse for interference: and a force invading that land, overpowered the levies of the central cantons.[96] The imposition of a centralized form of government modelled on that of France, the wresting of Geneva from this ancient confederation, and its incorporation with France, were not the only evils suffered by Switzerland. Despite the proclamation of General Brune that the French came as friends to the descendants of William Tell, and would respect their independence and their property, French commissioners proceeded to rifle the treasuries of Berne, Zürich, Solothurn, Fribourg, and Lucerne of sums which amounted in all to eight and a half million francs; fifteen millions were extorted in forced contributions and plunder, besides 130 cannon and 60,000 muskets which also became the spoils of the liberators.[97] The destination of part of the treasure was already fixed; on April 13th Bonaparte wrote an urgent letter to General Lannes, directing him to expedite the transit of the booty to Toulon, where three million francs were forthwith expended on the completion of the armada.

This letter, and also the testimony of Madame de Sta?l, Barras, Bourrienne, and Mallet du Pan, show that he must have been a party to this interference in Swiss affairs, which marks a debasement, not only of Bonaparte's character, but of that of the French army and people. It drew from Coleridge, who previously had seen in the Revolution the dawn of a nobler era, an indignant protest against the prostitution of the ideas of 1789:

"Oh France that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind,

Are these thy boasts, champion of human kind?

To mix with Kings in the low lust of sway,

Yell in the hunt and join the murderous prey? ...

The sensual and the dark rebel in vain

Slaves by their own compulsion. In mad game

They burst their manacles: but wear the name

Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain."

The occupation by French troops of the great central bastion of the European system seemed a challenge, not only to idealists, but to German potentates. It nearly precipitated a rupture with Vienna, where the French tricolour had recently been torn down by an angry crowd. But Bonaparte did his utmost to prevent a renewal of war that would blight his eastern prospects; and he succeeded. One last trouble remained. At his final visit to the Directory, when crossed about some detail, he passionately threw up his command. Thereupon Rewbell, noted for his incisive speech, drew up the form of resignation, and presenting it to Bonaparte, firmly said, "Sign, citizen general." The general did not sign, but retired from the meeting apparently crestfallen, but really meditating a coup d'état. This last statement rests on the evidence of Mathieu Dumas, who heard it through General Desaix, a close friend of Bonaparte; and it is clear from the narratives of Bourrienne, Barras, and Madame Junot that, during his last days in Paris, the general was moody, preoccupied, and fearful of being poisoned.

At last the time of preparation and suspense was at an end. The aims of the expedition as officially defined by a secret decree on April 12th included the capture of Egypt and the exclusion of the English from "all their possessions in the East to which the general can come"; Bonaparte was also to have the isthmus of Suez cut through; to "assure the free and exclusive possession of the Red Sea to the French Republic"; to improve the condition of the natives of Egypt, and to cultivate good relations with the Grand Signior. Another secret decree empowered Bonaparte to seize Malta. To these schemes he added another of truly colossal dimensions. After conquering the East, he would rouse the Greeks and other Christians of the East, overthrow the Turks, seize Constantinople, and "take Europe in the rear."

Generous support was accorded to the savants who were desirous of exploring the artistic and literary treasures of Egypt and Mesopotamia. It has been affirmed by the biographer of Monge that the enthusiasm of this celebrated physicist first awakened Bonaparte's desire for the eastern expedition; but this seems to have been aroused earlier by Volney, who saw a good deal of Bonaparte in 1791. In truth, the desire to wrest the secrets of learning from the mysterious East seems always to have spurred on his keenly inquisitive nature. During the winter months of 1797-8 he attended the chemical lectures of the renowned Berthollet; and it was no perfunctory choice which selected him for the place in the famous institute left vacant by the exile of Carnot. The manner in which he now signed his orders and proclamations-Member of the Institute, General in Chief of the Army of the East-showed his determination to banish from the life of France that affectation of boorish ignorance by which the Terrorists had rendered themselves uniquely odious.

