He went to Saint-Germain with Josephine and Lavalette to visit her niece Émilie, whom Bonaparte had ordered Lavalette to marry, and to take her and Hortense for a picnic in the woods. The following day, 30 April, he attended a session of the Institute and then called on the Directors, who pressed him to leave as soon as possible. Others were still urging him to stay and overthrow the government. ‘Bonaparte must either get away or destroy the Directory or be crushed by it,’ Colonel Morand of the 85th Demi-Brigade wrote to his parents, revealing that even in Civitavecchia where he was stationed the political situation was no secret.19
Bonaparte left Paris incognito at three o’clock in the morning of 4 May, in a mail coach with a passport made out in a false name, accompanied only by Josephine, Eugène de Beauharnais and Bourrienne. They travelled to Lyon, where they embarked on a boat which took them down the Rhône as far as Aix, and from there went by carriage to Toulon, which they reached in the early hours of 9 May. He took a parade of the 18th, and then the 32nd and 75th Demi-Brigades, all old soldiers of his Army of Italy. ‘We greeted him with enthusiastic cheering lasting more than a quarter of an hour,’ recalled one officer. Bonaparte then walked through the ranks talking to officers and men, and ended with a speech comparing them to the Roman legions which conquered Carthage. He reminded them that only two years before he had found them covered in rags, had led them to glory and provided for their every need. He asked them to trust him now, and assured them that they would return with the money to buy enough land for a farm (six arpents, or about five acres).20
The enthusiasm was great, and even the hesitant Monge came to life. ‘I am transformed into an Argonaut!’ he wrote to Bonaparte, comparing him with Jason but pointing out that instead of going after some worthless fleece, he would be carrying the torch of reason to a land where no light had penetrated for centuries.21
Monge was one of the few in on the secret. The rest were kept in darkness, and speculated wildly as to whether their destination was England, Ireland, Portugal, Brazil, Sardinia, Malta, Sicily, Gibraltar, the Crimea or even India. Bonaparte announced to the 75th Demi-Brigade that they were ‘one of the wings of the Army of England’, which was about to cross the seas and conquer the new Carthage. He assured them that great destinies awaited them, that the eyes of Europe were on them, and that although they would have to overcome great dangers and hardships they would bring lasting benefits to their motherland. ‘The genius of liberty, which has made of the Republic the arbiter of Europe from her very birth, wishes that she should be that of the seas and of the most distant lands,’ he concluded. Similar exhortations were echoed all over the country. ‘Alexander subdued Asia, the Romans conquered the world,’ thundered the leading article in L’Ami des Lois. ‘Do more, make the whole world happy and free, you can, you must …’22
On 13 May the ships in the roads were bedecked with flags and fired gun salutes as Bonaparte went aboard the flagship, the 120-gun l’Orient, one of the largest ships afloat and one of the few French vessels of recent construction. He had asked Admiral Brueys to prepare a cabin for him, bearing in mind that he would be spending much time in it feeling seasick. Brueys did not stint, and according to the chief uniform supervisor who went to take a look, ‘everything was arranged in the most useful and agreeable manner, with the greatest refinement and good taste’; Bonaparte’s ‘salon de compagnie’ struck him as ‘marvellous’ and ‘fit to accommodate a sovereign’.23
At seven on the morning of 19 May the huge fleet weighed anchor. Five days later it was off Corsica, where it was joined by a flotilla carrying a contingent of troops from Ajaccio, and then sailed down the coast of Sardinia. The soldiers were kept busy with drills and taught to climb rigging and man the naval guns, while military bands played rousing marches and revolutionary hymns. In the evenings, they had less martial music: the band of the Guides was up to playing whole symphonies. Once he had recovered from the first bouts of seasickness, Bonaparte took a keen interest in all things nautical, and in the evenings after dinner either listened to music or held court with his entourage of generals and savants. They took turns to read aloud, the works of Montaigne and Rousseau among others. Junot would fall asleep, and snored so loudly that he was excused. Bonaparte had Arnault read the Odyssey to him aloud, but after a time declared that Homer and the Greeks in general were not heroic enough compared with Ossian. He produced a luxury edition bound in vellum of the fake bard’s poems which he kept by his bedside and began declaiming them to the assembled company. Arnault noted that he read very badly, but Bonaparte was entranced by his own rendition, and declared that next to Ossian, Homer was nothing but an old driveller.24
