Napoleon in Egypt (35 page)

Some years later the truth behind this peculiar episode would emerge, and Monge would be proved wrong. A nineteenth-century French musicologist discovered that the tune of “Marlborough” was in fact based upon an Arabic song dating from the Middle Ages. This had first arrived in Europe in the thirteenth century with the soldiers returning from the Crusade of Louis IX, and was thought to tell the tale of a legendary mixed-race Franco-Arab called Mabrou. Later the name of the great English general Marlborough, who defeated the French, had somehow replaced that of the obscure Mabrou; though according to Arago this “only came about through a gross blunder.” Either way, it is evident that the Egyptians certainly knew what sort of music they liked: their own.

XIII

Life in Exile

L
A
Décade
was not the first journal to be issued by the French army in Egypt; it was preceded by a four-page news-sheet intended for more general readership called
Le Courier de l’Égypte
,
^*
whose first edition was dated 12 Fructidor Year VI (August 29, 1798). Its editorship was initially offered to the poet Parseval-Grandmaison, but he refused to dirty his hands with mere journalism, and instead the first few issues were edited by the mathematician-savant Costaz, after which Fourier took over. Despite being run by mathematicians,
Le Courier
was no dry, abstract publication, and the appearance every five days of this four-page news-sheet proved a welcome diversion for the officers as well as the men. (Those who could not read would have the paper read out to them by their friends.) However, from the outset
Le Courier
was forced to scrape the barrel for news, limited as it was to such scraps as reached Egypt: “On 24 Prairial [June 14—i.e., nearly two months previously] the government was overthrown by a revolution in Batavia [Indonesia]”; “Vizier deposed in Constantinople,” etc. Little wonder that Fourier would soon be reduced to filling out the double-columned pages with letters from soldiers in various outlying garrisons, as well as “News from Cairo,” “Anecdotes” and so forth.

The opening edition of
Le Courier
carried a riveting report, worthy of any French provincial newspaper, covering the festival of the Birth of the Prophet: “After attending a magnificent dinner served in the local manner, the Commander-in-chief retired to his residence. There followed a display of fireworks made by local craftsmen which was a huge success.”
¹
Napoleon was to take a keen interest in
Le Courier
, and viewed this report on the huge success of the festival as a huge success in its own right, even going so far as to write that very day to Kléber in Alexandria about it: “You will find enclosed with this letter the first issue of
Le Courier
, which has just appeared here in Cairo. If you still have an Arabic printing press in working order, have the article about the Festival of the Prophet printed in Arabic and distributed throughout the Levant. Send me 400 copies.”
²

Kléber was not impressed by what he read, and wrote back to Berthier: “The editing of your journal from Cairo is insufficiently engaging for you to hope to attract many subscribers. At least you should make sure it is written in proper French.”
³
In fact, the style of
Le Courier
—like the political content—was quite correct; Kléber was probably referring to the misprints. However,
Le Courier
soon got into its stride and began featuring topics of genuine interest to its readers, such as an article about “Oriental customs with regard to women.” This piece described how a Muslim woman’s veil was “the last nudity which she grants to the curiosity and caresses of her lover,” and went on to tell how the women of Cairo “take much pleasure in visiting the public baths, where they learn all the news about what is going on in the city, and compare how liberated their husbands are. If the behavior of a husband is such that they all disapprove, then an almighty racket breaks out.”
⁴

In fact,
Le Courier
was much more revealing about the French themselves in Cairo, rather than the habits of the locals. Unlike
La Décade
, one of
Le Courier
’s declared aims was to report on politics; though in the event its coverage of such matters was distinctly propagandistic, as doubtless Napoleon intended. Even so, some of the fulsome poems in praise of the commander-in-chief go beyond the bounds of credulity:

As on land, so on the sea,

Bonaparte is covered in glory,

Braving the English fleet,

He lays victory at our feet
⁵

This poem may ostensibly have been about the taking of Malta (“Gaily they ate the oranges / from the Knights of Malta’s bushes”), but its propaganda can hardly have been apposite, let alone convincing, after the Battle of the Nile.