After long delays, caused by contrary winds, the armada set sail from Toulon. Along with the convoys from Marseilles, Genoa, and Civita Vecchia, it finally reached the grand total of 13 ships of the line, 7 frigates, several gunboats, and nearly 300 transports of various sizes, conveying 35,000 troops. Admiral Brueys was the admiral, but acting under Bonaparte. Of the generals whom the commander-in-chief took with him, the highest in command were the divisional generals Kléber, Desaix, Bon, Menou, Reynier, for the infantry: under them served 14 generals, a few of whom, as Marmont, were to achieve a wider fame. The cavalry was commanded by the stalwart mulatto, General Alexandre Dumas, under whom served Leclerc, the husband of Pauline Bonaparte, along with two men destined to world-wide renown, Murat and Davoust. The artillery was commanded by Dommartin, the engineers by Caffarelli: and the heroic Lannes was quarter-master general.

The armada appeared off Malta without meeting with any incident. This island was held by the Knights of St. John, the last of those companies of Christian warriors who had once waged war on the infidels in Palestine. Their courage had evaporated in luxurious ease, and their discipline was a prey to intestine schisms and to the intrigues carried on with the French Knights of the Order. A French fleet had appeared off Valetta in the month of March in the hope of effecting a surprise; but the admiral, Brueys, judging the effort too hazardous, sent an awkward explanation, which only served to throw the knights into the arms of Russia. One of the chivalrous dreams of the Czar Paul was that of spreading his influence in the Mediterranean by a treaty with this Order. It gratified his crusading ardour and promised to Russia a naval base for the partition of Turkey which was then being discussed with Austria: to secure the control of the island, Russia was about to expend 400,000 roubles, when Bonaparte anticipated Muscovite designs by a prompt seizure.[98] An excuse was easily found for a rupture with the Order: some companies of troops were disembarked, and hostilities commenced.

Secure within their mighty walls, the knights might have held the intruders at bay, had they not been divided by internal disputes: the French knights refused to fight against their countrymen; and a revolt of the native Maltese, long restless under the yoke of the Order, now helped to bring the Grand Master to a surrender. The evidence of the English consul, Mr. Williams, seems to show that the discontent of the natives was even more potent than the influence of French gold in bringing about this result.[99] At any rate, one of the strongest places in Europe admitted a French garrison, after so tame a defence that General Caffarelli, on viewing the fortifications, remarked to Bonaparte: "Upon my word, general, it is lucky there was some one in the town to open the gates to us."

During his stay of seven days at Malta, Bonaparte revealed the vigour of those organizing powers for which the half of Europe was soon to present all too small an arena. He abolished the Order, pensioning off those French knights who had been serviceable: he abolished the religious houses and confiscated their domains to the service of the new government: he established a governmental commission acting under a military governor: he continued provisionally the existing taxes, and provided for the imposition of customs, excise, and octroi dues: he prepared the way for the improvement of the streets, the erection of fountains, the reorganization of the hospitals and the post office. To the university he gave special attention, rearranging the curriculum on the model of the more advanced écoles centrales of France, but inclining the studies severely to the exact sciences and the useful arts. On all sides he left the imprint of his practical mind, that viewed life as a game at chess, whence bishops and knights were carefully banished, and wherein nothing was left but the heavy pieces and subservient pawns.