Bonaparte did most of the talking, and while he made observations which were original and interesting, he was prolix in sweeping generalisations, holding for instance that the only subject worthy of tragedy in the theatre was politics, and that introducing love into a tragedy was merely to reduce it to comedy. How seriously he meant his perorations to be taken is debatable. On one occasion he began to rant against women in public life. ‘Women are at the heart of all intrigues; they should be kept in their family circles and the salons of government should be closed to them,’ he pronounced. ‘They should be forbidden to appear in public otherwise than in a black dress and veil, in a mezzaro like in Genoa and Venice.’ He digressed wildly, skipping from one subject to another. One moment he was discussing Hannibal’s military talents, the next he was indulging in flights of fancy. ‘If I were master of France,’ he declared one evening, ‘I would like to make Paris not only the most beautiful city that ever existed but the most beautiful one that could ever exist. I would like to bring together in it all that was most admired in Athens and Rome, in Babylon and Memphis; vast open spaces embellished with monuments and statues, fountains at every crossroads to purify the air and wash the streets, with channels running between the trees of the boulevards surrounding the capital; monuments required for public utility, such as bridges, theatres, museums, whose architecture would be as magnificent as was compatible with their function.’ All the skill and resources were there. All that was needed was ‘an intelligence to guide them’ and ‘a government which loved glory’.25
On 9 June the contingents from Genoa and Civitavecchia joined the main fleet off the south of Sicily, from where it sailed for Malta, the first object of the expedition. The island was the stronghold of the last of the great crusading orders, the Knights of St John, and its fortress at Valetta one of the most formidable in Europe. But the Order was in terminal decline and unloved by the population, its Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch weak and unpopular, its knights demoralised and the French ones mostly favourable to France. This was common knowledge, and several powers, including Britain, Russia, Spain and Naples, had been eyeing the strategic harbour with intent.
Bonaparte sent the Grand Master a message requesting to be allowed to take on water. When he received the reply that only four ships would be allowed into the harbour at a time, he took this as a hostile move and sent troops ashore. The forces of the Order put up a token resistance and fell back. Bonaparte sent the mineralogist Déodat Dolomieu, an erstwhile member of the Order, armed with a mixture of threats and bribes. It did not take long to come to an arrangement, and by 10 May Valetta had surrendered. Hompesch was promised a pension and a principality in Germany, his knights more modest compensation, and the French ones the possibility of moving back home or taking service in the French army. Bonaparte promptly put in hand the transformation of the administration of the island to bring the new colony into line with its metropolis. Titles of nobility were abolished, religious orders dissolved, the judiciary reformed on the French model, and non-criminal prisoners were freed, as were the mostly Muslim galley-slaves. A new French-style schooling system was set up, with the brightest in every year to be sent to Paris for their education (he even designed a uniform for them). The forms Bonaparte introduced were similar to those he had imposed in the Cisalpine Republic, and clearly indicated how he
would like to see France itself reorganised. The Catholic Church was left in place, and the Jewish and Muslim faiths were granted equal standing. The treasury and assets of the Order were confiscated, along with those of the Church, which was stripped of everything not essential to its rites – reliquaries were melted down while chalices were left.26
On 19 June the fleet sailed on, leaving behind a small garrison under General Vaubois. It now consisted of over 330 vessels, ‘an immense city floating majestically on the sea’, in the words of one passenger. It was loaded with around 38,000 soldiers and civilian passengers, over a thousand horses and nearly two hundred field guns, as well as seven hundred freed Egyptian galley-slaves. It covered an area of ten square kilometres, presenting a huge target. ‘The possibility of an encounter with the British was on everyone’s mind,’ recalled an infantry officer.27
The Admiralty in London had been alerted by its spies to the preparations being made at Toulon and elsewhere, but the reports varied considerably as to their purpose, some speculating about an invasion of England, others about the West Indies, India and Egypt. The Admiralty despatched a fleet under Admiral Horatio Nelson to the Mediterranean to blockade Toulon and destroy the French fleet if it put to sea. Nelson had arrived off Toulon on time, but damage from a sudden storm had obliged him to sail away for repairs and miss the French force’s departure. He was now making a dash for Egypt in pursuit of it. He overtook it without spotting it and, on reaching Alexandria and not finding it there, doubled back, assuming it was making for England after all.
