Napoleon

by Adam Zamoyski

  At the end of that, on 21 July, they came up against the main Mameluke army, led by Murad Bey, one of the two rulers of Egypt. Cairo was visible in the distance, and on the other bank of the Nile, the pyramids of Giza. This prompted Bonaparte to exhort his men with a stirring line about forty centuries of history gazing down on them from the top of the pyramids. What impressed the troops more than some nonsense about antiquity which few of them would have understood was the magnificent spectacle that unfurled before their eyes as the Mameluke cavalry galloped up. ‘The splendour of their attire and their arms reflected the rays of the sun at us and dazzled our sight,’ recalled Captain Moiret. The French were fascinated by their horsemanship and military skill, which, even though it was of another age and bound to fail when confronted by volleys of musketry, was extremely effective when the Mamelukes did manage to cut their way in among the enemy and slice off arms and heads with their scimitars. The outcome was never in doubt. The French held their squares and overpowered the Ottoman foot-soldiers, many of whom were killed or drowned in the Nile trying to escape. The Mamelukes left the ground strewn with corpses, abandoned forty guns and their camp, with its baggage, horses and camels. After the battle this turned into a market as soldiers traded booty.9

  The next day, 22 July, a delegation from Cairo surrendered the city, and two days later Bonaparte made his triumphal entry. He took up residence in the house of a Mameluke bey, in which he occupied the first floor and accommodated his staff below. It had a garden with trees and pools in which he strolled while giving orders to his staff and administrators. He was delighted by what he had seen of Egypt, and was convinced that given some organisation and sensible development it would flourish. ‘The Republic could not wish for a colony within easier reach with such rich soil,’ he wrote to the Directory that evening. ‘The climate is very healthy, because the nights are fresh.’ But at this moment of triumph he endured a heavy personal blow.10

  When he parted from Josephine at Toulon their relationship was as tender as ever. Bonaparte wrote frequently, saying he would bring her to Egypt as soon as it was safe, and she fully intended to go. In the meantime, she went to the spa at Plombières, from where she wrote to Barras asking for news of her husband. ‘I am so sad to be parted from him that I am overcome by a melancholy which I cannot vanquish,’ she wrote. ‘I am therefore hastening my prescribed cure so that I may quickly be able to go and join Bonaparte, whom I love very much despite his little faults.’ She was planning to travel in the company of Marmont’s wife, but at the beginning of July a balcony that she and others were standing on collapsed under her and she was so badly hurt that there could be no question of going soon.11

  ‘I have much, much domestic sorrow, for the veil has been lifted entirely,’ Bonaparte wrote to Joseph the day after his entry into Cairo. Every time he had been told of Josephine’s infidelities she had managed to lie her way out of it and make him feel unworthy for having believed what she dismissed as spiteful gossip, but on the evening of his entry into Cairo, Junot, Berthier and his aide Thomas Jullien presented him with incontrovertible evidence. He poured out his grief and indignation to his stepson Eugène. He confessed to Joseph that he wanted to return to France and shut himself away from people, and asked him to find him a house somewhere deep in the country. ‘I am fed up with humankind,’ he wrote. ‘I need solitude and isolation; greatness has damaged me; all feeling has dried up. Glory already lacks lustre at the age of twenty-nine; I am all used up. There is nothing left for me to do but become a complete egoist!’12

  He had little time for introspection. Murad Bey might have been defeated, but his colleague Ibrahim was hovering in the vicinity with another force. Bonaparte marched out of Cairo on 9 August. He only managed to catch up with Ibrahim’s rearguard, which he defeated in a protracted cavalry battle at Salayeh, but having obliged the Mamelukes to retire into the desert, he turned back towards Cairo. On his way, on 14 August, he received news that altered everything.

