The Linguist and the Emperor

by Daniel Meyerson

  For they are practical men who recoil from this wild-eyed fanatic with his long hair and his scraggly looks, his pallor, his weary eyes and visionary speeches whose every other word is glory and might. It is Talleyrand who wins the day by making a few reasonable observations, pointing out that such a scheme had been contemplated since the time of Louis XIV—only there had always been one difficulty or another in the past.

  Reassuringly, the handsome Talleyrand is a man who cares more for pleasure than for glory, and more for money than either. Throughout his career, he demands huge bribes—whether he is foreign minister during the Directory, or under Napoleon, or after Napoleon, too (for he will last and last and last).

  He always gets the fabulous sums he requires, for his recommendation carries weight—as it does now when he agrees with Napoleon that Egypt is ripe. What does it matter that the country belongs to the Ottoman Empire whose sultan is an ally of France? Such trifles can be left to the diplomats while Napoleon wins the war.

  A deal is struck: Talleyrand himself will go to Istanbul to negotiate—though once Napoleon has left for Egypt, the Foreign Minister stays comfortably at home. He understands that what the Directors really want is to get Napoleon out of the way. The popular young hero is a threat to their power. Let the sultan send troops to crush the arrogant madman! Let him return defeated. Better yet, let him fall in battle on the desert sands.

  Bonaparte’s victories have made him overbearing. Has the revolution been won for such a brute to rule France? Thus, the Directors whisper among themselves, taking dark counsel with their Foreign Minister. Publicly, though, they praise Napoleon, and none with more feeling than the soft-spoken Talleyrand:

  “All France will be free—with only the exception of Napoleon. That is his destiny . . . To carry the burdens of France . . .” Such is Talleyrand’s style: eloquent and insincere. One day, in a rage over his treachery and betrayal, Napoleon will call Talleyrand Shit in a silk stocking!

  For the time being the two are friends. Talleyrand embraces Napoleon on the eve of his departure. With a soft kiss of Judas, he speeds him on his way.

  THIRTY-EIGHT THOUSAND men—the Army of the Orient as Napoleon calls it—leave France, together with one woman. Pauline Fourès, a newly married lieutenant’s wife, cuts off her long blond hair, straps on a breast-flattener borrowed from nuns and pretends to have been a drummer boy in the Italian war. In the chaos onboard she can easily wander to and fro without attracting much attention—as can a Bourbon spy named D’Entraigues, a follower of the beheaded Louis and of his gouty brother, also Louis (the XVIII), the so-called “legitimate” ruler of France, who sits spinning webs in exile in London.

  The soldiers leave France on a fleet of four hundred transports with an escort of thirteen heavily armed ships of the line and seven frigates, easily maneuverable craft. The boats carry seventy-five siege guns and mortars, ninety field guns, 1230 horses and leave from five ports of embarkment to rendezvous at sea.

  And though the men of war are impressive, the transports onto which the soldiers are crowded are a motley collection of merchant vessels, fishing boats, and pleasure boats pressed into service at the last moment. Whatever floats will do.

  It is a fighting force assembled with remarkable speed as well as secrecy, a feat achieved through the energy of one man: Napoleon. The impatient general has given the near bankrupt Directors of France no peace: Money and men is his constant cry. He has even gone back and ruthlessly plundered a second time all the provinces he has snatched from Austria and added to France. “The Hapsburg Empire,” he shouts contemptuously at the defeated Emperor’s envoy, “is an old serving woman used to being raped!”

  Millions of francs are stolen from the “liberated” Italian territories and a forced “loan” is arranged from the Pope and from the new Helvetic (Swiss) Republic as well. Thousands of men are recruited for service all along the coast, and dishonest contractors are threatened with drastic punishment for delays. These same dishonest contractors are lining the pockets of Napoleon’s new wife and the lover she has already taken, a dandy named Hippolyte Charles. With curled hair and a wardrobe of all the latest fashions, he has won Josephine’s heart. And the two are war speculators as well as lovers.

  Charles, with his elegance and his cynical witticisms, is more pleasing to Josephine than the earnest and romantic Napoleon. During her months in the shadow of the guillotine, she vowed that if she survived, she would live for pleasure, a vow that she has begun to fulfill.

  A month before Napoleon’s departure, the affair almost comes to light. A maid, dismissed by Josephine, vengefully tells Napoleon everything. Josephine denies the charges and her husband believes her because he wants to. He pays her debts, he sends her jewels and ardent letters, he takes her children for his own, enrolling her daughter in an expensive school and arranging for her son (who is only a few years younger than her new lover) to accompany him to Egypt. Napoleon would have taken her to Egypt as well, but a balcony collapsed under her and she has been confined to bed for months. She means everything to him. But at this stage for the sensual Creole with her memories and her many lovers, her marriage to the lovesick soldier is a financial arrangement, nothing more.

  “I embrace every part of you, my vulture,” he muses in a never-sent letter, “but are you faithful to me?”

  Another farce, not a domestic one, is quickly to follow. For the expedition’s first port of call is Malta, an island in the Mediterranean that has been ruled by a medieval crusading order, the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, for almost three hundred years.

  Under the protection of the tsar, headed by a German grand master, the knights tyrannize the island’s native population. They have long since ceased to do any fighting themselves. The thousand cannon on its massive battlements are unused and rusty. And the ten-foot-thick fortress walls mean nothing. The gates are quickly opened by corrupt knights Napoleon has taken care to bribe.

  Fearful of the pursuing British, Napoleon quickly takes what he has come for. Chest after chest of treasure is carried out from vaults under the order’s church. The grand master is banished, a small force is left to rule in the name of France and the expedition to Egypt is once again on its way.

  What is the nature of this land to which we are going? is a topic Napoleon proposes to his scholars (at least those who are not belowdeck with seasickness) for that night’s debate.

  And when that is finished, another question: Is there life on other planets? And another: Is there any truth in premonitions?

  Finally, as the wine flows and tongues loosen, the question: Is there God?

  Question: Are the people of the Egypt more sensual than others? “A beautiful woman who dies is not given to the embalmers in Egypt,” says Herodotus, “until her body has begun to decay . . .”

  Question follows question as in the mist and the dark, the British Fleet passes the French, barely seventy miles away.

  THE EGYPT TOWARD which Napoleon and his fleet are sailing is a land ruled by slaves.

  As children they have been taken by force from remote villages in the Caucasus and raised by the Turks for one purpose and one purpose only: war.

  With no past and no future—they may never marry or have children—they are trained night and day how to live on horseback, to wield their magnificent jeweled scimitars, to look death in the face without flinching; and while riding at full gallop, to bend down and, with one stroke, decapitate a bull held in place by their teacher. Such is their instruction in the art of war.

  Coats of chain mail under their robes, gilded helmets on their heads, armed to the teeth with battle axes and daggers, spears, sabers, lances, and three sets of pistols, carrying all their worldly wealth in saddle bags beneath them—another reason not to let themselves be taken alive—they charge with the speed of lightning on Arabian mounts as they shout blood-curdling cries. These were the warriors—called Mamelukes, “owned men”—that Napoleon had come to conquer with his newly impressed recruits.


  He begins his assault while still far away at sea, devising one edict after another to win the people over to him from their rulers, making good use of the Arabic printing presses he has brought along. The Mamelukes have been selfish and tyrannical rulers. Twenty-three Mameluke “beys” or warlords continually fight among themselves for power, causing devastation and ruin in the land. And though the ethereal beauty of the tombs and mosques they create will be lasting tributes to their glory, truly poetry in stone, the people hate them for their cruelty and greed.

  Too long have the Mamelukes ruled Egypt! The hour of their destruction has arrived!

  Napoleon announces in the first of his pamphlets,

  Too long has this horde of slaves tyrannized over you, oh people of the Nile! You will be told that I come to destroy your religion. Do not believe it. I come to restore your rights and punish the usurpers! For I venerate God and his prophet and the holy Koran!