The French fleet arrived off Alexandria on 1 July, two days after Nelson had left. Bonaparte had intended to land enough men to secure the port there and sail on to Rosetta or Damietta, from where he could march along the Nile to Cairo, which he must seize quickly if he were to succeed. But when the French consul Magallon came aboard with news that Nelson had called there two days earlier, he realised the English would soon be back, so he decided to go ashore without delay. Disregarding the advice of Brueys he ordered immediate disembarkation in the bay of Marabout to the west of Alexandria, even though night was falling and the sea was rough.
The operation was carried out in small boats under sail which took only fifteen minutes to make it to shore, but a good deal longer to get back to the ships to take on more men. The horses swam ashore, held on leading reins by men in the boats. A number of men were drowned as some of the boats foundered on shoals, crashed into each other or capsized and others lost their equipment. Bonaparte was ashore by one o’clock in the morning of 2 July, and had a short sleep on the beach while his men continued to disembark. By two o’clock he was able to begin the march on Alexandria.
The previous day he had written to the pasha of Cairo, the Porte’s governor, assuring him that he came as a friend. He also wrote to the French consul in Constantinople instructing him to explain to the sultan that he was only there to punish the Mamelukes who had been persecuting French merchants, and to defend the country on his behalf against the British. He was expecting Talleyrand to reach Constantinople soon and smooth any feathers that might have been ruffled. He was in for a surprise.28
By the time they reached Alexandria its ramparts were bristling with troops and civilians who put up an unexpectedly fierce defence, those who had no weapons showering them with stones. They did not give up even when the walls were scaled, with the consequence that many of the inhabitants were put to the sword by the enraged attackers. They had never come across such ‘fanatical’ resistance. Combined with the sense of having entered a different world, it affected their view of the enemy, and of the civilian population. In Italy or on the Rhine, there had been no hatred between the soldiers on either side, and even less of the civilian population, which just wanted to be left alone. Here it was different. How different, they would soon find out.29
15
Egypt
Bonaparte was determined to reach Cairo as quickly as possible, and chose the most direct route. This turned out to be a mistake. The desert they found themselves marching through, so different from the cultivated landscape of Italy, had an immediate depressive effect on the troops. They were ill-prepared for the temperature, and had not been issued with water bottles. The first cistern they came to was filled with stones, and wherever they did come across water it was so brackish even the horses refused to drink it. ‘We marched during the day under a sky and over sand that were equally scorching, without any shelter or water with which to slake our thirst,’ wrote Eugène de Beauharnais. The blazing sun and the glare of the sand brought on blindness in some, while others thought they were going mad when they experienced mirages, for which nobody had prepared them. The cold desert nights brought little relief, as their paltry supplies ran out on the first day and the roving Mameluke horsemen prevented them from going in search of food and kept them awake.1
Some died of heat stroke, others of exhaustion, many committed suicide. One soldier cut his throat in front of Bonaparte, shouting, ‘This is your work!’ It was unlike any war they had known. Those who failed to keep up with the marching columns were surrounded by groups of horsemen ready to pick them off, or worse. Bonaparte had delivered an address to his men, warning them that ‘the peoples we shall be visiting treat women differently from us, but, in every country, he who rapes is a monster’, but neither he nor any of his men had reckoned with another local custom.2