  At 2.45 p.m. on 1 August one of Nelson’s ships, HMS Zealous, had spotted Admiral Brueys’ squadron at anchor in Aboukir Bay, and by dawn the next day it had ceased to exist. Only two ships of the line and two frigates managed to get away. The rest were sunk or captured, and the Orient blown up, with Brueys on board. Bonaparte took the news calmly. He declared that they had to face up to the new state of affairs and show themselves to be ‘as great as the figures of antiquity’, and began contemplating the implications of not being able to return to France any time soon.13

  He lost no time in laying the blame on Brueys, whom he had instructed to take his ships into the harbour of Alexandria or else sail to Corfu. Brueys had decided against the former, fearing his ships might get stuck in the shallow entrance to the harbour, and he had delayed until he was sure Bonaparte did not need to be evacuated. The aide bearing Bonaparte’s definite order to leave the bay of Aboukir never reached him, as he was killed on the way, but he would have arrived too late. Brueys’ lack of resolution was partly the consequence of a general demoralisation in his squadron and his lack of faith in his crews and the state of his ships. He had disposed them unwisely, allowing the British to sail between him and the land, which meant that he received broadsides from both sides, so responsibility for the disaster must rest with him. Having taken the precaution of distancing himself from it, Bonaparte did write his widow a moving letter praising him as a hero.14

  Bonaparte was determined that the enterprise should bear fruit despite the naval disaster. His first priority was the health of his troops. He established four hospitals in Cairo, and one each in Alexandria, Rosetta and Damietta. He imposed quarantine on all the ports under French control and introduced measures covering the rapid burial of the dead, street-cleaning and rubbish collection. He ordered his chief physician, Dr René Desgenettes, to study the causes of the dysentery and ophthalmia that had attacked the troops. He gave orders for them to be issued with loose-fitting uniforms more suited to the climate – blue cotton jackets with no facings or tails and a sheepskin cap with a woollen bobble of different colours to distinguish the units from each other.15

  He ordered the man in charge of uniforms, François Bernoyer, to design a new one for the medical staff, suggesting the colour brown so blood would not show. Bernoyer was also given the task of designing the uniform for a new corps of camel-mounted Guides. The upshot was the normal French military hat with its front turned down to form a sunshade, surmounted by red ostrich feathers, a green ‘Greek-style’ waistcoat with ‘Hungarian’ gold embroidery, a ‘Turkish’ belt, crimson trousers ‘à la mamelouk’, ‘Roman-style’ slippers, scarlet ‘Polish-style’ coat trimmed with gold, and a green cloak. Bonaparte was delighted with the design, and surprised Bernoyer by showing it. ‘When one does something for him he does not usually show the slightest approbation, let alone pleasure,’ Bernoyer explained. ‘In that, he reminds one of the attitude of children, who always seem to want more.’16

  Bonaparte put in place a new administration, began minting money, brought in a system of taxation based on wealth, introduced street lighting and put in hand a land registry. The benefits of European civilisation bestowed upon the new colony included the introduction of windmills to replace hand querns, new crops and the production of everything, from gunpowder to cloth, that the army would need now that it was cut off from France.

  On 22 August he created the Institute in Cairo, and the savants were put to work on the most pressing and practical tasks. ‘Some are working out ways of making beer without hops, others with a simple method for the purification of Nile water, others busy themselves with the building of ovens, others still with framing legislation for the country, building wind-powered machines for moving water, etc., etc.,’ the zoologist Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire wrote to his father. Other subjects investigated were the sexual organs of crocodiles, the date palm, magic, dancing, the true colour of the sea, prostitution, the ostrich, sand and the formation of dunes. One group, mainly archaeologists and artists, were sent o
ff with General Desaix, who marched up the Nile on 25 August in pursuit of Murad Bey. His orders were to defeat him and chart the course of the Nile as far south as he could. He was to occupy Thebes, which the archaeologists were to explore, and the port of Koseir on the Red Sea, and to set up a network of forts along the Nile. Wherever the French went, everything, from ancient ruins to geographical and physical phenomena, was to be recorded and studied.17

  Bonaparte was living out a dream. From his earliest years he had shown a passionate interest in progress as he, and his generation, saw it. He had also shown a remarkable proclivity for organisation. He was now effective ruler of a huge, backward country with a self-imposed mission to civilise it, and could give rein to his most basic instinct of imposing order. ‘I was never again as free as in Egypt,’ he would later reflect. He did not mean to apply Western forms indiscriminately, but dreamed of a fusion, believing he would be able to organise the country and civilise its inhabitants without offending their sensibilities. He had, primarily from his reading of Voltaire’s play, formed a view of the Prophet Muhammad as a kind of wise tyrant, and thought he could understand how his followers responded to authority. He dreamed, as he would later put it, of writing a new Koran.18

