Buonaparte's Administration in Egypt--Armaments of the
Porte--Buonaparte at Suez--At El-Arish--Gaza, Jaffa, Acre--Retreat
to Egypt--Defeat of the Turks at Aboukir--Napoleon embarks for
France.
Before Nelson's arrival, Buonaparte is said to have meditated returning
to France, for the purpose of extorting from the government those
supplies of various kinds which, on actual examination, he had perceived
to be indispensable to the permanent occupation of Egypt, and which he
well knew the Directors would refuse to any voice but his own. He
intended, it is also said, to urge on the Directory the propriety of
resuming the project of a descent on England itself, at the moment when
the mind of that government might be supposed to be engrossed with the
news of his dazzling successes in Egypt. All these proud visions died
with Brueyes. On hearing of the battle of Aboukir a solitary sigh
escaped from Napoleon. "To France," said he, "the fates have decreed the
empire of the land--to England that of the sea."
He endured this great calamity with the equanimity of a masculine
spirit. He gave orders that the seamen landed at Alexandria should be
formed into a marine brigade, and thus gained a valuable addition to his
army; and proceeded himself to organise a system of government, under
which the great natural resources of the country might be turned to the
best advantage. We need not dwell on that vain repetition of his faith
in Mahomet, to which he would not and could not give effect by openly
adopting the rules and ceremonies of the Koran; which accordingly but
amused his own followers; and which deceived none of the Mussulman
people. This was the trick of an audacious infidel, who wanted wholly
that enthusiasm without which no religious impostor can hope to partake
the successes of the Prophet of Mecca. Passing over this worthless
preliminary, the arrangements of the new administration reflect honour
on the consummate understanding, the clear skill, and the unwearied
industry of this extraordinary man.
He was careful to advance no claim to the sovereignty of Egypt, but
asserted, that having rescued it from the Mameluke _usurpation_, it
remained for him to administer law and justice, until the time should
come for restoring the province to the dominion of the Grand Seignior.
He then established two councils, consisting of natives, principally of
Arab chiefs and Moslem of the church and the law, by whose advice all
measures were, nominally, to be regulated. They formed of course a very
subservient senate. He had no occasion to demand more from the people
than they had been used to pay to the beys; and he lightened the impost
by introducing as far as he could the fairness and exactness of a
civilised power in the method of levying it. He laboured to make the
laws respected, and this so earnestly and rigidly, that no small wonder
was excited among all classes of a population so long accustomed to the
licence of a barbarian horde of spoilers. On one occasion one of the
Ulemahs could not help smiling at the zeal which he manifested for
tracing home the murder of an obscure peasant to the perpetrator. The
Mussulman asked if the dead man were anywise related to the blood of the
Sultan Kebir? "No," answered Napoleon, sternly--"but he was more than
that--he was one of a people whose government it has pleased Providence
to place in my hands." The measures which he took for the protection of
travellers to Mecca were especially acceptable to the heads of the
Moslem establishment, and produced from them a proclamation, (in direct
contradiction to the Koran,) signifying that it was right and lawful to
pay tribute to the French. The virtuosi and artists in his train,
meanwhile, pursued with indefatigable energy their scientific
researches; they ransacked the monuments of Egypt, and laid the
foundation, at least, of all the wonderful discoveries, which have since
been made concerning the knowledge, arts, polity (and even language) of
the ancient nation. Nor were their objects merely those of curiosity.
They, under the General's direction, examined into the long-smothered
traces of many an ancient device for improving the agriculture of the
country. Canals that had been shut up for centuries were re-opened: the
waters of the Nile flowed once more where they had been guided by the
skill of the Pharaohs or the Ptolemies. Cultivation was extended;
property secured; and it cannot be doubted that the signal improvements
since introduced in Egypt, are attributable mainly to the wise example
of the French administration. At Cairo itself there occurred one stormy
insurrection, provoked, as may be supposed, by some wantonness on the
part of the garrison; but, after this was quelled by the same merciless
vigour which Napoleon had displayed on similar occasions in Italy, the
country appears to have remained in more quiet, and probably enjoyed, in
spite of the presence of an invading army, more prosperity, than it had
ever done during any period of the same length, since the Saracen
government was overthrown by the Ottomans.
