Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
stating a greater number are exaggerated. The perfect silence,
complete dejection, and general stupor of the patients announced their
approaching end. To carry them away in the state in which they were
would evidently have been doing nothing else than inoculating the rest
of the army with the plague. I have, it is true, learned, since my
return to Europe, that some persons touched the infected with impunity;
nay; that others went so far as to inoculate themselves with the plague
in order to learn how to cure those whom it might attack. It certainly
was a special protection from Heaven to be preserved from it; but to
cover in some degree the absurdity of such a story, it is added that
they knew how to elude the danger, and that any one else who braved it
without using precautions met with death for their temerity. This is, in
fact, the whole point of the question. Either those privileged persons
took indispensable precautions; and in that case their boasted heroism
is a mere juggler's trick; or they touched the infected without using
precautions, and inoculated themselves with the plague, thus voluntarily
encountering death, and then the story is really a good one.
The infected were confided, it has been stated, to the head apothecary
of the army, Royer, who, dying in Egypt three years after, carried the
secret with him to the grave. But on a moment's reflection it will be
evident that the leaving of Royer alone in Jaffa would have been to
devote to certain death; and that a prompt and cruel one, a man who was
extremely useful to the army, and who was at the time in perfect health.
It must be remembered that no guard could be left with him, and that
the Turks were close at our heels. Bonaparte truly said, while walking
through the rooms of the hospital, that the Turks would be at Jaffa in a
few hours. With this conviction, would he have left the head apothecary
in that town?
Recourse has been had to suppositions to support the contrary belief to
what I state. For example, it is said that the infected patients were
embarked in ships of war. There were no such ships. Where had they
disembarked, who had received them; what had been done with them? No
one speaks of them. Others, not doubting that the infected men died
at Jaffa, say, that the rearguard under Kléber, by order of Bonaparte,
delayed its departure for three days, and only began its march when
death had put an end to the sufferings of these unfortunate beings,
unshortened by any sacrifice. All this is incorrect. No rear-guard was
left--it could not be done. Pretence is made of forgetting that the
ramparts were destroyed, that the town was as open and as defenceless as
any village, so this small rear-guard would have been left for certain
destruction. The dates themselves tell against these suppositions. It
is certain, as can be seen by the official account, that we arrived at
Jaffa on 24th May, and stayed there the 25th, 26th, and 27th. We left
it on the 28th. Thus the rear-guard, which, according to these
writers, left-on the 29th, did not remain, even according to their own
hypothesis, three days after the army to see the sick die. In reality it
left on the 29th of May, the day after we did. Here are the very words
of the Major-General (Berthier) in his official account, written under
the eye and under the dictation of the Commander-in-Chief:--
The army arrived at Jaffa, 5th Prairial (24th May), and remained
there the 6th, 7th, and 8th (25th-27th May). This time was employed
in punishing the village, which had behaved badly. The
fortifications of Jaffa were blown up. All the iron guns of the
place were thrown into the sea. The wounded were removed by sea and
by land. There were only a few ships, and to give time to complete
the evacuation by land, the departure of the army had to be deferred
until the 9th (28th May). Kléber's division formed the rear-guard,
and only left Jaffa on the 10th (29th May).
The official report of what passed at Jaffa was drawn up by Berthier,
under the eye of Bonaparte. It has been published; but it may be
remarked that not a word about the infected, not a word of the visit to
the hospital, or the touching of the plague-patients with impunity,
is there mentioned. In no official report is anything said about the
matter. Why this silence? Bonaparte was not the man to conceal a fact
which would have afforded him so excellent and so allowable a text for
talking about his fortune. If the infected were removed, why not mention
it? Why be silent on so important an event? But it would have been
necessary to confess that being obliged to have recourse to so painful a
measure was the unavoidable consequence of this unfortunate expedition.
Very disagreeable details must have been entered into; and it was
thought more advisable to be silent on the subject.
But what did Napoleon himself say on the subject at St. Helena? His
statement there was to the following effect:--"I ordered a consultation
as to what was best to be done. The report which was made stated that
there were seven or eight men (the question is not about the number) so
dangerously ill that they could not live beyond twenty-four hours,
and would besides infect the rest of the army with the plague. It was
thought it would be an act of charity to anticipate their death a few
hours."
Then comes the fable of the 500 men of the rear guard, who, it is
pretended, saw them die! I make no doubt that the story of the poisoning
was the invention of Den----. He was a babbler, who understood a story
badly, and repeated it worse. I do not think it would have been a crime
to have given opium to the infected. On the contrary, it would have been
obedience to the dictates of reason. Where is the man who would not, in
such a situation, have preferred a 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.
Our little army arrived at Cairo on the 14th of June, after a painful
and harassing march of twenty-five days. The heats during the passage of
the desert between El-Arish and Belbeis exceeded thirty-three degrees.
On placing the bulb of the thermometer in the sand the mercury rose to
forty-five degrees. The deceitful mirage was even more vexatious than
in the plains of Bohahire'h. In spite of our 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."
I confess that I experienced a painful sensation in writing, by his
dictation, these official words, everyone of which was an imposition.
Excited by all I had just witnessed, it was difficult for me to refrain
from making the 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 Moarad 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 Lanusee--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 place of rendezvous. To these lakes Murat was despatched. The Bey no
sooner 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!
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 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-in-Chief 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