After dragging Malta out of its mediaeval calm and plunging it into the full swirl of modern progress, Bonaparte set sail for Egypt. His exchequer was the richer by all the gold and silver, whether in bullion or in vessels, discoverable in the treasury of Malta or in the Church of St. John. Fortunately, the silver gates of this church had been coloured over, and thus escaped the fate of the other treasures.[100] On the voyage to Alexandria he studied the library of books which he had requested Bourrienne to purchase for him. The composition of this library is of interest as showing the strong trend of his thoughts towards history, though at a later date he was careful to limit its study in the university and schools which he founded. He had with him 125 volumes of historical works, among which the translations of Thucydides, Plutarch, Tacitus, and Livy represented the life of the ancient world, while in modern life he concentrated his attention chiefly on the manners and institutions of peoples and the memoirs of great generals-as Turenne, Condé, Luxembourg, Saxe, Marlborough, Eugène, and Charles XII. Of the poets he selected the so-called Ossian, Tasso, Ariosto, Homer, Virgil, and the masterpieces of the French theatre; but he especially affected the turgid and declamatory style of Ossian. In romance, English literature was strongly represented by forty volumes of novels, of course in translations. Besides a few works on arts and sciences, he also had with him twelve volumes of "Barclay's Geography," and three volumes of "Cook's Voyages," which show that his thoughts extended to the antipodes; and under the heading of Politics he included the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, a Mythology, and Montesquieu's "Esprit des Lois"! The composition and classification of this library are equally suggestive. Bonaparte carefully searched out the weak places of the organism which he was about to attack-in the present campaign, Egypt and the British Empire. The climate and natural products, the genius of its writers and the spirit of its religion-nothing came amiss to his voracious intellect, which assimilated the most diverse materials and pressed them all into his service. Greek mythology provided allusions for the adornment of his proclamations, the Koran would dictate his behaviour towards the Moslems, and the Bible was to be his guide-book concerning the Druses and Armenians. All three were therefore grouped together under the head of Politics.

And this, on the whole, fairly well represents his mental attitude towards religion: at least, it was his work-a-day attitude. There were moments, it is true, when an overpowering sense of the majesty of the universe lifted his whole being far above this petty opportunism: and in those moments, which, in regard to the declaration of character, may surely be held to counterbalance whole months spent in tactical shifts and diplomatic wiles, he was capable of soaring to heights of imaginative reverence. Such an episode, lighting up for us the recesses of his mind, occurred during his voyage to Egypt. The savants on board his ship, "L'Orient," were discussing one of those questions which Bonaparte often propounded, in order that, as arbiter in this contest of wits, he might gauge their mental powers. Mental dexterity, rather than the Socratic pursuit after truth, was the aim of their dialectic; but on one occasion, when religion was being discussed, Bonaparte sounded a deeper note: looking up into the midnight vault of sky, he said to the philosophizing atheists: "Very ingenious, sirs, but who made all that?" As a retort to the tongue-fencers, what could be better? The appeal away from words to the star-studded canopy was irresistible: it affords a signal proof of what Carlyle has finely called his "instinct for nature" and his "ineradicable feeling for reality." This probably was the true man, lying deep under his Moslem shifts and Concordat bargainings.

That there was a tinge of superstition in Bonaparte's nature, such as usually appears in gifted scions of a coast-dwelling family, cannot be denied;[101] but his usual attitude towards religion was that of the political mechanician, not of the devotee, and even while professing the forms of fatalistic belief, he really subordinated them to his own designs. To this profound calculation of the credulity of mankind we may probably refer his allusions to his star. The present writer regards it as almost certain that his star was invoked in order to dazzle the vulgar herd. Indeed, if we may trust Miot de Melito, the First Consul once confessed as much to a circle of friends. "C?sar," he said, "was right to cite his good fortune and to appear to believe in it. That is a means of acting on the imagination of others without offending anyone's self-love." A strange admission this; what boundless self-confidence it implies that he should have admitted the trickery. The mere acknowledgment of it is a proof that he felt himself so far above the plane of ordinary mortals that, despite the disclosure, he himself would continue to be his own star. For the rest, is it credible that this analyzing genius could ever have seriously adopted the astrologer's creed? Is there anything in his early note-books or later correspondence which warrants such a belief? Do not all his references to his star occur in proclamations and addresses intended for popular consumption?

Certainly Bonaparte's good fortune was conspicuous all through these eastern adventures, and never more so than when he escaped the pursuit of Nelson. The English admiral had divined his aim. Setting all sail, he came almost within sight of the French force near Crete, and he reached Alexandria barely two days before his foes hove in sight. Finding no hostile force there, he doubled back on his course and scoured the seas between Crete, Sicily, and the Morca, until news received from a Turkish official again sent him eastwards. On such trifles does the fate of empires sometimes depend.

Meanwhile events were crowding thick and fast upon Bonaparte. To free himself from the terrible risks which had menaced his force off the Egyptian coast, he landed his troops, 35,000 strong, with all possible expedition at Marabout near Alexandria, and, directing his columns of attack on the walls of that city, captured it by a rush (July 2nd).