In such labours Napoleon passed the autumn of 1798. "At this period,"
writes his secretary, "it was his custom to retire early to bed, and it
was my business to read to him as long as he remained awake. If I read
poetry, he soon fell asleep, but if, as sometimes happened, he called
for _The Life of Cromwell_, I made up mind to want repose for that
night."
General Dessaix, meanwhile, had pursued Mourad Bey into Upper Egypt,
where the Mamelukes hardly made a single stand against him, but
contrived, by the excellence of their horses, and their familiarity with
the deserts, to avoid any total disruption of their forces. Mourad
returned to the neighbourhood of Cairo on hearing of the insurrection
already mentioned; but departed when he learned its suppression. Those
gallant horsemen were gradually losing numbers in their constant desert
marches--they were losing heart rapidly: and everything seemed to
promise, that the Upper Egypt, like the Lower, would soon settle into a
peaceful province of the new French colony.
The General, during this interval of repose, received no communication
from the French government; but rumours now began to reach his quarters
which might well give him new anxieties. The report of another rupture
with Austria gradually met with more credence; and it was before long
placed beyond a doubt, that the Ottoman Porte, instead of being tempted
into any recognition of the French establishment in Egypt, had declared
war against the Republic, and summoned all the strength of her empire
to pour in overwhelming numbers on the isolated army of Buonaparte.
As yet, however, there was no appearance of an enemy; and Napoleon
seized the opportunity to explore the Isthmus of Suez, where a narrow
neck of land divides the Red Sea from the Mediterranean, partly with the
view of restoring the communication which in remote times existed
between them, and partly of providing for the defence of Egypt, should
the Ottomans attempt their invasion by the way of Syria.
He visited the Maronite monks of Mount Sinai, and, as Mahomet had done
before him, affixed his name to their charter of privileges; he examined
also the fountain of Moses: and nearly lost his life in exploring,
during low water, the sands of the Red Sea, where Pharaoh is supposed to
have perished in the pursuit of the Hebrews. "The night overtook us,"
says Savary in his Memoirs, "the waters began to rise around us, the
guard in advance exclaimed that their horses were swimming. Buonaparte
saved us all by one of those simple expedients which occur to an
imperturbable mind. Placing himself in the centre, he bade all the rest
form a circle round him, and then ride out each man in a separate
direction, and each to halt as soon as he found his horse swimming. The
man whose horse continued to march the last, was sure, he said, to be in
the right direction; him accordingly we all followed, and reached Suez
at two in the morning in safety, though so rapidly had the tide
advanced, that the water was at the poitrels of our horses ere we made
the land."
On his return to Cairo, the General despatched a trusty messenger into
India, inviting _Tippoo Saib_ to inform him exactly of the condition of
the English army in that region, and signifying that Egypt was only the
first post in a march destined to surpass that of Alexander! "He spent
whole days," writes his secretary, "in lying flat on the ground
stretched upon maps of Asia."
At length the time for action came. Leaving 15,000 in and about Cairo,
the division of Dessaix in Upper Egypt, and garrisons in the chief
towns,--Buonaparte on the 11th of February 1799 marched for Syria at the
head of 10,000 picked men, with the intention of crushing the Turkish
armament in that quarter, before their chief force (which he now knew
was assembling at Rhodes) should have time to reach Egypt by sea.
Traversing the desert which divides Africa from Asia, he took possession
of the fortress El-Arish, (15 Feb.) whose garrison, after a vigorous
assault, capitulated on condition that they should be permitted to
retreat into Syria, pledging their parole not to serve again during the
war. Pursuing his march, he took Gazah (that ancient city of the
Philistines) without opposition; but at Jaffa (the Joppa of holy writ)
the Moslem made a resolute defence. The walls were carried by storm,
3000 Turks died with arms in their hands, and the town was given up
during three hours to the fury of the French soldiery--who never, as
Napoleon confessed, availed themselves of the licence of war more
savagely than on this occasion.
