Napoleon in Egypt (34 page)

Other savants at Rosetta were similarly industrious, even if they did not produce quite such groundbreaking results. The engineer Jollois busied himself hiking along the coast with his shotgun, shooting any seabirds he could find, and bringing back the remains to add to Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s collection. Meanwhile others studied the many ruins in the district, which were deemed to be mainly attempts at ancient pyramids, dating from an early pharaonic dynasty, while the ubiquitous Denon continued sketching birds, flowers, buildings and even the ruins (enabling them to be correctly identified at a later date as the remains of centuries-old Mameluke fortifications).

Menou was only too pleased to have such men working at Rosetta, and would enjoy listening to their intellectual conversation after dinner at his headquarters. Sadly for him, almost all his savants would soon be summoned to Cairo, where they would become involved in the various projects started by the Institute.

One of the first papers to be read out at the regular meetings of the Institute was Monge’s “Explanation of the Optical Phenomenon Called a Mirage.” A simplified version of this paper would be circulated throughout the French army in Lower Egypt, so that this phenomenon could be explained to the soldiers, thus dissipating as far as possible the irrational fears the mirages had induced. Other talks ranged from Berthollet’s paper on “The Process Followed in Egypt for the Manufacture of Indigo,” to Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s “Observations on the Wing of the Ostrich.” Even a number of Napoleon’s senior officers soon became enthusiastically involved in the savants’ various projects; so much so that chief of staff Berthollet found time to dispatch to the Institute “one hundred birds’ mummies preserved and sealed in sandstone pots”
⁸
—the very find that would enable Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire to study the development over three millennia of the Egyptian ibis.

All manner of new science was soon being introduced to Egypt. A leading light in this enterprise was chief medical officer Desgenettes, who organized the printing of manuals in French and Egyptian outlining treatment for smallpox and bubonic plague. He also sent a circular letter to all medical officers attached to the French army, reminding them that Egypt had been one of the birthplaces of medicine, and that elements of this early medicine probably survived in contemporary Egyptian medical practice. They were to record any instances of this they came across, partly for the benefit of medical history, and partly in case some of these timeless practices forgotten by European medicine remained efficacious. Desgenettes also set in process the daily recording of deaths in Cairo, with these classified under separate columns for men, women and children, listing where possible the cause. The tables would later be used to monitor the rise and fall of contagious diseases in the city, as well as to compare seasonal and annual variations. This was the first use in Egypt of statistical analysis, a science which was barely under way in Europe. Desgenettes also read a paper to the Institute on ophthalmia, the eye disease which affected so many Egyptians and was now beginning to spread amongst French soldiers.

Other civil projects included the mapping of Cairo, whose labyrinthine streets were pinpointed by theodolite readings taken by two astronomer-savants, Nouét and Mechain; Conté’s construction of an experimental windmill at the northern end of Rodah Island, to catch the wind that blew up the Nile valley; and a study regarding the feasibility of building a Nile barrage.

Amongst its cultural activities, the Institute produced its own journal,
La Décade
, which appeared every ten days, i.e., once every revolutionary week. The first edition was dated 10 Vendémiaire Year VII (October 1, 1798), and came out under the editorship of Tallien, who prudently promised in its prospectus that it would contain “no news or political discussion,” but would instead be devoted to the sciences and the arts. This prospectus gives yet another indication of how the French continued to see their role in Egypt—or, more pertinently, how their commander-in-chief viewed this role, for there can be little doubt that Tallien’s text was written in the closest possible collaboration with the “vice-president” of the Institute.

We no longer live in times when conquerors only knew how to destroy what they had taken by force of arms, when the lust for gold dictated all their actions, when devastation, persecution and intolerance accompanied them wherever they went. Today, by contrast, the French respect not only the laws, the customs, the habits, but even the prejudices of the people whose territory they occupy. They leave it to time, reason, and education to introduce the changes that philosophy and the enlightenment of the present century have brought about, whose implementation becomes each day ever closer.
⁹

Despite the attitude of the Egyptian people, their widespread mistrust and suspicion of the French, even the violent opposition in the countryside, nothing appeared to have changed in the French attitude since they had first set foot in Egypt. Indeed, it appeared that nothing had changed since the day the expedition had been conceived thousands of miles away in France. Time and reason would bring about the inevitable enlightenment of the Egyptian people, who would eventually begin to behave and see the world as if they were Frenchmen.

Contributions to the first issue of
La Décade
ranged from an article by General Andréossy on how to manufacture gunpowder with local materials, to “A Fragment taken from the 17th song of Jerusalem,” an extract from the poet-savant Parseval-Grandmaison’s epic work-in-progress. A further fragment of this work would appear in a later issue of
La Décade
, featuring such immortal lines as:

The dawn was lit by the fires of day

The mountains shone with its golden ray

Renaud’s helmet reflected this light

As he breathed an air more pure and bright . . .
¹⁰

Ensuing issues of the journal would include translations from the Koran, and from the journals of Egyptian travelers, as well as astronomical observations, analyses of Nile water and tests on Egyptian soil samples. Such a wide-ranging intellectual magazine would have been the envy of most provincial cities in Europe, and even a few of its capitals.

The founding of the Institute aroused much curiosity amongst the leading Egyptian intellectuals, as is illustrated by El-Djabarti’s description:

The French installed in one of the houses a large library with several librarians who guarded the books and gave them to readers who needed them. This library was open every day from two hours before midday. The readers gathered in the big hall beside the one where the books were kept. They sat in chairs ranged around the large tables and set to work. Even ordinary soldiers came to work in the library. If a Muslim wished to come into the library he was not in any way prevented, on the contrary he was welcomed in a friendly manner. The French were most pleased when a Muslim visitor appeared interested in the sciences; they immediately made themselves available to him, showing him all sorts of printed books, with designs representing certain parts of the terrestrial globe, animals and plants. . . . I have had occasion to visit this library several times and remain constantly astonished at the sight of all these beautiful things.
¹¹

Such naïve astonishment, especially coming from a learned man and one who was no admirer of the French, is revealing. This was the reaction of a man who was not only deprived of secular learning, but also had never encountered a world in which such learning was freely available, and open to all. Five hundred years previously, this might have been the reaction of a French medieval scholar entering the Al-Azhar mosque and university, where the study of mathematics, chemistry and medicine was far in advance of anywhere in Europe.