For this seizure of neutral territory he offered no excuse other than that the Beys, who were the real rulers of Egypt, had favoured English commerce and were guilty of some outrages on French merchants. He strove, however, to induce the Sultan of Turkey to believe that the French invasion of Egypt was a friendly act, as it would overthrow the power of the Mamelukes, who had reduced Turkish authority to a mere shadow. This was the argument which he addressed to the Turkish officials, but it proved to be too subtle even for the oriental mind fully to appreciate. Bonaparte's chief concern was to win over the subject population, which consisted of diverse races. At the surface were the Mamelukes, a powerful military order, possessing a magnificent cavalry, governed by two Beys, and scarcely recognizing the vague suzerainty claimed by the Porte. The rivalries of the Beys, Murad and Ibrahim, produced a fertile crop of discords in this governing caste, and their feuds exposed the subject races, both Arabs and Copts, to constant forays and exactions. It seemed possible, therefore, to arouse them against the dominant caste, provided that the Mohammedan scruples of the whole population were carefully respected. To this end, the commander cautioned his troops to act towards the Moslems as towards "Jews and Italians," and to respect their muftis and imams as much as "rabbis and bishops." He also proclaimed to the Egyptians his determination, while overthrowing Mameluke tyranny, to respect the Moslem faith: "Have we not destroyed the Pope, who bade men wage war on Moslems? Have we not destroyed the Knights of Malta, because those fools believed it to be God's will to war against Moslems?" The French soldiers were vastly amused by the humour of these proceedings, and the liberated people fully appreciated the menaces with which Bonaparte's proclamation closed, backed up as these were by irresistible force.[102]

After arranging affairs at Alexandria, where the gallant Kléber was left in command, Bonaparte ordered an advance into the interior. Never, perhaps, did he show the value of swift offensive action more decisively than in this prompt march on Damanhour across the desert. The other route by way of Rosetta would have been easier; but, as it was longer, he rejected it, and told off General Menou to capture that city and support a flotilla of boats which was to ascend the Nile and meet the army on its march to Cairo. On July 4th the first division of the main force set forth by night into the desert south of Alexandria. All was new and terrible; and, when the rays of the sun smote on their weary backs, the murmurings of the troops grew loud. This, then, was the land "more fertile than Lombardy," which was the goal of their wanderings. "See, there are the six acres of land which you are promised," exclaimed a waggish soldier to his comrade as they first gazed from ship-board on the desert east of Alexandria; and all the sense of discipline failed to keep this and other gibes from the ears of staff officers even before they reached that city. Far worse was their position now in the shifting sand of the desert, beset by hovering Bedouins, stung by scorpions, and afflicted by intolerable thirst. The Arabs had filled the scanty wells with stones, and only after long toil could the sappers reach the precious fluid beneath. Then the troops rushed and fought for the privilege of drinking a few drops of muddy liquor. Thus they struggled on, the succeeding divisions faring worst of all. Berthier, chief of the staff, relates that a glass of water sold for its weight in gold. Even brave officers abandoned themselves to transports of rage and despair which left them completely prostrate.[103]

But Bonaparte flinched not. His stern composure offered the best rebuke to such childish sallies; and when out of a murmuring group there came the bold remark, "Well, General, are you going to take us to India thus," he abashed the speaker and his comrades by the quick retort, "No, I would not undertake that with such soldiers as you." French honour, touched to the quick, reasserted itself even above the torments of thirst; and the troops themselves, when they tardily reached the Nile and slaked their thirst in its waters, recognized the pre-eminence of his will and his profound confidence in their endurance. French gaiety had not been wholly eclipsed even by the miseries of the desert march. To cheer their drooping spirits the commander had sent some of the staunchest generals along the line of march. Among them was the gifted Caffarelli, who had lost a leg in the Rhenish campaign: his reassuring words called forth the inimitable retort from the ranks: "Ah! he don't care, not he: he has one leg in France." Scarcely less witty was the soldier's description of the prowling Bedouins, who cut off stragglers and plunderers, as "The mounted highway police."