A part of the garrison--amounting, according to Buonaparte, to 1200 men,
but stated by others as nearly 3000 in number--held out for some hours
longer in the mosques and citadel; but at length, seeing no chance of
rescue, grounded their arms on the 7th of March. Eugene Beauharnois, who
in person accepted their submission, was violently rebuked by Napoleon
for having done so: the soldiery murmured, asking how these barbarians
were to be fed, when they themselves were already suffering severe
privations. The General summoned his chief officers to council and,
after long discussion, it was resolved that, in this case, necessity
left no room for mercy. On the 10th--three days after their
surrender--the prisoners were marched out of Jaffa, in the centre of a
battalion under General Bon. When they had reached the sand-hills, at
some distance from the town, they were divided into small parties, and
shot or bayoneted to a man. They, like true fatalists, submitted in
silence; and their bodies were gathered together into a pyramid, where,
after the lapse of thirty years, their bones are still visible whitening
the sand.
Such was the massacre of Jaffa, which will ever form one of the darkest
stains on the name of Napoleon. He admitted the fact himself;--and
justified it on the double plea, that he could not afford soldiers to
guard so many prisoners, and that he could not grant them the benefit of
their parole, because they were the very men who had already been set
free on such terms at El-Arish. To this last defence the answer is,
unfortunately for him, very obvious. He could not possibly have
recognised in every one of these victims, an individual who had already
given and broken his parole. If he did--still that would not avail
him:--the men surrendered with arms in their hands. No general has a
right to see men abandon the means of defence, and then--after the lapse
of three days too!--inflict on them the worst fate that could have
befallen them had they held out. The only remaining plea is that of
expediency; and it is one upon which many a retail as well as wholesale
murderer might justify his crime.
Buonaparte had now ascertained that the Pacha of Syria,
Achmet-Djezzar,[27] was at St. Jean d'Acre, (so renowned in the history
of the crusades,) and determined to defend that place to extremity, with
the forces which had already been assembled for the invasion of Egypt.
He in vain endeavoured to seduce this ferocious chief from his
allegiance to the Porte, by holding out the hope of a separate
independent government, under the protection of France. The first of
Napoleon's messengers returned without an answer; the second was put to
death; and the army moved on Acre in all the zeal of revenge, while the
necessary apparatus of a siege was ordered to be sent round by sea from
Alexandria.
Sir Sydney Smith was then cruising in the Levant with two British ships
of the line, the _Tigre_ and the _Theseus_; and, being informed by the
Pacha of the approaching storm, hastened to support him in the defence
of Acre. Napoleon's vessels, conveying guns and stores from Egypt, fell
into his hands, and he appeared off the town two days before the French
army came in view of it. He had on board his ship Colonel Philippeaux, a
French royalist of great talents (formerly Buonaparte's school-fellow at
Brienne);[28] and the Pacha willingly permitted the English commodore
and this skilful ally, to regulate for him, as far as was possible, the
plan of his defence.
The loss of his own heavy artillery and the presence of two English
ships, were inauspicious omens; yet Buonaparte doubted not that the
Turkish garrison would shrink before his onset, and he instantly
commenced the siege. He opened his trenches on the 18th of March. "On
that little town," said he to one of his generals, as they were standing
together on an eminence, which still bears the name of Richard
Coeur-de-lion--"on yonder little town depends the fate of the East.
Behold the key of Constantinople, or of India."--"The moment Acre
falls," said he about the same time to De Bourienne, "all the Druses
will join me; the Syrians, weary of Djezzar's oppressions, will crowd to
my standard. I shall march upon Constantinople with an army to which the
Turk can offer no effectual resistance--and it seems not unlikely that I
may return to France by the route of Adrianople and Vienna--destroying
the house of Austria on my way!"
From the 18th to the 28th of March, the French laboured hard in their
trenches, being exposed to the fire of extensive batteries, arranged by
Philippeaux so as to command their approach, and formed chiefly of
Buonaparte's own artillery, captured on the voyage from Alexandria. The
Turks also were constantly sallying out, and their Pacha personally set
the example of the most heroic resolution. Nevertheless, on the 28th, a
breach was at last effected, and the French mounted with such fiery zeal
that the garrison gave way, until Djezzar appeared on the battlements,
and flinging his own pistols at the heads of the flying men, urged and
compelled them to renew the defence. In the end the French retreated
with great loss, and--the Turks, headed by the English seamen, pursuing
them to their lines--a great mine, designed to blow up the chief tower
of Acre, was explored, and means taken for countermining it.