El-Djabarti goes on to describe how the French had “many Moslem books which had been translated into their language,” including the Koran, and how some were “learning verses of the Koran by heart.” He also observed how “they applied themselves night and day to learn the Arabic language.” And evidently not all the French scientific instruments lay at the bottom of Alexandria harbor or Aboukir Bay, for El-Djabarti goes on to admire “astronomical instruments of great precision . . . telescopes which opened out and could be reclosed so that they fitted into little boxes. These were used to observe the stars and determine their distances, their volume, their conjunctions and their opposites.” Visiting the painters’ atelier, he marveled at the artists: “Among them was Arago [evidently Rigo] who made portraits; he was so skilled that on seeing his portraits one might have said they were in relief [i.e., three-dimensional] and on the point of speaking.”

El-Djabarti’s greatest wonder was reserved for the scientists: “When an animal or a fish unknown in France is discovered, they put it in a liquid which preserves it indefinitely without alteration.” Later he visited the chemistry laboratories, where one of the assistants “took a flagon containing a certain liquid and poured part of it into an empty glass; then he took another flagon of liquid and poured it into the same glass. This gave off a colored smoke and when this smoke disappeared the liquid had turned solid and remained a yellowish color. I touched this solid and found that it was as hard as stone. The same experience was repeated with other liquids, and they produced a blue stone, while a third produced a red stone like a ruby.” He was also shown a certain machine: “If a person touched it, his body received an instant shock, which made the bones of his shoulders and his arm crack.”

The bathos of such schoolboy experiments astonishing a learned Egyptian makes depressing reading indeed. This was the land where over 3,000 years previously,
chymia
, the art of embalming, had been the first chemistry known to humanity, and had even given the science its name. This was the region where Arabic
al-chemia
had become alchemy, nursing the techniques which had given birth to modern chemistry. It is arguable that the modern rational sciences arising out of such knowledge had played a significant role in enabling the French to overcome the obfuscations of their religion, yet at the same time, it seems, causing them to forget the universal compassion which this very religion had preached. As a result, they felt no compunction about imposing themselves upon the Egyptians, who had done nothing to deserve such attentions. On the other hand, just as surely, the increasing orthodoxy of Islam had overcome the Arabic love of learning, causing the Egyptians in turn to forget all that Islam had taught them. Islam had originally instructed its followers: “To know the world is to know God”; now they had encountered a nation that knew the world but no longer knew God. Mutual incomprehension—from the most trivial scientific experiments and social practices to the most fundamental assumptions of their different civilizations—was perhaps inevitable.

Despite this, the sheiks of Al-Azhar did in fact attend some of the first open meetings of the Institute, but what they made of the learned scientific papers read out by the members is difficult to assess. When Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire finished his paper describing the many new fish that he had discovered in the Nile, he was asked by a sheik in the audience why he bothered himself with such futility, when it was known that the Prophet had settled all these matters ten centuries previously—saying that God had created 30,000 different types of animal, 10,000 of them to live on the land and 20,000 of them to live in water. Unlike El-Djabarti, the leading sheik of the Cairo
divan
, El-Bekri, declared himself unimpressed by the things he had seen at the Institute, and assured the savants that such things were unlikely to impress any Egyptian. When asked why, he replied that Egyptians believed in sorcery: how could the accomplishments of the scientists and artists of the Institute be compared with the wondrous conceptions of any sorcerer, who could conjure up scenes from the heavens, or with the wizardry of even the most ordinary djinns?

El-Bekri even challenged Berthollet on this matter, asking the great chemist if his science was able to make him be in two places at the same time—so that he could appear in both Cairo and Morocco simultaneously. Berthollet did not deign to answer, merely shrugging his shoulders. El-Bekri took this to be an admission of failure and mocked Berthollet, telling him that despite all his science he was still no sorcerer.

Monge decided to adopt a more positive approach to this culture gap, and attempted to gain the sympathy of the Egyptians by charming them with music. He arranged for an orchestra, made up of musicians from amongst the savants and the regimental bands, to assemble at Ezbekiyah Square and play to the public. This soon attracted a vast crowd. First of all Monge asked the band to play a number of simple tunes, but the audience did not respond in the slightest. After this he tried them with some military marches, then a series of stirring fanfares, “but to no avail, during this magnificent concert the Egyptians all remained completely impassive, all as immobile as the mummies in their catacombs.”
¹²
Monge became exasperated, and turning to the musicians exclaimed: “They’re not worth the effort you’re making. Just play them ‘Marlborough,’
^*
that’s all they deserve.” According to Monge’s contemporary and biographer Arago, when the orchestra launched into “Marlborough,” “immediately thousands of people became animated and a wave of joy ran through the crowd. Within a moment young and old launched themselves into the spaces in the crowd and began dancing, filled with hectic gaiety.” Monge was intrigued by this result, and repeated the experiment several times, each time with the same result. He tried playing them pieces of Haydn, and pieces of Mozart, with no reaction; yet as soon as the orchestra struck up the sentimental strains of “Marlborough,” the crowd went wild. In the end, he concluded that this only showed the Egyptians’ complete lack of taste. They simply were not up to appreciating anything so civilized as Western music, except in its most debased popular form.