A far more genuine reflection of French life in Cairo can be found amongst the personal notices which began appearing in
Le Courier
: “On the night of the 12th a portfolio of papers was lost. The person who lost them set off from Rue Petit-Houards to go to Old Cairo. Anyone who finds it is requested to take it to the shop in Old Cairo”; “Citizen Baudeuf informs all citizens that the raffle for a watch which was to take place on 29 Vendémiaire has been postponed until 10 Brumaire. There are still a lot of tickets to be had.”
⁶
Even more informative are the advertisements: “Factory producing all kinds of liqueurs and syrups. Citizens Faure, Nazo & Co, place Birket-el-Fil, near Hospital No. 2. All at good prices”; “French baths, at the house of Radhcwan Kâchef, Malafar quarter, residence of the commandant of the First Section, behind place Birket-el-Fil.” This last would have fulfilled a genuine need, as the presence of French soldiers in the local baths had so upset the Egyptians that they had soon been placed off limits for army personnel. “The French hatmakers announce to their fellow citizens that they have set up their factory behind the post office.” This indicates that there were enough officers’ wives, amongst the 300 French women who had traveled with the expedition, to support such an establishment, i.e., probably several score rather than a few dozen. “French manufacturer of tobacco of all kinds, maison Mehemet-Kâchef, Rue Petit-Thouars, opposite the Milanese restaurant.” This shows how the French soon moved on from having points of reference (e.g., “near Hospital No. 2”), and began using their own names for the streets, which were signposted accordingly—a creeping colonization which after the first three months had “changed the entire look of this country, so new to civilization, so that if the Army has anything to do with it Cairo will become a little Paris.”
⁷
There is no denying that they were leaving their mark, though all other indications point to this judgment being more than a little overenthusiastic, not to say premature. As the French historian Charles-Roux pointed out: “These exaggerations merely point up the contrast between the little bits of France which grew up here and there in Cairo, and the vast oriental city which engulfed them.”
⁸

These pioneer European inroads into the Cairo retail economy were allowed to develop in their own way, in true free-market fashion; however, they had in fact been purposely initiated by Napoleon himself. Around the same time as he launched
Le Courier
, he also sent a message to Kléber in Alexandria, ordering him to dispatch to Cairo an armed convoy containing any spare savants, civilian administrators and other expedition members who remained without gainful employment in the city. This he knew would include the various enterprising characters who, like the officers’ wives, had contrived to get themselves smuggled aboard the fleet before it sailed. Kléber expressed himself only too pleased to be rid of “these innumerable vermin who follow our armies like sharks follow ships, which no words are sufficient to describe.”
⁹
In fact, this company of unemployed “vermin” dispatched from Alexandria also seems to have included a group of redundant balloonists, as well as a number of freed Malta slaves of various nationalities, ranging from Moroccans to Armenians, who had chosen not to return to their homelands.

The arrival of this mixed group of freebooters and camp-followers in Cairo quickly enlivened the social scene. The more enterprising amongst them opened a number of cafés and restaurants, as well as tailors’ shops, furniture makers, and leather merchants for harnesses, saddles and boots. As Napoleon had hoped, all this helped to dispel the
cafard
which continued to afflict his army. Many of these establishments were new to Cairo, and were greeted with some curiosity and bemusement by the locals. Here is El-Djabarti’s description of a French restaurant:

The cooks of these places bought meat, vegetables, and fish, as well as honey, sugar and so forth, and prepared dishes in the manner of their country. Each establishment had a sign on the door indicating the nature of its business. If passers-by wished to eat they entered these establishments, where they found places of different categories, each with its own sign showing the prices charged there.
^*