Meanwhile a vast Mussulman army had been gathered among the mountains of
Samaria, and was preparing to descend upon Acre, and attack the
besiegers in concert with the garrison of Djezzar. Junot, with his
division, marched to encounter them, and would have been overwhelmed by
their numbers, had not Napoleon himself followed and rescued him (April
8) at Nazareth, where the splendid cavalry of the orientals were, as
usual, unable to resist the solid squares and well-directed musketry of
the French. Kleber, with another division, was in like manner
endangered, and in like manner rescued by the general-in-chief at Mount
Tabor (April 15). The Mussulmans dispersed on all hands; and Napoleon,
returning to his siege, pressed it on with desperate assaults, day after
day, in which his best soldiers were thinned, before the united efforts
of Djezzar's gallantry, and the skill of his allies. At length, however,
a party of French succeeded in forcing their way into the great tower,
and in establishing themselves in one part of it, in despite of all the
resolution that could be opposed to them. At the same critical moment,
there appeared in the offing a Turkish fleet, which was known to carry
great reinforcements for the Pacha. Everything conspired to prompt
Napoleon to finish his enterprise at whatever cost, and he was bravely
seconded.
Sir Sydney Smith, however, was as resolute to hold out until the fleet
should arrive, as Napoleon was eager to anticipate its coming. The
English commander repaired with his handful of seaman to the tower, and
after a furious assault dislodged the occupants. Buonaparte did not
renew the attack in that quarter, but succeeded in breaking the wall in
another part of the town; and the heroic Lannes headed a French party
who actually entered Acre at that opening. But Djezzar was willing they
should enter. He suffered them to come in unmolested; and then, before
they could form, threw such a crowd of Turks upon them, that discipline
was of no avail: it was a mere multitude of duels, and the brave
orientals with their scimitars and pistols, overpowered their enemies,
and put them to death--almost to a man. Lannes himself was with
difficulty carried back desperately wounded.
The rage of Buonaparte at these repeated discomfitures may be imagined.
The whole evil was ascribed, and justly, to the presence of Sir Sydney
Smith; and he spoke of that chivalrous person ever after with the venom
of a personal hatred. Sir Sydney, in requital of Buonaparte's
proclamation--inviting (as was his usual fashion) the subjects of the
Pacha to avoid his yoke, and ally themselves with the invaders--put
forth a counter address to the Druses and other Christian inhabitants of
Syria, invoking their assistance in the name of their religion, against
the blasphemous general of a nation which had renounced Christianity.
Napoleon upon this said that Sir Sydney was a madman; and if his story
be true, Sir Sydney challenged him to single combat; to which he made
answer, that he would not come forth to a duel unless the English could
fetch Marlborough from his grave, but that, in the meantime, any one of
his grenadiers would willingly give the challenger such satisfaction as
he was entitled to demand. Whatever inaccuracy there may be in some of
these circumstances, there is no doubt of the fact that Buonaparte and
the brave commodore strove together at Acre, under the highest influence
of personal resentment, as well as martial skill and determination.
[_21st May._] The siege had now lasted sixty days. Once more Napoleon
commanded an assault, and his officers and soldiery once more obeyed him
with devoted and fruitless gallantry. The loss his army had by this time
undergone was very great. Caffarelli and many other officers of the
highest importance were no more. The plague had some time before this
appeared in the camp; every day the ranks of his legions were thinned by
this pestilence, as well as by the weapons of the defenders of Acre. The
hearts of all men were quickly sinking. The Turkish fleet was at hand to
reinforce Djezzar; and upon the utter failure of the attack of the 21st
of May, Napoleon yielded to stern necessity, and began his retreat upon
Jaffa.
