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REPORTED ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE NAPOLEON—HIS AMOUR WITH MADAME FOURÉS—THE EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGN—THE ‘SAVANTS’—CARICATURES ON THEM.

The new year opens with a somewhat curious print by I. Cruikshank, January 1, 1799, of the ‘Ghost of Buonaparte appearing to the Directory.’ The latter are in fearful dismay at the apparition, which, attired in the airiest of costume, shakes his notched sword at them, saying, ‘Regicides, Parricides, Matricides, and Patricides, this is the effect of your insatiable thirst for Conquest; this is your reward for my glorious Achievements in Italy, Germany, &c.—to die by the hand of an Assassin, a d—d Mussulman: and all my Brave Legions Destroyed by Water melons and the Arabs. Go, Murderers in cold blood, may your conscious guilt ever prey upon your vitals, and may the name of Nelson ever haunt you, sleeping and waking’! What is meant by his dying ‘by the hand of an Assassin,’ I do not know; but probably some rumour was afloat to that effect, as Barre observes: ‘Whilst Buonaparte and his army were thus cut off from Europe, the most absurd reports were spread (no doubt by the partisans of the artful Corsican) representing him as a victim of the Directory, who had thought proper to remove so great, famous, and fortunate a general.

‘They pretended that the Directory, unable to repay the signal services of Buonaparte, and, fearing, at the same time, his popularity, had contrived, with Talleyrand, to flatter the ambitious vanity of that young conqueror with an expedition, which would raise his fame above the glory acquired by Alexander, or Cæsar. They added, that, as Buonaparte was sure of being director at the next election, the Directory had resolved to put him out of the way, by sacrificing him and his army; having even directed that the fleet should be exposed to certain destruction, in order that no possibility could exist of his return.’

The ‘Times’ of January 2, 1799, has the subjoined:—

The following Epigram has been handed about in Paris. The French points are all that can be remembered by the Gentleman who has put it in an English dress.

‘France, to get rid of Turbulence,

Sends her best Soldiers far from hence,

With promises, and wishes, hearty;

Pleas’d and content that what so e’er

May happen either here or there,

To hazard all in Bonâ-parte.

‘And still, though rous’d by home alarms,

Nay, threatened by the world in arms,

France holds her head up bold and hearty—

Since now each Directorial Elf,

By losing Bonaparte’s self Enjoys the loss in Bonâ-parte.’

Meanwhile Napoleon was taking things pretty easily in Egypt, enjoying himself after his manner. It is a marvel that none of the English caricaturists ever depicted this portion of his life. True, Gillray, as we have seen, drew him in Turkish costume; but he never wore it but once, and then but for a very short time. But why did they spare him in his amour with Madame Fourés (Pauline, or Queen of the East, as the army christened her)? De Bourrienne makes no secret of it. He says: ‘About the middle of September in this year (1798), Buonaparte ordered to be brought to the house of Elfy Bey, half a dozen Asiatic women, whose beauty he had heard highly extolled. However, their ungraceful obesity displeased him, and they were immediately dismissed. A few days after, he fell violently in love with Madame Fourés,44 the wife of a lieutenant of Infantry. She was very pretty, and her charms were enhanced by the rarity of seeing a woman, in Egypt, who was calculated to please the eye of a European. Bonaparte engaged, for her, a house adjoining the palace of Elfy Bey, which he occupied. He frequently ordered dinner to be prepared there, and I used to go there with him at seven o’clock, and leave him at nine.

‘This connection soon became the general subject of gossip at head-quarters. Through a feeling of delicacy to M. Fourés, the General in Chief gave him a mission to the Directory. He embarked at Alexandria, and the ship was captured by the English, who, being informed of the Cause of his mission, were malicious enough to send him back to Egypt, instead of keeping him prisoner.’

