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XXIV.

1798. 21st Oct.

to allay. In the end of October the insurrection CHAP. broke out, at a time when the French were so far from suspecting their danger, that they had very few troops within the town. Dupuis, the commander of the city, who proceeded with a feeble escort to quell the tumult, was slain, with several of his officers; a vast number of insulated Frenchmen were murdered, and the house of General Caffarelli was besieged and forced. The alarm was immediately beat in the streets, several battalions in the neighbourhood entered the town, the citadel began to bombard the most populous quarters, and the Turks, driven into the principal mosques, prepared for a desperate resistance. During the night they barricaded their posts, and the Arabs advanced from the desert to support their efforts; but it was all in vain. The French commander drove back the Bedouins into the inundation of the Nile, the mosques were forced, the buildings which sheltered the insurgents battered down or destroyed, and, after the slaughter of above 5000 of the inhabitants, and the conflagration of a considerable part of the city, Cairo submitted to the conqueror. This terrible disaster, with the cruel executions which fol- 1 Dum. ii. lowed it, struck such a terror into the Mahometan 176, 177. population, that they never after made the smallest 423, 424. attempt to get quit of the French authority.'

Jom. x.

Bour. ii.

182.

of Napoleon

Sea.

Meanwhile, Napoleon made an expedition in person to Suez, and in order to inspect the line of the Ro- Expedition man canal, which united the Mediterranean and the to the Red Red Sea. At Suez he visited the harbour, and gave orders for the construction of new works, and the formation of an infant marine; and passed the Red Sea, in a dry channel, when the tide was out, on the identical passage which had been traversed 3000 years before, by the children of Israel. Having refreshed himself at the fountains which still bear the

CHAP.
XXIV.

1798.

Bour, ii. Las Cas. vol.

195, 196.

i. p. 226. Savary, i.

99.

Extraordi

mation of

Napoleon.

22d Dec.

name of the Wells of Moses, at the foot of Mount Sinai, and visited a great reservoir, constructed by the Venetians in the sixteenth century, he returned to recross to the African side. It was dark when he reached the shore; and in crossing the sands, as the tide was flowing, they wandered from the right path, and were for some time exposed to the most imminent danger. Already the water was up to their middle, and still rapidly flowing, when the presence of mind of Napoleon extricated them from their perilous situation. He caused one of his escort to go in every direction, and shout when he found the depth of water increasing, and that he had lost his footing; by this means it was discovered in what quarter the slope of the shore ascended, and the party at length gained the coast of Egypt. "Had I perished in that manner like Pharoah," said Napoleon, "it would have furnished all the preachers of Christendom with a magnificent text against me."'

The suppression of the revolts drew from Napoleon one of those singular proclamations which are mary procla- so characteristic of the vague ambition of his mind: -"Scheiks, Ulemats, Orators of the Mosque, teach the people, that those who become my enemies, shall have no refuge in this world or the next. Is there any one so blind as not to see that I am the Man of Destiny? Make the people understand, that from the beginning of time, it was ordained, that having destroyed the enemies of Islamism, and vanquished the cross, I should come from the distant parts of the West, to accomplish my destined task. Show them, that in twenty passages of the Koran, my coming is foretold. I could demand a reckoning from each of you, of the most secret thoughts of his soul, since to me every thing is known; but the day will come, when all shall know from whom I derived my com

XXIV.

1798.

mission, and that human efforts cannot prevail against CHAP. me." Thus did Napoleon expect that he was to gain the confidence of the Mussulmans, at the very time when he was executing thirty of their number a-day, and throwing their corpses, in sacks, every Scott, iv. night into the Nile. 1*

Miot, 105.

86.

Th. x. 394.

into Syria.