  The organs of administration he established were on traditional forms of ulemas and diwans. Officials were under French supervision, often through the agency of local Copts, and were made to wear tricolour cockades and sashes of office, but allowed to administer in traditional ways. He believed he would be able to introduce European forms and practices gradually once he had gained their confidence. They referred to him as ‘Sultan Kebir’, which flattered him and gave him the impression that they were responsive. He made grand gestures to win their approval, such as publicly liberating the Muslim galley-slaves he had found in Malta and promising to assist the caravan taking pilgrims on the Haj. On 18 August he presided over the annual ceremony of the opening of the dykes. Surrounded by sheikhs, he distributed coins to the people as the water was released into the canals that would irrigate the surrounding countryside. On 23 August, the feast of the Prophet, he paid his respects to the Divan of Cairo, and in the evening attended a banquet, at which all the French made great show of respect for the Islamic faith, although afterwards they laughed at the charade. He did not; he was convinced he had captivated the locals.19

  On 22 September, the anniversary of the founding of the French Republic, Bonaparte staged celebrations meant to underline his loyalty to the French state, boost the morale of his troops and impress the locals. An amphitheatre was created with two columns at its centre representing the Republic, a triumphal arch commemorating the victory at the battle of the pyramids, an obelisk dedicated to the fallen, and so on. A turban featured alongside the red Phrygian bonnet of liberty. All the troops in Cairo were present, drawn up in parade order, and listened as Bonaparte recalled their glorious deeds over the past five years and assured them that a fine destiny awaited them: they would be immortalised in death or on their return home as heroes. He ended with the cry ‘Vive la République!’, which normally elicited a hearty cheer, but on this occasion hardly a mutter came out of the serried ranks. They were in no mood to celebrate. ‘The army showed only indifference for this feast,’ recalled Captain Pelleport. ‘It was suffering from spleen that day, which it often did after the loss of the squadron.’ The parade was followed by a banquet which the local dignitaries and the soldiers appeared to enjoy more than the official proceedings. Sporting events and horse races were held, and the day ended with fireworks and illuminations.20

  At the news of the destruction of the fleet there had been much cursing of Bonaparte, who was accused of adventurism and ambition. Some of his generals made defiant statements, but the pointlessness of such talk, and the lack of any prospect of returning to France soon, concentrated minds on making the best of the situation. Cairo would have to make do for Paris. Many found themselves fine houses with gardens, and enjoyed the exotic comfort they provided.

  The city contained a number of European residents, mostly traders of one sort or another, and they were quick to spot the opportunities offered by the influx of homesick Frenchmen. They opened shops, coffee houses, Turkish baths and other amenities. Officers and men trotted about the city on donkeys, lounged in the cafés delighting in the hookahs and coffee, and went on excursions, particularly to see the pyramids and other ancient monuments. French ingenuity was stretched to provide comforts of every kind. Balls were held and a theatre built, in which, owing to the lack of women willing to act, young men had to take the female roles.21

  Yet none of this could cure the underlying homesickness. ‘Whatever efforts are made to provide for the well-being of the troops, to keep up the spirit of emulation among the officers, memories of France torment most of them and the officers much more than the men, and the generals and staff officers much more than the officers of the line,’ noted Lieutenant-Colonel Théviotte. ‘People only address each other to exchange regrets at having left France and to express the desire to return. The deprivation of women is that which is felt most keenly.’22

  On arrival, most of the senior officers had taken over the wives of prominent Mamelukes along with their houses, but having satisfied their lust they found them wanting and passed them down the ranks. The men were mostly horrified by the local women, mainly because respectable ones were locked away by their families and the only ones they saw were either old, ugly, or prostitutes. A market developed, and a black woman could be bought for 500 francs, 800 if she were a virgin, while Caucasian women cost several thousand. Eugène de Beauharnais bought himself a beautiful black woman, and so presumably did Junot, since he sired a boy whom he called Othello and brought back to France. Despite Bonaparte’s ban, possibly as many as three hundred of his men had smuggled their wives or mistresses onto the ships disguised as soldiers, and given the scarcity of European women, these now had the pick of the higher ranks.23

  Bonaparte had some local girls brought to him, but although he later praised their grace and beauty, he rejected them as too fat if not downright repellent. He dallied briefly with the sixteen-year-old daughter of a sheikh, but was more at home with French women. It was rumoured that he had an affair with the wife of General Verdier, who had accompanied her husband in the uniform of an aide-de-camp.