The plague now raged in the army. The very name of this horrible scourge
shook the nerves of the Europeans; its symptoms filled them with
indescribable horror. The sick despaired utterly; the healthy trembled
to minister to them in their misery. Napoleon went through the
hospitals, and at once breathed hope into the sufferers, and rebuked the
cowardice of their attendants, by squeezing and relieving with his own
hand the foul ulcers which no one had dared to touch. Pity that this act
of true heroism must ever be recorded on the same page that tells the
story of the sand-hills!
The name of Jaffa was already sufficiently stained; but fame speedily
represented Napoleon as having now made it the scene of another
atrocity, not less shocking than that of the massacre of the Turkish
prisoners.
The accusation, which for many years made so much noise throughout
Europe, amounts to this: that on the 27th of May, when it was necessary
for Napoleon to pursue his march from Jaffa for Egypt, a certain number
of the plague-patients in the hospital were found to be in a state that
held out no hope whatever of their recovery; that the general, being
unwilling to leave them to the tender mercies of the Turks, conceived
the notion of administering opium, and so procuring for them at least a
speedy and an easy death; and that a number of men were accordingly
taken off in this method by his command. The story, the circumstances of
which were much varied in different accounts, especially as regards the
numbers of the poisoned (raised sometimes as high as 500), was first
disseminated by Sir Robert Wilson, and was in substance generally
believed in England. In each and all of its parts, on the contrary, it
was wholly denied by the admirers of Buonaparte, who treated it as one
of the many gross falsehoods, which certainly were circulated touching
the personal character and conduct of their idol, during the continuance
of his power.
Buonaparte himself, while at St. Helena, referred to the story
frequently; and never hesitated to admit that it originated in the
following occurrence. He sent, he said, the night before the march was
to commerce, for Desgenettes, the chief of the medical staff, and
proposed to him, under such circumstances as have been described, the
propriety of giving opium, in mortal doses, to _seven_ men, adding that,
had his son been in their situation, he would have thought it his duty,
as a father, to treat him in the same method; and that, most certainly,
had he himself been in that situation, and capable of understanding it,
he would have considered the deadly cup as the best boon that friendship
could offer him. M. Desgenettes, however, (said the ex-Emperor) did not
consider himself as entitled to interfere in any such method with the
lives of his fellow men: the patients were abandoned; and, at least, one
of the number fell alive into the hands of Sir Sidney Smith, and
recovered.
Such is Napoleon's narrative; and it is confirmed in all particulars of
importance, save _two_, by De Bourienne. That writer states distinctly
that he was present when Napoleon, Berthier and the usual suite,
examined the hospital--heard the discussion which followed, and _the
order given_ for administering mortal potions to the hopeless
patients--in number _sixty_. He does not assert that he saw the poison
administered, but says he has no doubt the order was executed; and
concludes with defending the measure by arguments similar to those
already quoted from the lips of his master.
Whether the opium was really administered or not--that the audacious
proposal to that effect was made by Napoleon, we have his own admission;
and every reader must form his opinion--as to the degree of guilt which
attaches to the fact of having meditated and designed the deed in
question, under the circumstances above detailed. That Buonaparte,
accustomed to witness slaughter in every form, was in general but a
callous calculator when the loss of human life was to be considered, no
one can doubt. That his motives, on this occasion, were cruel, no human
being, who considers either the temper or the situation of the man, will
ever believe. He doubtless designed, by shortening those men's lives, to
do them the best service in his power. The presumption of thus daring to
sport with the laws of God and man, when expedience seemed to recommend
such interference, was quite in the character of the young General:
cruelty was not; least of all, cruelty to his own soldiery--the very
beings on whose affection all his greatness depended.