Being now excluded from all intercourse with Europe, and menaced with a serious attack by land He resolves and sea from the Turks, Napoleon resolved to to penetrate assail his enemies, by an expedition into Syria, where the principal army of the Sultan was assembling. Prudence prescribed that he should anticipate the enemy, and not wait till, having assembled their strength, a preponderating force was ready to fall upon the French army. But it was not merely defensive operations that the general contemplated; his ardent mind, now thrown upon its own resources, and deprived of all assistance from Europe, indulged in visions of Oriental conquest. To advance into Syria with a part of his troops, and rouse the population of that country and Asia Minor against the Turkish rule; assemble an army of 15,000 French veterans, and 100,000 Asiatic auxiliaries on the Eu- signs. phrates, and overawe at once Persia, Turkey, and India, formed the splendid project which filled his imagination. His eyes were continually fixed on the deserts which separated Asia Minor from Persia; he had sounded the dispositions of the Persian court, and ascertained that, for a sum of money, they were

"Every night," said Napoleon, in a letter to Regnier, "we cut off thirty heads, and those of several chiefs; that will teach them, I think, a good lesson." The victims were put to death in prison; thrust into sacks, and thrown into the Nile. This continued six days after tranquillity was restored. The executions were continued for long after, and under circumstances that will admit of neither extenuation nor apology.

His vast de

Bour. ii.

184.

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1799.

CHAP. willing to allow the passage of his army through their territories; and he confidently expected to renew the march of Alexander, from the shores of the Nile to those of the Ganges. Having overrun India, and established a colossal reputation, he projected returning to Europe; attacking Turkey and Austria with the whole forces of the East, and establishing an empire, greater than that of the Romans, in the centre of European civilisation. Full of these ideas, he wrote to Tippoo Saib, that "he had arrived on the shores of the Red Sea with an innumerable and invincible army, and inviting him to send a confidential person to Suez, to concert measures for the destruction of the British power in Hindostan."1

Jan. 9, 1799.

1

Bour, ii. 188, 189. Nap. ii. 300, 301, and Corresp. Conf. vi. 192.

tent of his

forces.

The forces, however, which the French general could command for the Syrian expedition, were by Limited ex- no means commensurate to these magnificent projects. They consisted only of 13,000 men; for although the army had been recruited by the 3000 prisoners sent back by the British after the battle of the Nile, and almost all the sailors of the transports, yet such were the losses which had been sustained since the period when they landed, by fatigue, sickness, and the sword, that no larger number could be spared from the defence of Egypt. These, with 900 cavalry, and forty-nine pieces of cannon, constituted the whole force with which Napoleon expected to change the face of the world; while the reserves left on the banks of the Nile did not exceed in all 16,000 men. The artillery destined for the siege of Acre, the capital of the Pacha Djezzar, was Miot. 111. put on board three frigates at Alexandria, and orders 397, 400. despatched to Villeneuve at Malta to endeavour to escape the vigilance of the English cruisers, and come to support the maritime operations.*

Jom. xi.

Dum. ii. 186, 190.

CHAP.

XXIV.

1799.

Desert.

On the 11th February, the army commenced its march over the desert which separates Africa from Asia. The track, otherwise imperceptible amidst the blowing sand, was distinctly marked by innu- 11th Feb. merable skeletons of men and animals, which had perished on that solitary pathway, the line of communication between Asia and Africa, which from the earliest times had been frequented by the human race. Six days afterwards, Napoleon reached El Arish, where the camp of the Mamelukes was surprised during the night, and after a siege of two days the fort capitulated. The sufferings of the troops, however, were extreme in crossing the desert; the excessive heat of the weather, and the want of water, Passage of the Syrian produced the greatest discontent among the soldiers, and Napoleon felt the necessity of bringing his men as rapidly as possible through that perilous district. The garrison were conveyed as prisoners in the rear of the army, which augmented their difficulty in obtaining subsistence. Damas was abandoned by the 28th March. Mussulman forces at the sight of the French squares of infantry, and at length the granite pillars were passed which marked the confines of Asia and Africa; the hitherto clear and glowing sky was streaked by a veil of clouds, some drops of rain refreshed the parched lips of the soldiers, and the suffering troops beheld the green valleys and wood-covered hills of Syria. The soldiers at first mistook them for the mirage of the desert, which had so often disappointed their hopes; they hardly ventured to trust their own eyes, when they beheld woods and water, green meadows, and olive groves, and all the features of European scenery; but at length, the appearance of verdant slopes and clear brooks convinced them that they had passed from the sands of Africa to a land

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