After brushing aside a charge of 800 Mamelukes at Chebreiss, the army made its way up the banks of the Nile to Embabeh, opposite Cairo. There the Mamelukes, led by the fighting Bey, Murad, had their fortified camp; and there that superb cavalry prepared to overwhelm the invaders in a whirlwind rush of horse (July 21st, 1798). The occasion and the surroundings were such as to inspire both sides with deperate resolution. It was the first fierce shock on land of eastern chivalry and western enterprise since the days of St. Louis; and the ardour of the republicans was scarcely less than that which had kindled the soldiers of the cross. Beside the two armies rolled the mysterious Nile; beyond glittered the slender minarets of Cairo; and on the south there loomed the massy Pyramids. To the forty centuries that had rolled over them, Bonaparte now appealed, in one of those imaginative touches which ever brace the French nature to the utmost tension of daring and endurance. Thus they advanced in close formation towards the intrenched camp of the Mamelukes. The divisions on the left at once rushed at its earthworks, silenced its feeble artillery, and slaughtered the fellahin inside.

But the other divisions, now ranged in squares, while gazing at this exploit, were assailed by the Mamelukes. From out the haze of the mirage, or from behind the ridges of sand and the scrub of the water-melon plants that dotted the plain, some 10,000 of these superb horsemen suddenly appeared and rushed at the squares commanded by Desaix and Reynier. Their richly caparisoned chargers, their waving plumes, their wild battle-cries, and their marvellous skill with carbine and sword, lent picturesqueness and terror to the charge. Musketry and grapeshot mowed down their front coursers in ghastly swathes; but the living mass swept on, wellnigh overwhelming the fronts of the squares, and then, swerving aside, poured through the deadly funnel between. Decimated here also by the steady fire of the French files, and by the discharges of the rear face, they fell away exhausted, leaving heaps of dead and dying on the fronts of the squares, and in their very midst a score of their choicest cavaliers, whose bravery and horsemanship had carried them to certain death amidst the bayonets. The French now assumed the offensive, and Desaix's division, threatening to cut off the retreat of Murad's horsemen, led that wary chief to draw off his shattered squadrons; others sought, though with terrible losses, to escape across the Nile to Ibrahim's following. That chief had taken no share in the fight, and now made off towards Syria. Such was the battle of the Pyramids, which gained a colony at the cost of some thirty killed and about ten times as many wounded: of the killed about twenty fell victims to the cross fire of the two squares.[104]

After halting for a fortnight at Cairo to recruit his weary troops and to arrange the affairs of his conquest, Bonaparte marched eastwards in pursuit of Ibrahim and drove him into Syria, while Desaix waged an arduous but successful campaign against Murad in Upper Egypt. But the victors were soon to learn the uselessness of merely military triumphs in Egypt. As Bonaparte returned to complete the organization of the new colony, he heard that Nelson had destroyed his fleet.

On July 3rd, before setting out from Alexandria, the French commander gave an order to his admiral, though it must be added that its authenticity is doubtful:

"The admiral will to-morrow acquaint the commander-in-chief by a report whether the squadron can enter the port of Alexandria, or whether, in Aboukir Roads, bringing its broadside to bear, it can defend itself against the enemy's superior force; and in case both these plans should be impracticable, he must sail for Corfu ... leaving the light ships and the flotilla at Alexandria."

Brueys speedily discovered that the first plan was beset by grave dangers: the entrance to the harbour of Alexandria, when sounded, proved to be most difficult for large ships-such was his judgment and that of Villeneuve and Casabianca-and the exit could be blocked by a single English battleship. As regards the alternatives of Aboukir or Corfu, Brueys went on to state: "My firm desire is to be useful to you in every possible way: and, as I have already said, every post will suit me well, provided that you placed me there in an active way." By this rather ambiguous phrase it would seem that he scouted the alternative of Corfu as consigning him to a degrading inactivity; while at Aboukir he held that he could be actively useful in protecting the rear of the army. In that bay he therefore anchored his largest ships, trusting that the dangers of the approach would screen him from any sudden attack, but making also special preparations in case he should be compelled to fight at anchor.[105] His decision was probably less sound than that of Bonaparte, who, while marching to Cairo, and again during his sojourn there, ordered him to make for Corfu or Toulon; for the general saw clearly that the French fleet, riding in safety in those well-protected roadsteads, would really dominate the Mediterranean better than in the open expanse of Aboukir. But these orders did not reach the admiral before the blow fell; and it is, after all, somewhat ungenerous to censure Brueys for his decision to remain at Aboukir and risk a fight rather than comply with the dictates of a prudent but inglorious strategy.