The march onwards was a continued scene of misery; for the wounded and
the sick were many, the heat oppressive, the thirst intolerable; and the
ferocious Djezzar was hard behind, and the wild Arabs of the desert
hovered round them on every side, so that he who fell behind his company
was sure to be slain. How hard and callous the hearts of brave men can
become when every thought is occupied with self, the story of that march
presents a fearful picture. When a comrade, after quitting his ranks,
being stimulated by the despair of falling into the hands of the Turks
or Arabs, yet once again reared himself from the burning sand, and made
a last attempt to stagger after the column, his painful and ineffectual
efforts furnished matter for military merriment. "He is drunk," said
one; "his march will not be a long one," answered another; and when he
once more sank helpless and hopeless, a third remarked, "our friend has
at length taken up his quarters." It is not to be omitted, that Napoleon
did, on this occasion, all that became his situation. He issued an order
that every horse should be given up to the service of the sick. A moment
afterwards one of his attendants came to ask which horse the General
wished to reserve for himself: "Scoundrel!" cried he, "do you not know
the order? Let everyone march on foot--I the first.--Begone." He
accordingly, during the rest of the march, walked by the side of the
sick, cheering them by his eye and his voice, and exhibiting to all the
soldiery the example at once of endurance and of compassion.
[_June 14._] Having at length accomplished this perilous journey,
Buonaparte repaired to his old headquarters at Cairo, and re-entered on
his great functions as the establisher of a new government in the state
of Egypt. But he had not long occupied himself thus, ere new rumours
concerning the beys on the Upper Nile, who seemed to have some strong
and urgent motive for endeavouring to force a passage downwards, began
to be mingled with, and by degrees explained by, tidings daily repeated
of some grand disembarkation of the Ottomans, designed to have place in
the neighbourhood of Alexandria. Leaving Dessaix, therefore, once more
in command at Cairo, he himself descended the Nile, and travelled with
all speed to Alexandria, where he found his presence most necessary.
For, in effect, the great Turkish fleet had already run into the bay of
Aboukir; and an army of 18,000, having gained the fortress, were there
strengthening themselves, with the view of awaiting the promised descent
and junction of the Mamelukes, and then, with overwhelming superiority
of numbers, advancing to Alexandria, and completing the ruin of the
French invaders.
Buonaparte, reaching Alexandria on the evening of the 24th of July,
found his army already posted in the neighbourhood of Aboukir, and
prepared to anticipate the attack of the Turks on the morrow. Surveying
their entrenched camp from the heights above with Murat, he said, "Go
how it may, the battle of to-morrow will decide the fate of the world."
"Of this army at least," answered Murat; "but the Turks have no cavalry,
and, if ever infantry were charged to the teeth by horse, they shall be
so by mine." Murat did not penetrate the hidden meaning of Napoleon's
words, but he made good his own.
The Turkish outposts were assaulted early next morning, and driven in
with great slaughter; but the French, when they advanced, came within
the range of the batteries, and also of the shipping that lay close by
the shore, and were checked. Their retreat might have ended in a rout,
but for the undisciplined eagerness with which the Turks engaged in the
task of spoiling and maiming those that fell before them--thus giving to
Murat the opportunity of charging their main body in flank with his
cavalry, at the moment when the French infantry, profiting by their
disordered and scattered condition, and rallying under the eye of
Napoleon, forced a passage to the entrenchments. From that moment the
battle was a massacre. The Turks, attacked on all sides, were
panic-struck; and the sea was covered with the turbans of men who flung
themselves headlong into the waves rather than await the fury of _Le
Beau Sabreur_,[29] or the steady rolling fire of the _Sultan Kebir_. Six
thousand surrendered at discretion: twelve thousand perished on the
field or in the sea. Mustapha Pacha, the general, being brought into the
presence of his victor, was saluted with these words:--"It has been your
fate to lose this day; but I will take care to inform the sultan of the
courage with which you have contested it." "Spare thyself that trouble,"
answered the proud pacha, "my master knows me better than thou."
Napoleon once more returned to Cairo on the 9th of August; but it was
only to make some parting arrangements as to the administration, civil
and military; for, from the moment of his victory at Aboukir, he had
resolved to entrust Egypt to other hands, and Admiral Gantheaume was
already preparing in secret the means of his removal to France.
