1799. VISIT OF BONAPARTE TO THE HOSPITAL. 197 prompt death, to being exposed to the lingering tortures inflicted by barbarians? If my child, and I believe I love him as much as any father does his, had been in such a state, my advice would have been the same; if I had been among the infected myself, I should have demanded to be so treated." Such was the reasoning at St. Helena, and such was the view which he and every one else took of the case twenty years ago at Jaffa.1 1 M. de Bourrienne's description of the extraordinary scene in the hospital of Jaffa does not precisely correspond with that given by some other writers. The reader may feel interested in comparing it with the account given by the Duc de Rovigo in his Memoirs, tome i. p. 161. It is as follows: "The hospital contained many soldiers who were in a state bordering upon madness, much more owing to the terror which the malady inspired than to the intensity of the pain. General Bonaparte determined to restore them to their wonted energy. He paid them a visit, reproached them for giving way to dejection and yielding to chimerical fears; and in order to convince them, by the most obvious proof, that their apprehensions were groundless, he desired that the bleeding tumour of one of the soldiers should be uncovered before him, and pressed it with his own hand. This act of heroism restored confidence to the sick, who no longer thought their case desperate. Each one recruited his remaining strength, and prepared to quit a place which but a moment before he had expected never to leave. A grenadier, upon whom the plague had made greater ravages, could hardly raise himself from his bed. The General perceiving this addressed to him a few encouraging words. 'You are right, General,' replied the warrior; 'your grenadiers are not made to die in a hospital.' Affected at the courage displayed by these unfortunate men, who were exhausted by uneasiness of mind no less than by the complaint, General Bonaparte would not quit them until he saw them all placed upon camels and the other means of transport at the disposal of the army. These, however, being found inadequate, he made a requisition for the officers' horses, delivered up his own, and, finding one of them missing, he sent for the groom, who was keeping it for his master, and hesitated to give it up. The General, growing impatient at this excess of zeal, darted a threatening look; the whole stud was placed at the disposal of the sick; and yet it is this very act of magnanimity which the perverseness of human nature has delighted in distorting. I feel ashamed to advert to so atrocious a calumny; but the man whose simple assertion was found sufficient to give it currency has not been able to stifle it by his subsequent disavowal. I must, therefore, descend to the task of proving the absurdity of the charge. I do not wish to urge, as an argument, the absolute want of medicines to which the army was reduced by the rapacity of an apothecary; nor the indignation felt by General Bonaparte when he learned that this wretch, instead of employing his camels to transport pharmaceutic preparations, had loaded them with provisions, upon which he expected to derive a profit. The necessity to which we were driven of using roots as a substitute for opium is a fact known to the whole army. Supposing, however, that opium had been as plentiful as it was scarce, and that General Bonaparte could have contemplated the expedient attributed to him, where could there be found a man sufficiently determined in mind, or so lost to the feelings of human nature, as to force open the jaws of fifty wretched men on the point of death, and thrust a deadly preparation down On placing the mercury rose to was even more In spite of our Our little army arrived at Cairo on the 14th of June, after a painful and harassing march of twenty-five days. The heat, during the passage of the desert between El-Arish and Belbeis exceeded thirty-three degrees. bulb of the thermometer in the sand the forty-five degrees.1 The deceitful mirage vexatious than in the plains of Bohahire'h. experience an excessive thirst, added to a perfect illusion, made us goad on our wearied horses towards lakes which vanished at our approach, and left behind nothing but salt and arid sand. In two days my cloak was completely covered with salt, left on it after the evaporation of the moisture which held it in solution. Our horses, who ran eagerly to the brackish springs of the desert, perished in numbers, after travelling about a quarter of a league from the spot where they drank the deleterious fluid. Bonaparte preceded his entry into the capital of Egypt by one of those lying bulletins which only imposed on fools. "I will bring with me," said he, "many prisoners and flags. I have razed the palace of the Djezzar and the ramparts of Acre not a stone remains upon another. All the inhabitants have left the city by sea. Djezzar is severely wounded." their throats? The most intrepid soldier turned pale at the sight of an infected person; the warmest heart dared not relieve a friend afflicted with the plague; and is it to be credited, that brutal ferocity could execute what the noblest feelings recoiled at? or that there should have been a creature savage or mad enough to sacrifice his own life in order to enjoy the satisfaction of hastening the death of fifty dying men, wholly unknown to him, and against whom he had no complaint to make? The supposition is truly absurd, and only worthy of those who bring it forward in spite of the disavowal of its author." The above account is confirmed by the statements of M. Desgenettes, the physician, General Andréossy, and M. d'Aure, who, as well as M. de Bourrienne, were present on the occasion referred to. It is to be remarked, however, that Savary, then with Desaix in Upper Egypt, was not an eye-witness. Lanfrey (tome i. pp. 404-407), with unusual fairness, points out that Sir Sidney Smith, who found some of the infected still alive at Jaffa after the departure of the French and who reports the murmurs of the soldiers against their General, says nothing of the poisoning. Lanfrey himself believes the most probable account to be that opium was put within the reach of the men left behind. It seems safest to believe that the proposal to give the opium was discussed, but never carried out. Few soldiers would not, in the circumstances, prefer the views of Napoleon on the point to the false humanity of handing dying men to the certain cruelty of Asiatics. 