The History of Napoleon Buonaparte. J. G. Lockhart
died in the assault; the Turkish loss was much greater: and, if we are to believe almost all who have written concerning this part of his history, Buonaparte, after taking possession, abandoned the place for three hours to the unbridled licence of military execution and rapine—an atrocity for which, if it really occurred, there could have been only one pretext; namely, the urgent necessity of striking awe and terror into the hearts of the population, and so preventing them from obeying the call of their military chieftains, to take arms in defence of the soil. De Bourienne and Berthier, however, wholly deny this story.
If Napoleon's conduct on this occasion was as it has been commonly represented, it was strangely contrasted with the tenor of his General Order to the army, issued immediately before their disembarkation. "The people," he then said, "with whom we are about to live, are Mahometans; the first article of their faith is, There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his Prophet. Do not contradict them: deal with them as you have done with the Jews and the Italians. Respect their muphtis and imans, as you have done by the rabbis and the bishops elsewhere. … The Roman legions protected all religions. You will find here usages different from those of Europe: you must accustom yourselves to them. These people treat their women differently from us; but in all countries he who violates is a monster; pillage enriches only a few; it dishonours us, destroys our resources, and makes those enemies whom it is our interest to have for friends."
To the people of Egypt, meanwhile, Napoleon addressed a proclamation in these words:—"They will tell you that I come to destroy your religion; believe them not: answer that I come to restore your rights, to punish the usurpers, and that I respect, more than the Mamelukes ever did, God, his Prophet, and the Koran. Sheiks and Imans, assure the people that we also are true Mussulmans. Is it not we that have ruined the Pope and the Knights of Malta? Thrice happy they who shall be with us! Woe to them that take up arms for the Mamelukes! they shall perish!"[24]
Buonaparte was a fatalist—so that one main article of the Mussulman creed pleased him well. He admired Mahomet as one of those rare beings, who, by individual genius and daring, have produced mighty and permanent alterations in the world. The General's assertion of his own belief in the inspiration of the Arab impostor, was often repeated in the sequel; and will ever be appreciated, as it was at the time by his own soldiery—whom indeed he had addressed but the day before in language sufficiently expressive of his real sentiments as to all forms of religion. Rabbi, muphti, and bishop, the Talmud, the Koran, and the Bible, were much on a level in his estimation. He was willing to make use of them all as it might serve his purpose; and, though not by nature cruel, he did not hesitate, when his interest seemed to demand it, to invest his name with every circumstance of terror, that could result from the most merciless violation of those laws of humanity which even his Koran enforces, and which his own address to his army had so recently inculcated.
Napoleon left Alexandria on the 7th July, being anxious to force the Mamelukes to an encounter with the least possible delay. He had a small flotilla on the Nile, which served to guard his right flank: the infantry marched over burning sand at some distance from the river. The miseries of this progress were extreme. The air is crowded with pestiferous insects, the glare of the sand weakens most men's eyes, and blinds many; water is scarce and bad: and the country had been swept clear of man, beast, and vegetable. Under this torture even the gallant spirits of such men as Murat and Lannes could not sustain themselves:—they trod their cockades in the sand. The common soldiers asked, with angry murmurs, if it was here the General designed to give them their seven acres? He alone was superior to all these evils. Such was the happy temperament of his frame, that—while others, after having rid them of their usual dress, were still suffused in perpetual floods of perspiration, and the hardiest found it necessary to give two or three hours in the middle of the day to sleep—Napoleon altered nothing; wore his uniform buttoned up as at Paris; never showed one bead of sweat on his brow; nor thought of repose except to lie down in his cloak the last at night, and start up the first in the morning. It required, however, more than all his example of endurance and the general influence of Napoleon's character, could do to prevent the army from breaking into open mutiny. "Once," said he at St. Helena, "I threw myself suddenly amidst a group of generals, and, addressing myself to the tallest of their number with vehemence, said, You have been talking sedition: take care lest I fulfil my duty: your five feet ten inches would not hinder you from being shot within two hours."
For some days no enemy appeared; but at length scattered groups of horsemen began to hover on their flanks; and the soldier, who quitted the line but for a moment, was surrounded and put to death ere his comrades could rescue him. The rapidity with which the Mamelukes rode, and their skill as marksmen, were seconded by the character of the soil and the atmosphere; the least motion or breath of wind being sufficient to raise a cloud of sand, through which nothing could be discerned accurately, while the constant glare of the sun dazzled almost to blindness. It was at Chebreis that the Mamelukes first attacked in a considerable body; and at the same moment the French flotilla was assaulted. In either case the superiority of European discipline was made manifest; but in either case also the assailants were able to retreat without much loss. Meantime the hardships of the march continued; the irregular attacks of the enemy were becoming more and more numerous; so that the troops, continually halting and forming into squares to receive the charge of the cavalry by day, and forced to keep up great watches at night, experienced the extremes of fatigue as well as of privation. In the midst of this misery the common men beheld with no friendly eyes the troop of savans mounted on asses (the common conveyance of the country), with all their instruments, books and baggage. They began to suspect that the expedition had been undertaken for some merely scientific purposes; and when, on any alarm, they were ordered to open the square and give the learned party safe footing within, they used to receive them with military jeerings. "Room for the asses:—stand back, here come the savans and the demi-savans."
On the 21st of July the army came within sight of the Pyramids, which, but for the regularity of the outline, might have been taken for a distant ridge of rocky mountains. While every eye was fixed on these hoary monuments of the past, they gained the brow of a gentle eminence, and saw at length spread out before them the vast army of the beys, its right posted on an entrenched camp by the Nile, its centre and left composed of that brilliant cavalry with which they were by this time acquainted. Napoleon, riding forwards to reconnoitre, perceived (what escaped the observation of all his staff) that the guns on the entrenched camp were not provided with carriages; and instantly decided on his plan of attack. He prepared to throw his force on the left, where the guns could not be available. Mourad Bey, who commanded in chief, speedily penetrated his design; and the Mamelukes advanced gallantly to the encounter. "Soldiers," said Napoleon, "from the summit of yonder pyramids forty ages behold you;" and the battle began.
The French formed into separate squares, and awaited the assault of the Mamelukes. These came on with impetuous speed and wild cries, and practised every means to force their passage into the serried ranks of their new opponents. They rushed on the line of bayonets, backed their horses upon them, and at last, maddened by the firmness which they could not shake, dashed their pistols and carbines into the faces of the men. They who had fallen wounded from their seats, would crawl along the sand, and hew at the legs of their enemies with their scimitars. Nothing could move the French: the bayonet and the continued roll of musketry by degrees thinned the host around them; and Buonaparte at last advanced. Such were the confusion and terror of the enemy when he came near the camp, that they abandoned their works, and flung themselves by hundreds into the Nile. The carnage was prodigious. Multitudes more were drowned. Mourad and a remnant of his Mamelukes retreated on Upper Egypt. Cairo surrendered: Lower Egypt was entirely conquered.
Such were the immediate consequences of the Battle of the Pyramids. The name of Buonaparte now spread panic through the East; and the "Sultan Kebir" (or King of Fire—as he was called from the deadly effects of the musketry in this engagement) was considered as the destined scourge of God, whom it was hopeless to resist.
The French now had recompense for the toils they had undergone. The bodies of the slain and drowned Mamelukes were rifled, and, it being the custom for those warriors to carry their wealth about them, a single corpse often made a soldier's fortune. In the deserted harems of the chiefs at Cairo, and in the neighbouring villages, men at length found proofs that "eastern