  At the ball which followed the celebration of the birth of the Republic, Bonaparte spotted ‘a little woman some twenty years old, charming, plump, vivacious’, and took an immediate shine to her. She was Marguerite-Pauline Bellisle, a dressmaker’s assistant from Carcassonne, locally known as Bellilotte. She had just married a Lieutenant Fourès when his regiment was assigned to the Egyptian expedition, and decided to follow him. The day after the ball, Bonaparte ordered Junot to invite her and her husband to lunch, and by a subterfuge she was lured into a separate room alone with Bonaparte. She resisted him, and went on doing so stoically despite his showering her with gifts and letters, but finally gave in and they became lovers. Bonaparte was by all accounts besotted by her, and they spent every available moment together, she often riding out with him dressed in uniform. She wore a miniature of him around her neck and he a locket of her hair around his.

  Fourès was promoted and sent to Paris with despatches to the Directory, but his ship was taken by the British, and as he had fallen ill they released him on parole and he was back in Alexandria in April 1799. Bonaparte, who was considering marrying Bellilotte but waiting to see whether she would give him a son, asked for Fourès’ assent to a divorce, which he was only too eager to give. He was sent away again, just in case. So was the mineralogist Louis Cordier, who had apparently caught Bellilotte’s roving eye.24

  To reinforce his authority, Bonaparte founded a paper, Le Courrier de l’Égypte, which built up his image, and to advertise what he was doing as a triumph of European Enlightenment over backwardness, he started another, La Décade égyptienne. He attended sessions of the Institute, discussed religion and local custom with imams, and visited
the pyramids and other remains. He went to Suez to look for the ruins of the original canal, which he was excited to discover. He was also fascinated to find the Wells of Moses and other places associated with the scriptures, even crossing the Red Sea at low tide and nearly being trapped when it came in.

  ‘Everything is going perfectly here,’ he assured the Directory on 8 September. ‘The country has been subdued and is beginning to get used to us.’ He went on to list the advantages of France’s new colony, and expressed the view that its possession should facilitate reaching a satisfactory peace with Britain. He argued that they should move the whole French navy into the Mediterranean, which would not only improve communications but also force the British to bear the strain and expense of maintaining battle squadrons far from home and friendly bases, which would in the end force them to the negotiating table. He was preparing to build a naval base at Suez to open up communications with French colonies in the Indian Ocean.25

  On 21 October a revolt broke out in Cairo. It was quickly put down, but it cost a number of lives, including that of one of Bonaparte’s favourite aides, Sułkowski. It had been started by young students from one of the mosques, and only spread to other disaffected groups when the rumour got about that Bonaparte had been killed. The reasons behind the discontent included annoyance over taxes, street-cleaning regulations and the land registry which obliged the inhabitants to list their properties. It had not been a grassroots upheaval, and numerous locals had sheltered Frenchmen from the insurgents.

  The next day, Bonaparte received the sheikhs and imams and announced that he forgave the city and would not exact any retribution. He delivered a theatrical address, stating that God had instructed him to show mercy and urging them to inform those who had raised a hand against him that they would find refuge neither in this world nor the next. ‘Could there be on Earth any man so blind as not to see that it is destiny itself which directs my actions?’ he asked rhetorically, before going on to represent himself as a kind of messiah who had been foretold in the Koran, one who knew how to read in their hearts, a superior being against whom all human efforts were vain. He kept on making pronouncements and gestures intended to demonstrate his openness to what he saw as the spirit of the Orient, even though his ultimate intention was to turn Egypt into a French colony.26