The British admiral, after sweeping the eastern Mediterranean, at last found the French fleet in Aboukir Bay, about ten miles from the Rosetta mouth of the Nile. It was anchored under the lee of a shoal which would have prevented any ordinary admiral from attacking, especially at sundown. But Nelson, knowing that the head ship of the French was free to swing at anchor, rightly concluded that there must be room for British ships to sail between Brueys' stationary line and the shallows. The British captains thrust five ships between the French and the shoal, while the others, passing down the enemy's line on the seaward side, crushed it in detail; and, after a night of carnage, the light of August 2nd dawned on a scene of destruction unsurpassed in naval warfare. Two French ships of the line and two frigates alone escaped: one, the gigantic "Orient," had blown up with the spoils of Malta on board: the rest, eleven in number, were captured or burnt.

To Bonaparte this disaster came as a bolt from the blue. Only two days before, he had written from Cairo to Brueys that all the conduct of the English made him believe them to be inferior in numbers and fully satisfied with blockading Malta. Yet, in order to restore the morale of his army, utterly depressed by this disaster, he affected a confidence which he could no longer feel, and said: "Well! here we must remain or achieve a grandeur like that of the ancients."[106] He had recently assured his intimates that after routing the Beys' forces he would return to France and strike a blow direct at England. Whatever he may have designed, he was now a prisoner in his conquest. His men, even some of his highest officers, as Berthier, Bessières, Lannes, Murat, Dumas, and others, bitterly complained of their miserable position. But the commander, whose spirits rose with adversity, took effective means for repressing such discontent. To the last-named, a powerful mulatto, he exclaimed: "You have held seditious parleys: take care that I do not perform my duty: your six feet of stature shall not save you from being shot": and he offered passports for France to a few of the most discontented and useless officers, well knowing that after Nelson's victory they could scarcely be used. Others, again, out-Heroding Herod, suggested that the frigates and transports at Alexandria should be taken to pieces and conveyed on camels' backs to Suez, there to be used for the invasion of India.[107]

The versatility of Bonaparte's genius was never more marked than at this time of discouragement. While his enemies figured him and his exhausted troops as vainly seeking to escape from those arid wastes; while Nelson was landing the French prisoners in order to increase his embarrassment about food, Bonaparte and his savants were developing constructive powers of the highest order, which made the army independent of Europe. It was a vast undertaking. Deprived of most of their treasure and many of their mechanical appliances by the loss of the fleet, the savants and engineers had, as it were, to start from the beginning. Some strove to meet the difficulties of food-supply by extending the cultivation of corn and rice, or by the construction of large ovens and bakeries, or of windmills for grinding corn. Others planted vineyards for the future, or sought to appease the ceaseless thirst of the soldiery by the manufacture of a kind of native beer. Foundries and workshops began, though slowly, to supply tools and machines; the earth was rifled of her treasures, natron was wrought, saltpetre works were established, and gunpowder was thereby procured for the army with an energy which recalled the prodigies of activity of 1793.

With his usual ardour in the cause of learning, Bonaparte several times a week appeared in the chemical laboratory, or witnessed the experiments performed by Berthollet and Monge. Desirous of giving cohesion to the efforts of his savants, and of honouring not only the useful arts but abstruse research, he united these pioneers of science in a society termed the Institute of Egypt. On August 23rd, 1798, it was installed with much ceremony in the palace of one of the Beys, Monge being president and Bonaparte vice-president. The general also enrolled himself in the mathematical section of the institute. Indeed, he sought by all possible means to aid the labours of the savants, whose dissertations were now heard in the large hall of the harem that formerly resounded only to the twanging of lutes, weary jests, and idle laughter. The labours of the savants were not confined to Cairo and the Delta. As soon as the victories of Desaix in Upper Egypt opened the middle reaches of the Nile to peaceful research, the treasures of Memphis were revealed to the astonished gaze of western learning. Many of the more portable relics were transferred to Cairo, and thence to Rosetta or Alexandria, in order to grace the museums of Paris. The savants proposed, but sea-power disposed, of these treasures. They are now, with few exceptions, in the British Museum.

Apart from arch?ology, much was done to extend the bounds of learning. Astronomy gained much by the observations of General Caffarelli. A series of measurements was begun for an exact survey of Egypt: the geologists and engineers examined the course of the Nile, recorded the progress of alluvial deposits at its mouth or on its banks, and therefrom calculated the antiquity of divers parts of the Delta. No part of the great conqueror's career so aptly illustrates the truth of his noble words to the magistrates of the Ligurian Republic: "The true conquests, the only conquests which cost no regrets, are those achieved over ignorance."

Such, in brief outline, is the story of the renascence in Egypt. The mother-land of science and learning, after a wellnigh barren interval of 1,100 years since the Arab conquest, was now developed and illumined by the application of the arts with which in the dim past she had enriched the life of barbarous Europe. The repayment of this incalculable debt was due primarily to the enterprise of Bonaparte. It is one of his many titles to fame and to the homage of posterity. How poor by the side of this encyclopaedic genius are the gifts even of his most brilliant foes! At that same time the Archduke Charles of Austria was vegetating in inglorious ease on his estates. As for Beaulieu and Würmser, they had subsided into their native obscurity. Nelson, after his recent triumph, persuading himself that "Bonaparte had gone to the devil," was bending before the whims of a professional beauty and the odious despotism of the worst Court in Europe. While the admiral tarnished his fame on the Syren coast of Naples, his great opponent bent all the resources of a fertile intellect to retrieve his position, and even under the gloom of disaster threw a gleam of light into the dark continent. While his adversaries were merely generals or admirals, hampered by a stupid education and a narrow nationality, Bonaparte had eagerly imbibed the new learning of his age and saw its possible influence on the reorganization of society. He is not merely a general. Even when he is scattering to the winds the proud chivalry of the East, and is prescribing to Brueys his safest course of action, he finds time vastly to expand the horizon of human knowledge.

Nor did he neglect Egyptian politics. He used a native council for consultation and for the promulgation of his own ideas. Immediately after his entry into Cairo he appointed nine sheikhs to form a divan, or council, consulting daily on public order and the food-supplies of the city. He next assembled a general divan for Egypt, and a smaller council for each province, and asked their advice concerning the administration of justice and the collection of taxes.[108] In its use of oriental terminology, this scheme was undeniably clever; but neither French, Arabs, nor Turks were deceived as to the real government, which resided entirely in Bonaparte; and his skill in reapportioning the imposts had some effect on the prosperity of the land, enabling it to bear the drain of his constant requisitions. The welfare of the new colony was also promoted by the foundation of a mint and of an Egyptian Commercial Company.

His inventive genius was by no means exhausted by these varied toils. On his journey to Suez he met a camel caravan in the desert, and noticing the speed of the animals, he determined to form a camel corps; and in the first month of 1799 the experiment was made with such success that admission into the ranks of the camelry came to be viewed as a favour. Each animal carried two men with their arms and baggage: the uniform was sky-blue with a white turban; and the speed and precision of their movements enabled them to deal terrible blows, even at distant tribes of Bedouins, who bent before a genius that could outwit them even in their own deserts.