He had managed to ransom some men taken by Mamelukes shortly after they disembarked, and these recounted how some of their comrades had been decapitated while they themselves had been beaten and sodomised by their captors. The news was unsettling as it spread through the ranks. Even once they had occupied the town, lone soldiers walking in the streets of Rosetta would be set upon and ‘compelled to undergo this shocking outrage’, as one wrote to his wife in France. In a letter to his brother Joseph, Louis Bonaparte reported that Rousseau had got it horribly wrong in believing primitive man was born inherently noble and was only spoiled by civilisation.3
Buggery was the least of the perils awaiting those who fell into enemy hands. The Bedouin, Mamelukes and insurgent fellaheen regularly tortured and murdered prisoners. To make matters worse, there was a crossover between civilians and combatants, since many of the inhabitants were warriors when the need arose. There were few things more disturbing to regular European soldiers than the possibility that any ‘civilian’ might suddenly turn into a fighter.4
After three days they reached Damanhur, where they found water, and pressed on towards Rahmaniya, where they were cheered by the sight of the Nile. The men leapt into the water and guzzled on watermelons, but morale did not improve much and discipline had all but disintegrated, and the troops took their exasperation out on the villages they passed through. Bonaparte’s grandiloquent exhortations assuring them that their efforts would be of immense value for the ‘civilisation and commerce of the world’, and that ‘Destiny is on our side!’, sounded hollow. On 12 July he had the army parade before him and promised they would soon be on their way back to France, and then on to attack England. Three days later he was informed that one of his divisions was on the brink of mutiny. ‘Courage on the battlefield is not sufficient to make a good soldier,’ he admonished the men, ‘he must also have the courage to bear fatigues and privations.’ Some did rise to his challenge and, as one infantry officer put it, ‘wished to live up to the Romans’, but they were in the minority, and most blamed Bonaparte for his lack of foresight.5
‘The lives of many brave men who died of thirst, committed suicide or were assassinated during those terrible marches and the cruel sufferings of the army could have been spared,’ noted Sergeant Vigo-Roussillon. ‘All that was needed was for every soldier to have been supplied with a small can in which to carry water. The commanding general, who knew which country he was going to lead us into, is responsible for this carelessness.’ They had been issued with some stale tack, and not enough of that. At Wardan on 17 July Bonaparte wandered among the troops listening to their complain
ts and promised them that in a few more days they would find meat and drink in Cairo, but they remained sceptical and morose. Some treated him with outright insolence.6
His generals were hardly more respectful, with Berthier, Lannes and even the stalwart Davout complaining bitterly, and General Dumas (the father of the novelist) so critical that Bonaparte accused him of inciting mutiny and threatened to have him shot. Murat was more cheerful. Although he had been shot through the jaw at the taking of Alexandria, the ball, which penetrated below one ear and exited below the other, did not disfigure him. His abundant dark locks would soon hide the scars, and he wrote home triumphantly telling a friend to inform the beauties of Paris that ‘Murat, though perhaps not as handsome will be no less brave in love’. He was the exception, and despondency spread through the army, particularly among the officers, who could not accommodate the supposedly heroic nature of their enterprise with the squalor of the reality.7
The first encounter with a force of Mamelukes occurred at Chebreis on 13 July. It was no more than a skirmish, with horsemen galloping up to fire their carbines and pistols, seeking an opportunity to slash their way into the French ranks. They did not represent any real threat, but they were no less alarming for that. The onward march was executed in squares, with artillery at each corner, but although it was effective, it required huge effort. ‘Every irregularity of the terrain lengthens or presses them in, the artillery hinders them, the wagons clutter them,’ noted Sułkowski. ‘As soon as the soldiers are tired, they fall behind or press together, bump into each other, and a terrible amount of dust concentrated in a confined space in which no air can circulate blinds and suffocates them.’ One such march lasted eighteen hours without a break.8
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