1 Reamur? 1799. RETURN TO EGYPT. 199 I confess that I experienced a painful sensation in writing, by his dictation, these official words, every one of which was an imposition. Excited by all I had just witnessed, it was difficult for me to refrain from making some observation; but his constant reply was, "My dear fellow, you are a simpleton: you do not understand this business." And he observed, when signing the bulletin, that he would yet fill the world with admiration, and inspire historians and poets. Our return to Cairo has been attributed to the insurrections which broke out during the unfortunate expedition into Syria. Nothing is more incorrect. The term insurrection cannot be properly applied to the foolish enterprises of the angel El-Mahdi in the Bohahire'h, or to the less important disturbances in the Charkyeh. The reverses experienced before St. Jean d'Acre, the fear, or rather the prudent anticipation of a hostile landing, were sufficient motives, and the only ones, for our return to Egypt. What more could we do in Syria but lose men and time, neither of which the General had to spare? CHAPTER XX. 1799. Murat and Mourad Bey at the Natron Lakes - Bonaparte's departure for the Pyramids Sudden appearance of an Arab messenger-News of the landing of the Turks at Aboukir-Bonaparte marches against them-They are immediately attacked and destroyed in the battle of Aboukir-Interchange of communication with the English-Sudden determination to return to Europe -Outfit of two frigates-Bonaparte's dissimulation-His pretended journey to the Delta-Generous behaviour of Lanusse-Bonaparte's artifice-His bad treatment of General Kléber. BONAPARTE had hardly set foot in Cairo when he was informed that the brave and indefatigable Mourad Bey was descending by the Fayoum, in order to form a junction with reinforcements which had been for some time past collected in the Bohahire'h. In all probability this movement of Mourad Bey was the result of news he had received respecting plans formed at Constantinople, and the landing which took place a short time after in the roads of Aboukir. Mourad had selected the Natron Lakes for his To these lakes Murat was despatched. got notice of Murat's presence than he determined to retreat and to proceed by the desert to Gizeh and the great Pyramids. I certainly never heard, until I returned to France, that Mourad had ascended to the summit of the great Pyramid for the purpose of passing his time in contemplating Cairo ! place of rendezvous. The Bey no sooner Napoleon said at St. Helena that Murat might have taken Mourad Bey had the latter remained four-and-twenty hours longer in the Natron Lakes. Now the fact is, that as soon as the Bey heard of Murat's arrival he was off. The Arabian spies were far more serviceable to our enemies than 1799. BONAPARTE AT THE PYRAMIDS. 201 to us; we had not, indeed, a single friend in Egypt. Mourad Bey, on being informed by the Arabs, who acted as couriers for him, that General Desaix was despatching a column from the south of Egypt against him, that the General-inChief was also about to follow his footsteps along the frontier of Gizeh, and that the Natron Lakes and the Bohahire'h were occupied by forces superior to his own, retired into Fayoum. Bonaparte attached great importance to the destruction of Mourad, whom he looked upon as the bravest, the most active, and most dangerous of his enemies in Egypt. As all accounts concurred in stating that Mourad, supported by the Arabs, was hovering about the skirts of the desert of the province of Gizeh, Bonaparte proceeded to the Pyramids, there to direct different corps against that able and dangerous partisan. He, indeed, reckoned him so redoubtable that he wrote to Murat, saying he wished fortune might reserve for him the honour of putting the seal on the conquest of Egypt by the destruction of this opponent. On the 14th of July Bonaparte left Cairo for the Pyramids. He intended spending three or four days in examining the ruins of the ancient necropolis of Memphis; but he was suddenly obliged to alter his plan. This journey to the Pyramids, occasioned by the course of war, has given an opportunity for the invention of a little piece of romance. Some ingenious people have related that Bonaparte gave audiences to the mufti and ulemas, and that on entering one of the great Pyramids he cried out, "Glory to Allah! God only is God, and Mahomet is his prophet!" Now the fact is, that Bonaparte never even entered the great Pyramid. He never had any thought of entering it. I certainly should have accompanied him had he done so, for I never quitted his side a single moment in the desert. He caused some persons to enter into one of the great Pyramids while he remained outside, and received from them, on their return, an account of what they had seen. In other words, they informed him there was nothing to be seen! On the evening of the 15th of July, while we were taking a walk, we perceived, on the road leading from Alexandria, |