  All men are equal before God; but it is wisdom, talents and virtues that make differences between men. Now what wisdom, what talents, what virtues distinguish the Mamelukes that they should possess all that is sweet in life? Is there a beautiful estate? It belongs to the Mamelukes. Is there a beautiful horse, a beautiful house? They belong to the Mamelukes. There formerly existed in Egypt great cities, great canals, great commerce; by what means have they been destroyed if not by the Mamelukes?

  There is much truth in what he says, though it is also skillful propaganda. Egypt is sunk in centuries of lethargy and oppression. The French will encounter a world that is still medieval, its population poor and diseased and superstitious, their lives barely rising above those of their beasts.

  It is not only the French fleet but the modern world approaching Egypt while the bejeweled slaves ride furiously to and fro in the desert, their shouts echoing in their schools of war.

  Question: How to bring the ideals of the revolution to Egypt? How to bring energy and activity to this stagnating land?

  Question: What is the best manner to construct ovens? How can justice and education be improved in accordance with the wishes of the people? Question: How is it possible to purify the waters of the Nile?

  Chapter Four

  Two Beginnings

  Cairo. 1824, a quarter of a century after Napoleon invades—and then abandons—Egypt.

  A YOUNG MAN walks with his father in a walled garden behind their house. They talk of many things: politics, religion, history. The father has seen much and his observations are illuminating.

  But as the old man reminisces, assassins appear beneath the dusty palms and towering cypresses. They are so swift that the young man does not even have time to cry out before they slit his throat. He falls to the ground, dying amid lush foliage while the murderers turn back to search the house, pushing the old man aside.

  The house is pillaged—not of its gold and silver but of manuscripts. These writings have caused the tragedy, the works of the old man—the “most learned Jabarti”—who for the last fifty years has been recording the history of his native land. But while his Chronicle of the French in Egypt has won him fame, when he brings his history up to the year 1821, he makes the mistake of criticizing the current ruler, Mohammed Ali. He pays for it with the life of his son.

  His life is spared, however, since Mohammed Ali admires his learning and the beauty of his prose. But it is a broken life. Withdrawing into his gloomy, medieval house, the historian gives up writing and spends his last years in grief and mourning.

  In place of a son, Jabarti leaves behind his chronicle: an account that views Napoleon and his army not only on the battlefield, but from a thousand unthought-of angles—in whorehouses and barbershops, in cafés and in the bazaars. Jabarti records the endless Egyptian whisperings about the infidels. Even the immodest manner in which the foreign soldiers relieve themselves is not overlooked.

  Jabarti is also scathing on the subject of the Mamelukes, scorning their cruelty, arrogance, and blindness to the approaching danger. If the Mamelukes think of the Europeans at all, they imagine a soft, pleasure-loving people, easily crushed “donkey boys.” Against such weak enemies they have not bothered to take the most elementary precautions, leaving their harbors and coastline virtually undefended.

  Ignorant not only of the psychology of the Europeans but of all modern developments in warfare, the Mamelukes put their complete trust in a whirlwind cavalry charge. This fearless charge depends, above all, on a collective indifference to death acquired through a lifetime of rigorous training. Their strength has nothing to do with individual acts of courage, with exceptional bravery or heroism rewarded with bits of ribbon and medals. No, if the Mameluke charge is undefeated, it is because thousands of phenomenally skilled swordsmen ride together as one man, a mystical doctrine of fana, or self-annihilation, imparting a wild joy to their savage cries.

  Thus matters stand on the eve of the invasion when, Jabarti tells us, a fleet suddenly appears off the shore of Alexandria. First, ten heavily armed men of war, and then fifteen more linger on the horizon, just discernible to those in the city. An excited crowd gathers at the docks and watches. Finally, toward the end of the day, a skiff is lowered from one of the warships and heads toward the harbor.

  Sitting regally among the rowing sailors is a young, one-armed officer in a uniform covered with gold braid and medals. He neither gives nor returns salutations as the skiff makes its way among the fishing boats and barges and the graceful feluccas, the light Egyptian craft that swiftly ply back and forth in the crowded harbor.