Buonaparte always asserted, and the Buonapartist writers of his history
still maintain, that this resolution was adopted in consequence of a
mere accident;[30] namely, that Sir Sydney Smith, in the course of some
negotiations about prisoners which followed after the battle of Aboukir,
sent a file of English newspapers for the amusement of the General. Some
say the English Commodore did so out of mere civility: others, that he
designed to distract the movements of Napoleon, by showing him the
dangerous condition to which, during his absence, the affairs of France,
both at home and abroad, had been reduced. It seems, however, to be
generally believed (as without doubt it is the more probable case) that
Buonaparte had long ere now received intelligence of the great events in
which he was so deeply concerned. He had, assuredly, many friends in
Paris, who were watching keenly over his interests, and who must have
been singularly ill served if they never were able to communicate with
him during so many months.
However this might have been, the General succeeded in preventing any
suspicion of his projected evasion from arising among the soldiery; and
when he finally turned his back on Cairo, it was universally believed
that it was but to make a tour in the Delta.
Napoleon reached the coast on the 22nd August, and was there met by
Berthier, Andreossi, Murat, Lannes, Marmont, and the _savans_ Monge and
Berthollet; none of whom had suspected for what purpose they were
summoned. Admiral Gantheaume had by this time two frigates and two
smaller vessels (which had been saved in the harbour of Alexandria)
ready for sea; and on the morning of the 23rd, the wind having
fortunately driven the English squadron of blockade off the coast,
Buonaparte and his followers embarked at Rosetta.
The same day the event was announced to the army by a proclamation which
the General left behind him, naming Kleber as his successor in the
command. The indignation of the soldiery, who thought themselves
deserted by their chief, was for a time violent; but, by degrees, the
great qualities displayed by Kleber softened this feeling, and
Buonaparte had left agents well qualified to explain what had happened,
in the manner most favourable for himself.
Kleber received at the same time a parting letter of instructions--one
of the most singular pieces that ever proceeded from Napoleon's pen. "I
send you," said he, "English gazettes to the 10th of June. You will
there see that we have lost Italy; that Mantua, Turin, and Tortona are
blockaded. I hope, if fortune smiles on me, to reach Europe before the
beginning of October.... It is the intention of government that General
Dessaix should follow me, unless great events interpose themselves, in
the course of November.... There is no doubt that, on the arrival of our
squadron at Toulon, means will be found of sending you the recruits and
munitions necessary for the army of Egypt. The government will then
correspond with you directly; while I, both in my public and in my
private capacity, will take measures to secure for you frequent
intelligence."
Buonaparte proceeds, after thus boldly assuming to himself the right of
speaking for the government--and in terms, it will be observed,
calculated to leave no doubt that his own departure was the result of
orders from Paris--to impress upon Kleber the necessity of always
considering the possession of Egypt as a point of the highest importance
to France; and, nevertheless, of negotiating, as long as possible, with
the Porte, on the basis that the French Republic neither had now, nor
ever had had, the smallest wish to be permanently mistress of that
country. He finally authorised Kleber, if not released or recruited by
May following, to make a peace with the Porte, even if the first of its
conditions should be the total evacuation of Egypt.
Then follow directions for the internal administration of Egypt, in
which, among other sufficiently characteristic hints, Kleber is desired
to cultivate the good will of _the Christians_, but, nevertheless, to
avoid carefully giving the Mussulmans any reason to confound _the
Christians_ with _the French_. "Above all," says Napoleon, "gain the
Sheiks, who are timid, who cannot fight, and who, like all priests,
inspire fanaticism without being fanatics."
The conclusion is in these words. "The army which I confide to you is
composed of my children; in all times, even in the midst of the greatest
sufferings, I have received the marks of their attachment: keep alive in
them these sentiments. You owe this to the particular esteem and true
attachment which I bear towards yourself."
[Footnote 27: Djezzar means _butcher_: he had well earned this title by
the mercilessness of his administration.]
[Footnote 28: Sir Sydney Smith, having been taken prisoner and most
unjustifiably confined by the French government in the dungeons of the
Temple, had made his escape through the zeal of certain of the royalist
party, and chiefly of Philippeaux.]
[Footnote 29: The handsome swordsman--_i.e._ Murat.]
[Footnote 30: De Bourienne, whose curious work has appeared since the
first edition of this narrative was published, confirms this statement
of Napoleon: but Napoleon, it is obvious, _might_ have received letters
which he did not choose to communicate to his secretary.]