Napoleon in Egypt (32 page)

Since my arrival in Egypt I have reassured the people and protected the muftis, the imams and the mosques. The Mecca pilgrims have never been welcomed with more care and friendship than I have shown for them, and the festival of the Prophet has just been celebrated with more splendor than ever.

I send you this letter through an officer who will make known to you in his own words my intention to achieve a good understanding between us . . . because the Muslims have no greater friends than the French.
²⁸

Ahmed Pasha was a formidable figure, better known as Djezzar (“The Butcher”), a name he had earned with some gusto during his long rule in Acre. Though notorious for his cruelty, greed and general cantankerousness, he was also possessed of considerable political acumen. He had been appointed several years previously by the sultan’s vizier, and never forgot his loyalty to his masters: his
miry
was always paid promptly and in full. This rare state of affairs ensured him considerable prestige in Constantinople, where he was regarded as a model governor and allowed to rule as he pleased. Christians were his favorite object of persecution, and his habit of having malefactors bricked into the walls of the cities over which he ruled earned him widespread renown. Such a man was unlikely to respond favorably to Napoleon’s overtures, and this proved the case. He refused even to meet Major Beauvoisin, and when the contents of Napoleon’s letter were read out to him “he flew into a violent rage, and told the translator: ‘Return to the infidel and make him leave. If he continues to set foot in this country I will have him thrown into a fire.’”
²⁹
Despite Beauvoisin’s diplomatic status, he was lucky to escape with his life; other emissaries would be cast into the dungeons, or simply executed. However, when Beauvoisin returned he was able to report circumstances of which Napoleon had not been aware: the French arrival in Egypt had apparently caused widespread consternation in Syria, and the Porte had subsequently increased Djezzar’s authority by appointing him military governor of the entire region. All that Beauvoisin had seen had led him to believe that the whole of Syria was in a state of ferment.

Napoleon was not too disconcerted by this news. He was relying upon the Directory’s promised diplomatic initiative to iron out any difficulties with the Porte, and was confident that even now these matters were being resolved. As early as August 19, in his regular report to the Directory, he had asked, “Is Talleyrand in Constantinople?”
³⁰
In his report of August 30 he had written: “I imagine Talleyrand is in Constantinople,” and on September 8 he wrote: “I await news from Constantinople.” He was confident that at least some of his messages were managing to beat the English sea blockade, but he informed the Directory: “Since our departure, I have received no letter from you, nor from any ministry, nor from any relevant authority. My dispatches have without doubt been more lucky than yours. I have sent them to you by way of Malta, Tripoli, Ancona, and Constantinople; I have used all ways open.”
³¹

The start of the New Year, according to the new French revolutionary calendar, was I Vendémiaire (which fell on September 22, 1798). This was the beginning of Year VII, and Napoleon was determined that it should be commemorated by a great festival. Here was a chance to show the Egytians some French culture, as well as an opportunity to improve morale amongst the troops.

The celebrations centered on Ezbekiyah Square, where a wooden Arc de Triomphe was erected, on which the artist-savant Rigo had been commissioned to paint a scene depicting the Battle of the Pyramids. At the other end of the square was another ceremonial arch, on which was painted in large gold letters, in French and in Arabic, “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet.” All around the square flew French tricolors crossed with Turkish flags to denote the friendship of the two nations, whilst in its midst stood a seventy-foot-high obelisk inscribed with the battle honors, together with the names of the fallen, of the Army of the Orient. During the morning, bands played and there was a military parade, after which a senior officer read out a proclamation by Napoleon:

Soldiers! You are assured of a fine destiny because of what you have achieved and the great esteem in which you are held. You will die with honor, like the heroes whose names are inscribed on this pyramid,
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or you will return to your country covered in laurels and the admiration of the world. In the five months that we have been far from Europe, our fate has been a matter of constant concern to our compatriots. Today, forty million of your fellow citizens will be thinking of you. . . .
³²

The New Year celebrations attracted large crowds, but for the most part the Egyptians seem to have remained unimpressed, if El-Djabarti’s observations are anything to go by: “The music played unceasingly . . . finally the soldiers gathered around the mast and one of their high priests read to them some writing in French. None of us could under stand it. The speech seemed to be pieces of advice or a sermon. . . . [Afterwards] the French placed guards around the mast because they pretend it is a symbol of their victories and the grandeur of their country.”
³³
And Nicolas Turc had this to say: “They constructed a long column covered in gold, painted with a portrait of their sultan and of his wife who had died in Paris [
sic
]. The French said that this column was the tree of liberty; but the Egyptians replied that it was if anything the stake upon which they were impaled and the emblem of the conquest of their country.”
³⁴
The Egyptians were encouraged to enjoy the festival, but General Desgenettes, Napoleon’s chief medical officer, noted that “these festivals . . . meant little to the inhabitants of Cairo, in spite of their magnificence.”
³⁵
Another French officer noticed: “It would be absurd to believe that the Egyptians invited to our festival totally shared in our full-blooded enjoyment. In spite of all their efforts to disguise how they felt, we easily perceived their unhappiness.”
³⁶

Napoleon’s proclamation was followed by a cantata composed by the musician-savant Rigel, to words by the poet-savant Parseval-Grandmaison, whose interminable verses proved equally incomprehensible to soldiers and Egyptians alike. After this there were races between riders on French and Egyptian horses, followed by a banquet for senior French officers and Egyptian dignitaries at Napoleon’s headquarters in the palace of Elfi Bey. This time, in accordance with French custom, guests sat on chairs, and were expected to eat with knives and forks. On each table was a centerpiece incorporating a cap of liberty and a crescent, whilst the napkin beside each place contained concealed within it a scroll inscribed with the Rights of Man and another with sayings from the Koran. At the end of the dinner there was a series of toasts, beginning with Napoleon raising his glass to the future and the three hundredth anniversary of the Revolution, and ending with Monge raising his “to the perfection of the human spirit and the progress of reason.”
³⁷

Once again, French technological expertise was embodied in a fireworks display, which apparently lasted for two hours. Napoleon had hoped that on this occasion his engineer-savant Conté might lay on a demonstration balloon ascent, but Conté was unable to construct a balloon in time. The original balloon which Napoleon had insisted upon importing from France now lay at the bottom of Alexandria harbor, along with much scientific equipment and instruments, having gone down in the ship carrying medical supplies which was accidentally sunk in the rush to unload in case Nelson’s squadron reappeared. Conté was doing his best to construct this pioneering aeronautical device, of which the French were so proud, using only locally available materials and machinery which he had assembled from scratch. Yet despite his indefatigable ingenuity, it was proving a far more difficult and lengthy task than he had foreseen. The French were in many ways like Robinson Crusoe on his island. Defoe’s book, which had been published earlier in the century, had captured the imagination of Europe, spawning many similar books in France, and several of the scientist-savants in Egypt would come to see themselves in a similar role to the shipwrecked sailor. They had arrived armed with their theoretical knowledge, but they would now be forced to start their science afresh, using only the most basic local ingredients occurring in nature.

Many of the conflicts and contradictions inherent in the celebrations of the revolutionary New Year, along with the Robinson Crusoe role occupied by the savants, were emblematic of the central problem which now faced Napoleon: precisely what kind of colony did he intend to establish? In this, as in so much else, he saw himself following in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, the pioneer of European colonization on the grand scale. Just as Alexander had sought to hellenize the Eastern world, Napoleon saw himself as the harbinger of a superior European culture. Yet his cultural, commercial and technological aspirations were in many ways more in line with the model of the Roman Empire, whose very nature had ensured its survival on a more permanent basis than Alexander’s empire of conquest, which began to fall apart on the death of its founder. These ancient exemplars still inspired the European empire builders nearly one and a half millennia later, but had given rise to a number of different interpretations.

At the end of the eighteenth century, the concept of a colony had not yet been fully realized amongst the European powers, who had only started to embark upon the imperial project which would in the following century see them colonizing almost the entire globe. Each power had begun the enterprise in its own characteristic fashion. The Spanish emphasis in South America had been on the export of gold and the enforced import of Christianity; whilst the British and the French in North America had simply driven out the indigenous population and brought in their own pioneers, who had attempted as far as possible to build a society based on the European model. Much the same had happened in the Caribbean, with the importation of African slaves coming in the wake of the pioneers, and the establishment of an elite European society as dependent upon slavery as ancient Greece and Rome. An alternative model was provided by the British in India and the Dutch in the East Indies, where these two commercial nations had seen their colonies as little more than business enterprises—protected, then reinforced and expanded, by military strength.
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Egypt did not fit easily into any of these categories. It was hardly virgin territory, having been the locus of a civilization which far preceded any in Europe; on the other hand, although it may already have been a colony, it was only part of the Ottoman Empire in the loosest sense. At the same time, it had an indigenous population which was neither savage nor sophisticated, who identified closely with a thousand-year-old highly spiritual yet xenophobic religion. The existing European colonial models were not appropriate, and it is now clear that from the very outset Napoleon had no wish to follow any such path: his idea of an Egyptian colony was both ambitious and unique at the time. French culture would play a leading role, if necessary evolving independently of the mother culture—just as the United States was beginning to do in America. If the link with Europe remained severed, Napoleon could foresee himself expanding eastwards into India, becoming if necessary the emperor of an independent Eastern empire entirely free from the political domination of a distant Europe. He would create nothing less than a United States of Asia; and the indications are that he felt this empire might even be based upon a quasi-Muslim religion (“I saw myself marching on the way to Asia . . . in my hand a new Koran,” etc.)
³⁸
Napoleon had meditated upon these ideas at some length, as is shown in his memoirs, where he sets out his vision for the future of Egypt in more detail:

After fifty years of prosperity and good government . . . emigrants from the depths of Africa, from Arabia, Syria, Greece, France, Italy, Poland and Germany would have quadrupled the population;
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and by sheer force of circumstance the commerce from the Indies would have returned to its ancient route . . . a colony as powerful as this would not be long in proclaiming its independence. Without doubt a great nation, as in the time of the Pharaohs and the time of the Ptolemys, would occupy this land which is so desolate today. Through its right hand it would support the Indies, and through its left it would support Europe; if local circumstances alone ought to decide the prosperity and greatness of cities, Alexandria, more than Rome, Constantinople, Paris, London, or Amsterdam would have been and will again be called the center of the universe. . . . After fifty years of this, civilization will have spread through the interior of Africa, where several great nations will enjoy the benefits of the arts, sciences and the religion of the true God, because it is through Egypt that the people of central Africa must receive enlightenment and happiness.
³⁹

Here undeniably lay the beginnings of a world empire such as history had not yet seen: no man before Napoleon had ever thought on such a grand scale, or had even conceived of such a vision.

XII

The Institute of Egypt

C
ENTRAL
to Napoleon’s dream was to be the creation of an Institute of Egypt in Cairo. This was to be modeled upon the Institute of France in Paris, of which Napoleon was so proud to have become a member that even in Egypt he still headed his dispatches “Member of the Institute and Commander-in-Chief”—in that order. Indeed, it is his pride on becoming a member of the Institute in Paris that may well have crystallized his vision of himself as more than just a general, more even than a conqueror of foreign countries; rather as a bringer of civilization.