  Even when the skiff reaches shore, the officer maintains his self-contained stance, calmly stepping onto the dock as if the sudden appearance of a European war fleet is an everyday affair. Through an interpreter, he states that he is the British commander, Admiral Nelson. He asks to speak to the governor. And then in his matter-of-fact manner, without menace or swagger, he settles down to wait amid the bales of unloaded goods and the drying fish and the murmuring crowd.

  Such calm is a British ideal: nil admirari, to be astonished at nothing. And certainly Nelson is a perfect representative of his class and nation. A clever, bold officer—implacable. The loss of an arm during fighting off the Spanish coast cost him a mere two weeks of active service, no more. Nelson is given command of this crucial mission despite his youth, the Admiralty choosing him for his total war philosophy. His goal in battle is not booty or ransom or even a formal victory according to the accepted rules of naval engagement. He is satisfied with nothing less than complete destruction of the enemy.

  But Nelson has been overly eager in pursuit of “the Devil’s child,” as he calls Napoleon. Though he is quite correct in putting Egypt at the top of his list of Napoleon’s possible destinations, he has made a mistake in timing. The British warships travel faster than the heavily laden French transports, with their thousands of men. Thus, without realizing it, Nelson overtook Napoleon’s fleet in the middle of the Mediterranean, and arrived in Egypt three days ahead of him.

  The governor comes to meet Nelson, with him a large retinue of officials and guards. It is a brilliant spectacle, the governor advancing down the wharf under a red silk canopy surrounded by turbaned courtiers and Nubian soldiers, armor glittering in the sun. And at the edge of the crowd, there is a sharp-eyed observer who records the exchange: the historian Jabarti whose writings later doom him.

  The English told us that the French had set out from their country with a great fleet. They further said: “We are their enemies and do not know in which direction they intend to sail. Perhaps they will attack you suddenly and you will not be able to repel them.”

  However, al-Sayyid Kurayyim thought their words to be trickery.

  The English leader requested: “Sell us water and provisions and we shall stay in our ships lying in wait for them.”

  Kurayyim replied: “We do not accept what you say nor will we give you anything.”

  Then he expelled the foreigners that God’s will might be fulfilled.

  One can read betwee
n the lines: Nelson, no diplomat, plays his hand badly. Unused to eastern circumlocution and stratagems, he states his business brusquely, tersely, like a soldier, and he is not believed.

  The moment is decisive: If Nelson had stayed, Napoleon would never have been able to land. He and his army would have been destroyed on sight. “But God’s will was otherwise,” as Jabarti puts it. The setting sun shimmers over the Mediterranean, its deep blue waters streaked with green and turquoise swells. The muezzin’s long, wailing calls to prayer echo from hundreds of mosques as the one-armed admiral is rowed back to his ships.

  Nelson heads north, continuing his search off the coasts of Italy and Greece. Egypt is left to its fate.

  ALL OF FRANCE follows the Egyptian campaign with bated breath, wildly celebrating Napoleon’s victories with the enthusiasm of a people who have had their fill of revolution and terror and are eager now for glory.

  Terrible disasters, one after another, quickly follow these victories, but it does not matter for Napoleon turns them into “immortal triumphs” in the dispatches he sends home. Perhaps extravagances, lies, or boasts are better descriptions of the news Napoleon sends back of the Egyptian debacle.

  Then suddenly he is back. One day, stirring military bulletins are everywhere: “The epoch-making French army has this month,” etc., etc. The next day “The Sultan El-Kebir,”—the Great Sultan as the Egyptians call him—is seen at the Paris opera, barely acknowledging ecstatic applause before withdrawing to the back of his box with a mysterious, preoccupied air, indifferent to such displays or feigning indifference. As a careful reader of Machiavelli, Napoleon knows that the prince must make his presence rare. And it is a prince that he now wants to be, his new republican title “First Consul” notwithstanding.