The pleasures of his officers and men were also met by the opening of the Tivoli Gardens; and there, in sight of the Pyramids, the life of the Palais Royal took root: the glasses clinked, the dice rattled, and heads reeled to the lascivious movements of the eastern dance; and Bonaparte himself indulged a passing passion for the wife of one of his officers, with an openness that brought on him a rebuke from his stepson, Eugène Beauharnais. But already he had been rendered desperate by reports of the unfaithfulness of Josephine at Paris; the news wrung from him this pathetic letter to his brother Joseph-the death-cry of his long drooping idealism:

"I have much to worry me privately, for the veil is entirely torn aside. You alone remain to me; your affection is very dear to me: nothing more remains to make me a misanthrope than to lose her and see you betray me.... Buy a country seat against my return, either near Paris or in Burgundy. I need solitude and isolation: grandeur wearies me: the fount of feeling is dried up: glory itself is insipid. At twenty-nine years of age I have exhausted everything. It only remains to me to become a thorough egoist."[109]

Many rumours were circulated as to Bonaparte's public appearance in oriental costume and his presence at a religious service in a mosque. It is even stated by Thiers that at one of the chief festivals he repaired to the great mosque, repeated the prayers like a true Moslem, crossing his legs and swaying his body to and fro, so that he "edified the believers by his orthodox piety." But the whole incident, however attractive scenically and in point of humour, seems to be no better authenticated than the religious results about which the historian cherished so hopeful a belief. The truth seems to be that the general went to the celebration of the birth of the Prophet as an interested spectator, at the house of the sheik, El Bekri. Some hundred sheikhs were there present: they swayed their bodies to and fro while the story of Mahomet's life was recited; and Bonaparte afterwards partook of an oriental repast. But he never forgot his dignity so far as publicly to appear in a turban and loose trousers, which he donned only once for the amusement of his staff.[110] That he endeavoured to pose as a Moslem is beyond doubt. Witness his endeavour to convince the imams at Cairo of his desire to conform to their faith. If we may believe that dubious compilation, "A Voice from St. Helena," he bade them consult together as to the possibility of admission of men, who were not circumcised and did not abstain from wine, into the true fold. As to the latter disability, he stated that the French were poor cold people, inhabitants of the north, who could not exist without wine. For a long time the imams demurred to this plea, which involved greater difficulties than the question of circumcision: but after long consultations they decided that both objections might be waived in consideration of a superabundance of good works. The reply was prompted by an irony no less subtle than that which accompanied the claim, and neither side was deceived in this contest of wits.

A rude awakening soon came. For some few days there had been rumours that the division under Desaix which was fighting the Mamelukes in Upper Egypt had been engulfed in those sandy wastes; and this report fanned to a flame the latent hostility against the unbelievers. From many minarets of Cairo a summons to arms took the place of the customary call to prayer: and on October 21st the French garrison was so fiercely and suddenly attacked as to leave the issue doubtful. Discipline and grapeshot finally prevailed, whereupon a repression of oriental ferocity cowed the spirits of the townsfolk and of the neighbouring country. Forts were constructed in Cairo and at all the strategic points along the lower Nile, and Egypt seemed to be conquered.

Feeling sure now of his hold on the populace, Bonaparte, at the close of the year, undertook a journey to Suez and the Sinaitic peninsula. It offered that combination of utility and romance which ever appealed to him. At Suez he sought to revivify commerce by lightening the customs' dues, by founding a branch of his Egyptian commercial company, and by graciously receiving a deputation of the Arabs of Tor who came to sue for his friendship.[111] Then, journeying on, he visited the fountains of Moses; but it is not true that (as stated by Lanfrey) he proceeded to Mount Sinai and signed his name in the register of the monastery side by side with that of Mahomet. On his return to the isthmus he is said to have narrowly escaped from the rising tide of the Red Sea. If we may credit Savary, who was not of the party, its safety was due to the address of the commander, who, as darkness fell on the bewildered band, arranged his horsemen in files, until the higher causeway of the path was again discovered. North of Suez the traces of the canal dug by Sesostris revealed themselves to the trained eye of the commander. The observations of his engineers confirmed his conjecture, but the vast labour of reconstruction forbade any attempt to construct a maritime canal. On his return to Cairo he wrote to the Imam of Muscat, assuring him of his friendship and begging him to forward to Tippoo Sahib a letter offering alliance and deliverance from "the iron yoke of England," and stating that the French had arrived on the shores of the Red Sea "with a numerous and invincible army." The letter was intercepted by a British cruiser; and the alarm caused by these vast designs only served to spur on our forces to efforts which cost Tippoo his life and the French most of their Indian settlements.

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