But he was not one to waste much time in dalliance. Turkey was not at all satisfied with the occupation of Egypt, and two armies were assembled, one in Syria, and one at Rhodes; the former of which had already pushed forward into Egyptian territory as far as El-Arisch, and also a train of artillery had been placed at Jaffa (the ancient Joppa). The commander of this corps d’armée (Achmet Pacha) had earned the unenviable title of Djezzar, or the Butcher. Napoleon, very early in the year 1799, marched against him, his busy brain having schemed the plan of crushing these Turkish troops, a demonstration against Constantinople itself, a forced peace with the Porte, and then hey! for India. To pave the way for this latter he actually wrote to Tippoo Sahib, saying he was coming to deliver him from the English yoke, and requesting his answer, which he might possibly have received, had not Tippoo been killed on May 4 of that year.

Napoleon, by way of conciliating the Egyptians, assisted at the celebration of ‘Ramadan,’ with great pomp, which, naturally, would afford his detractors another opportunity for outcry at his Mahometan proclivities. As soon as it was over, he set out against Achmet Pacha, and, on February 17, El-Arisch capitulated, and the army marched to Gaza. How the vanguard lost their way, and their terrible sufferings in the desert, it boots not to tell. Gaza was taken, its stores were confiscated, and then Jaffa was their bourne, which was reached, and invested, on March 4.

Before reading the sad page of history which Jaffa gives us, let us glance at one or two caricatures which appeared in England about this time. Napoleon had taken with him, in his expedition to Egypt, Denon and divers other learned men to investigate the archæology of the country, &c., and most valuable were the services of ‘the Institute,’ as this body of savants was called. They furnished some fun to the army, and the cry, when any danger threatened, of ‘the Asses and the Savants to the centre,’ was naturally productive of mirth; the army also christening the asses ‘Demi-savants.’

Gillray makes great fun of the expedition to Egypt, and satirises the French soldiers unmercifully; nor do the poor savants who accompanied the army fare any better. A good example is the ‘Siege de la Colonne de Pompée, or Science in the Pillory,’ published March 6, 1799. At the foot of the picture is: ‘It appears by an intercepted letter from General Kleber, dated Alexandria, 5 brumaire, 7th year of the Republic, that when the garrison was obliged to retire into the New Town, at the approach of the Turkish Army, under the Pacha of Rhodes, a party of the sçavans, who had ascended Pompey’s Pillar for scientific purposes, was cut off by a Band of Bedouin Arabs, who, having made a large Pile of Straw, and dry Reeds, at the foot of the Pillar, set fire to it, and rendered unavailing the gallant defence of the learned Garrison, of whose Catastrophe the above design is intended to convey an idea.

‘To study Alexandria’s store

Of Science, Amru deem’d a bore

And briefly set it burning.

The Man was ignorant, ’tis true,

So sought one comprehensive view

Of the light shed by learning.

Your modern Arabs grown more wise,

French vagrant Science duly prize;

They’ve fairly bit the biters.

They’ve learnt the style of Hebert’s Jokes,

Amru to books confined his Hoax;

These Bedouins roast the writers.’

The savants are, indeed, in a parlous state, on the broad summit of the pillar, exposed to fire from below, and the guns and pistols of the Arabs; they defend themselves as well as possible by hurling their globes, and scientific instruments, at their assailants, who are exceedingly astonished at them. A balloon, La Diligence d’Abyssinie, is fired at, and struck, the aeronauts, one of whom has a parachute, being precipitated to the ground.

‘The Institute,’ which was modelled on that of Paris, also gave scope to Gillray’s facile pencil, and he published a series of half a dozen plates, in the first one of which it was most amusingly caricatured. It was published on March 12, 1799, and called, ‘L’Insurrection de l’Institut Amphibie—The pursuit of Knowledge.’ A savant is depicted as studying a work ‘Sur l’Education du Crocodile,’ some plates from which have dropped out. They show how useful the crocodile may become, by training, to tow vessels, and to ride and drive on land. He evidently is intending to put his theories into practice, for he has brought with him, to the river’s side, a saddle, a fearfully cruel bridle, and a huge whip, when he is seized by an enormous saurian, and devoured. Another learned man, who has been reading ‘Les Droits du Crocodile,’ drops it, when he finds one of these creatures asserting its rights by seizing his coat-tails.