This traveller was born at Givry, near Chalons-sur-Soane, in Burgundy.
He was descended from a noble family, and commenced his career in life
as a royal page. When he had for some time served in the palace in
this capacity, he was nominated gentleman in ordinary to the king; not
long after which he obtained the office of secretary to an embassy.
In this capacity he accompanied the Baron de Talleyrand, ambassador
of France to Naples, where, during the absence of the ambassador, he
remained _chargé des affaires_. At the epoch of the emigration he
incurred the displeasure of Queen Marie Caroline, and in consequence
removed to Venice, where he was known under the name of the Chevalier
Denon, and became one of the most distinguished members of the society
of Madame Albrizzi. This lady has sketched his portrait in her
_Ritratti_. After having spoken in a highly laudatory strain of his
passion for knowledge, his intrepidity in danger, the constant gayety
of his mind, the fertility of his imagination, the versatility of his
character, his irresistible inclination to drollery, she adds, “He
is generally supposed to resemble Voltaire. For my own part, I would
admit that in his physiognomy you may discover that of Voltaire, but
in the physiognomy of Voltaire you would look in vain for that of
Denon. That which, in my opinion, they possess in common, is simply
an indication of sprightliness, vivacity, versatility, and a certain
sarcastic air in the look and smile, which amuses while it terrifies;
but the physiognomy of Voltaire indicates none of those qualities which
characterize the soul of Denon.”
During his stay in Italy, Denon diligently applied himself to the art
of design, in which, as was afterward seen, he acquired a remarkable
facility and power. On the breaking out of the revolution he adopted
its principles, and even connected himself with the most furious
jacobins, with the intention, it has been said, of snatching a few
victims from their fangs. But, notwithstanding all this, he would
probably have sunk into that oblivion which has already devoured
the memory of so many actors in those sanguinary times, had not the
Egyptian expedition placed him in an advantageous position before the
world. He had all his life, he says, been desirous of travelling in
Egypt, and easily obtained the consent of Napoleon to accompany him.
Embarking at Marseilles on the 14th of May, 1799, he sailed along
the shores of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and Malta, where he landed
and made some stay, and then proceeded to Egypt. Having had the good
fortune to escape the English fleet in a fog, he landed near Alexandria
with the French troops, of whose movements I shall take no further
notice, except in as far as they may be connected with the actions of
Denon.
It has been truly remarked by Volney, that on arriving any foreign
country, how many descriptions soever you may have read of it, you
nevertheless find every thing new and strange; as if, in fact, you had
just discovered it. Denon was precisely in this predicament. He had, no
doubt, read what had been written respecting Egypt; yet he looked upon
it as a country of which little beyond the name was known in Europe,
and consequently commenced the study of its antiquities with all
possible enthusiasm. His views, though vanity had some influence in the
formation of them, were tolerably correct. Egypt has indeed been often
visited, and in many instances by able men and accomplished scholars;
but no one who has toiled, as I have, through the descriptions of these
various travellers, can avoid making the discovery that very much
remains yet to be done before we can be said to possess a thorough
knowledge of Egypt, ancient or modern.
From Alexandria Denon proceeded with Kleber’s division towards Rosetta;
clouds of Arabs hung on their front and in their rear, cutting off
every man who lagged behind, or strayed to the distance of fifty yards
from the main body. Desaix himself narrowly escaped; and several young
officers, less on the alert, were either made prisoners or shot. After
making numerous little excursions in the Delta, he set out for Upper
Egypt, which, in his opinion, had never before been visited by a
European; so that, if we interpret him literally, all the travellers
who had previously described that country were so many fiction-mongers.
In ascending the Nile, he beheld at ten leagues’ distance from Cairo
the points of the Pyramids piercing the horizon. These prodigious
monuments, which, even more powerfully than Thebes itself, command the
attention of every traveller in Egypt, he soon visited with an escort,
and sketched from various positions. The city of Cairo disappointed his
expectations, which appear to have been absurd, since he had formed his
ideas of the place from the “Arabian Nights,” rather than from the
descriptions of travellers.
The population of Cairo, which, though far less numerous than is
commonly supposed, is still very great, saw with disgust and horror
the triumph of the Franks; who, they feared, might soon introduce
among them the eating of the “unclean beast,” abhorred by Jews and
Mussulmans, with drinking, gambling, and other accomplishments which
Mohammed had prohibited to his followers. They therefore determined to
shake off the yoke which they had too tamely suffered to be placed on
their necks. Rushing fiercely to arms, they attacked their invaders
with fury. The house which had been appropriated to the learned men
who accompanied the expedition stood apart from the city, and was
surrounded by gardens. Here they were collected together when the
revolt began. The report of musketry and symptoms of increasing
consternation soon informed them, however, of what was going forward
in the more populous quarters, and their alarm was proportioned to the
solitude by which they were surrounded. Presently a report reached them
that the house of General Caffarelli had been sacked and pillaged,
and that several members of the commission of arts had perished. They
now reviewed their numbers, and four of the party were missing. In
an hour after this it was ascertained that they had been massacred.
Meanwhile no one could give any account of Napoleon; night was coming
on; the firing continued; shouts and clamours filled the air; and it
was evident that the insurrection was general. A tremendous carnage had
already taken place, but the inhabitants still held out, having in one
half of the city adopted that barricading system in which they were
recently imitated by the people of Paris; and in others, taken refuge,
to the number of four thousand, in a spacious mosque, from whence they
repulsed two companies of grenadiers. Night produced a pause in the
struggle. At the commencement of the insurrection the literati had been
granted a guard, but about midnight the exigences of the moment caused
this to be withdrawn; when they themselves took arms, and, though every
man was disposed to command and none to obey, prepared to receive the
insurgents. Thus the night passed away in confusion and slaughter, and
in the morning the French were again masters of the city.
It must be acknowledged, to the honour of the French, that, whatever
their conduct in Egypt may have been in other respects, nothing could
be more constant than their ardour for the sciences. In the midst
of battles, revolts, and dangers of every kind, their researches
were still continued. We accordingly find Denon, just escaped from
becoming a mummy himself, busily engaged in dissecting an ibis, five
hundred mummies of which bird had just been discovered in the caverns
of Saccara. He next witnessed an exhibition of the achievements of
the Psylli; but his incredulity and self-sufficiency disinclined
him from making any serious inquiries on the subject of their power
over serpents, which he was contented with turning into ridicule: an
unfortunate propensity for a traveller, who should abandon all such
absurd displays of littleness to the wits of the metropolis.
Shortly after this Denon accompanied General Desaix on an expedition
into Upper Egypt. The Mamelukes, though forced to retire, still
continued to make head against their enemies, who, if they triumphed
over them through the effects of discipline, were assuredly neither
more brave nor more enterprising. When they drew near the place where
the Mamelukes under Murad Bey were reported to be encamped, Desaix was
informed that Murad was already putting himself in motion to attack
him. The French general, no less chivalrous than Murad, determined
at once to anticipate the attack. Both armies came in sight of each
other in the evening. It was too late for battle. The victory which
both parties promised themselves was deferred until the morrow.
In the Mameluke camp the night was spent in rejoicings; and their
sentinels approached, with laughter and insult, the advanced posts of
the French. The battle commenced with the dawn. Murad, at the head of
his redoubtable Mamelukes and eight or ten thousand Arabs, appeared
ready for the attack. The French formed with rapidity, and the combat
commenced. Never, on any occasion, was more impetuous bravery displayed
than by Murad and his Mamelukes on this day. Finding that the chances
of battle were turning against them, their habitual courage degenerated
into fury: they galloped up, reckless of danger, to the ranks of their
enemies, and endeavoured to open themselves a way through the bayonets
and muskets of the French, which they attempted to hew in pieces with
their sabres. Failing in this, they made their horses rear and plunge
into the opposing lines, or backed them against the bayonets, in the
hope of breaking and dispersing them. When this desperate measure also
deceived their hopes, they lost all government of their rage, and
in the madness of their despair, threw their muskets, pistols, and
blunderbusses at the enemy; or, if dismounted, crept along the ground,
beneath the bayonets, to cut at the legs of the soldiers. It was in
this fight that an instance of ferocity on both sides, unsurpassed
by any thing of the kind recorded in history, occurred: a French
soldier and a Mameluke, engaged in mortal struggle on the ground, were
discovered by an officer, just as the Frenchman was cutting the throat
of his enemy. “How can you be guilty of so horrible an action,” said
the officer, “in the state in which you are?” The soldier replied, “You
talk very finely, at your ease, sir; for my own part, however, I have
but a moment to live, and I mean to enjoy it!” The Mamelukes retired,
but they did not fly; and it cost the French torrents of blood before
the victory was completed.
This victory caused Desaix to return once more to Cairo for a
reinforcement, after which the journey towards the south was resumed.
At Miniel Guidi, while Denon was sitting beside the general in the
shade, a criminal, who had been caught in stealing the muskets from the
volunteers, was brought up for judgment. It was a boy not more than
twelve years of age, beautiful as an angel, but bleeding from a large
sabre wound which he had received in his arm. He paid no attention to
his wound, but presented himself with an ingenuous and confident air
before the general, whom he soon discovered to be his judge. How great
is the power of unaffected grace! The anger of every person present
immediately disappeared. He was first questioned respecting the person
who had instigated the crime. “No one,” he replied. The question was
repeated under another form: he answered that “he did not know--the
powerful--the Almighty.”--“Have you any relations?”--“Only a mother,
very poor, and blind.” He was then informed, that if he confessed who
had sent him nothing would be done to him; whereas certain punishment
would ensue upon his concealing the truth. “I have told you,” he said,
“I was sent by no one; God alone inspired me!” Then placing his cap
at the feet of the general, he continued, “Behold my head, command
it to be struck off.”--“Poor fellow!” exclaimed Desaix, “let him be
dismissed.” He was led away, and divining his fate from the looks of
the general, he departed with a smile.
Here they enjoyed the unusual pleasure of a shower of rain. On visiting
the ruins of Oxyrinchus, Denon suffered one of the penalties attached
to a hopeless creed; beholding around him nothing but desolation and
sterility, a thousand melancholy ideas glided into his mind; he saw
the desert encroaching upon the cultivated soil, as the domain of
death encroaches upon life; the tombs in the pathless waste seemed the
emblems of death and annihilation. The gayety described by Signora
Albrizzi had now fled. He thought himself alone, and felt all that
awful solitude inspired by a want of faith in the spiritual nature
of man, that faith which sheds around us, wherever we move, a light
by which we discern the links that unite us to our Creator, and to
every thing noble and immortal in the works of his hands. He was not,
however, alone. Desaix had wandered to the same spot, and having
apparently yielded, like himself, to the fatal error of the times,
experienced the same sensations, and was oppressed by the same gloom.
They shortly afterward set out together, escorted by three hundred
men, on an excursion to the ruins of Hermopolis; which, being the
first monument of ancient Egyptian architecture that he beheld,
the Pyramids excepted, became in his mind the type of that sublime
style. Notwithstanding the number of his escort, Denon soon found
that, although arms might indeed open him a way to places which had
hitherto been inaccessible to travellers, other circumstances, over
which neither himself nor Desaix could exercise any control, prevented
him from maturely studying what he beheld. A few hours satisfied the
curiosity of the general, and overwhelmed the soldiers, who felt no
curiosity about the matter, with fatigue. It was therefore necessary
to be contented with a few fugitive glances, as it were, with a few
sketches hastily made, and the hope of returning again under more
favourable auspices.
On approaching Tentyris Denon ventured, he says, to propose that the
army should halt there. Desaix, though no less sensible than himself
of the charms of these antique ruins, had his mind filled with other
cares, and met the proposal with anger. Passion, however, could possess
but a momentary influence over that beautiful mind; shortly afterward
he sought out the enthusiastic traveller, in whose company he visited
Denderah, and admired the sublimity of its ponderous architecture. In
the evening, Latournerie, a young officer remarkable for his courage
and the delicacy of his taste, observed to Denon, “Ever since I
have arrived in Egypt, continual disappointment has made me ill and
melancholy. The sight of Denderah has revived me. What I have seen this
day has repaid me for all my fatigues; and whatever may be the fate to
which the present expedition shall lead me, the remembrance of this day
will cause me to rejoice, as long as I live, that I was engaged in it.”
Two days after this, on turning the point of a chain of mountains, the
army came in sight of the ruins of Thebes. Denon loved above all things
to be original. In approaching the wreck of this mighty city, Homer’s
phrase, “Thebes with its hundred gates,” occurred to him; he repeated
it, and then descanted upon its poetical vanity, and the folly of those
who harped upon this string. As soon as the army came in sight of
these gigantic ruins, the whole body stopped spontaneously as one man,
and clapped their hands with admiration and delight. The conquest of
Egypt appeared to be complete. Our traveller, who rivalled Dr. Syntax
himself in his love of the picturesque, immediately set about sketching
the view, as if it had been merely a city of vapour, like that which
appears under the name of the “Palace of the Rajah Harchund,” in the
desert of Ajmere. Being desirous of beholding at once all the wonders
of this stupendous city, he quickly visited those colossal statues
which are found in a sitting posture in the neighbouring plain, which
he supposed to be those of the mother and son of Ossymandyas.
From Thebes he proceeded with General Belliard to Syene, while Desaix
struck off into the desert in search of a detachment of Mamelukes.
Here he resided for some time, making the island of Elephantina his
country-house, and Syene his head-quarters. He visited the cataracts,
the island of Phile, and made drawings of whatever was striking or
remarkable in the vicinity. After a considerable stay, he returned
towards the north, where he bade adieu to his friend Desaix, never to
meet again. He afterward made a second excursion to Thebes, Denderah,
and other celebrated spots; and experienced, during one of these
rambles, the effects of the Khamsyn wind, variously described by
travellers, according to the variety of their temperaments. It was
about the middle of May, the heat was almost intolerable, a complete
stagnation seemed to have taken place in the air. “At the very moment,”
he says, “when to remove the painful sensation occasioned by such a
state of the atmosphere, I was hastening to bathe in the Nile, all
nature seemed to have put on a new aspect: the light and colours were
such as I had never seen before; the sun, without being concealed,
had lost its rays; become dimmer than the moon, it yielded but a pale
light, diffused around every object without shadows; the water no
longer reflected its rays, and appeared troubled: the aspect of every
thing was changed; it was the earth which now appeared luminous, while
the air was dim, and seemed opaque; the trees, beheld through a yellow
horizon, wore a dirty blue colour; a long column of birds swept before
the cloud; the terrified animals wandered wild through the plain, and
the peasants, who pursued them with shouts, failed to collect them
together. The wind, which had raised this prodigious mass of sand,
and transported it along through the atmosphere, had not yet reached
us, and we hoped, by entering into the water, to escape from its
effects. But we had scarcely stepped into the river before its waves
were lifted up by the hurricane, dashed over our heads, and carried
in an instantaneous inundation over the plain. The bed of the Nile
seemed shaken under our feet, and its banks with our garments appeared
to have been blown away. We hurried out of the water, the dust fell
upon us like rain, we were immediately covered as with a crust. Too
much terrified even to put on our garments, we crept along through a
reddish, insufficient light, partly guiding our steps by the walls,
until at length we found refuge in our lodgings.”
Denon, who really possessed all the genuine enthusiasm of a traveller,
shortly after this undertook a journey to Cosseir on the Red Sea, where
he enjoyed an opportunity of beholding the manners of the Arabs under
less disadvantages than in the valley of the Nile. He then returned
again to Thebes, where he visited the sepulchres of Gournon, and
descending the Nile to the seacoast, embarked with Napoleon on board
a frigate, and sailed for France. The ship, fearful of encountering
the English, coasted along the shores of Africa, as far as the Gulf
of Carthage and Biserta; then, after passing close to Sardinia, and
touching at Corsica, arrived safe on the coast of Provence.
On his return to France, Napoleon, of whom he was a devoted admirer,
and in whose praise he was frequently guilty of adulation, conferred
upon him the office of superintendent of museums and the striking of
medals. The triumphal column in the Place Vendôme was erected under
his direction. On the fall of Napoleon, the king, who was not ignorant
of the merits of Denon, continued him in his offices; but as on the
reappearance of Napoleon in 1815 he returned to his allegiance to his
first sovereign, he naturally sank with him upon his final fall. In his
place of superintendent of the medal mint he was succeeded by M. de
Puymaurin and by the Comte de Farbin, as director-general of museums.
Denon enjoyed the reputation, however, of being the most competent
person in Paris for filling the offices of which he had been deprived.
Remarking upon those changes, “It would be difficult,” says the
Quarterly Review, “to discover on what grounds an old and meritorious
servant, who, like Denon, had distinguished himself by his knowledge of
antiquities, by his taste and execution in the fine arts, and by his
zeal for their promotion among his countrymen, was dismissed to make
room for the present Apollo of the Museum, who has not the good fortune
to be gifted with science, art, or taste, or even with the semblance of
zeal or respect for any of them.” Denon died in 1827, leaving behind
him an extensive and well-merited reputation, which is likely long to
survive. His travels have been translated into English, and are still
highly esteemed.