In the middle of the establishment was a wooden table on which places were set, around the table were chairs on which they sat; waiters carried dishes to the customers. Thus each person ate, and each person paid what he owed, no more, no less.
¹⁰

The notion of fixed prices, with no bargaining, was evidently an innovation to the Egyptians. These restaurants seem to have been established mainly by Greeks, Italians and local French residents, largely employing their own kind as waiters and cooks. The freed Malta slaves opened cafés and refreshment bars. El-Djabarti describes the behavior he observed—apparently over some time and with some curiosity—at a café opened by a freed slave who came originally from Aleppo in Syria:

People met in this café and spent part of the night here. . . . The local population of the entire quarter would gather outside to observe their amusing behavior, because such people are always drawn to foolishness and idle pleasure. Such also is the nature of the French. At these gatherings in the café, people chatted, joked and laughed. One officer used to bring along his wife, who was very cheerful and was Egyptian.
¹¹

Relations between French men and Egyptian women were inevitably a touchy subject, filled with all manner of ambiguities and misunderstandings. El-Djabarti, doubtless echoing the response of many in Cairo, took a close if somewhat disdainful interest in this matter: “Many French asked notables of Cairo for permission to marry their daughters, and some consented to these alliances, either through greed, or to ensure that they had protectors in the French army. It was a simple matter for the French, for all they had to do was make two professions of faith, which cost them nothing because they didn’t believe in religion anyway.”
¹²
These two professions of faith involved simply repeating, “I declare that there is no god but God” and “I declare that Muhammad is his prophet.”

It is not clear precisely how many French soldiers actually “married” Egyptian women in this fashion, but there is no doubt that Napoleon was in favor of the practice. Alexander the Great had forced his generals to take local wives, but Napoleon refrained from going this far. When General Menou, the governor of Rosetta, eventually became a genuine convert to Islam and went through a more formal wedding ceremony with a local Egyptian woman, it was certainly of his own free will. This act would receive Napoleon’s enthusiastic endorsement: here was concrete evidence for the
ulema
of Al-Azhar that the French were willing to convert to Islam. Menou’s fellow officers proved less enthusiastic. Many claimed that Menou’s new wife, Zobeida, was the daughter of a common bathhouse-keeper who had beguiled the forty-eight-year-old bachelor with her sexual charms and made a fool of him. Others said that she came from one of the richest families in Rosetta, and that Menou was only after her money. Menou himself insisted that Zobeida came from the most illustrious stock, being directly descended from the Prophet on both sides of her family. Whatever the truth, he seems to have found himself lonely in the evenings after being deprived of his intellectual after-dinner conversations with the savants. He converted to Islam, and then participated in a full Muslim marriage ceremony, even taking on the name Abdullah—though he was apparently excused from undergoing the circumcision ceremony on account of his age and rank. It is difficult to gauge the precise nature of his commitment: regarding his marriage, he wrote enigmatically to his close colleague General Dugua, “I believe this measure will be in the public interest.”
¹³

The reaction of most of his fellow generals was perhaps best exemplified by his friend General Marmont of the cavalry, who wrote to him from Alexandria: “You are right when you say that your marriage astonished so many of us. For my part, my dear general, I see it as a mark of great devotion to the interests of the French army.” From irony, Marmont moved on in his next letter to downright impertinence, inquiring: “Would it be indiscreet, my dear general, to inquire how you find your new married state? I am impatient to know if Madame Menou is pretty, and if you intend, in the manner of the country, to give her any companions in the form of a few more wives?”
¹⁴
One can almost hear Marmont reading out his letter, amidst widespread guffaws, to his fellow cavalry officers in the mess at Alexandria. Menou’s reply was apparently serious, though it is difficult to judge whether or not he too is indulging in some irony here: “I shall not be taking up the permission granted by Mohammed to have four wives, not including concubines that is. Moslem women have a vehement appetite; one is more than enough for me.” In answer to Marmont’s more inquisitive inquiries, he replied: