It was one o'clock in the morning of the 2d of July when we landed on the soil of Egypt, at Marabou, three leagues to the west of Alexandria. We had to regret the loss of some lives; but we had every reason to expect that our losses would have been greater.
At three o'clock the same morning the General-in-Chief marched on Alexandria with the divisions of Kléber, Bon, and Menou. The Bedouin Arabs, who kept hovering about our right flank and our rear, picked up the stragglers.
Having arrived within gunshot of Alexandria, we scaled the ramparts, and French valour soon triumphed over all obstacles.
The first blood I saw shed in war was General Kléber's. He was struck in the head by a ball, not in storming the walls, but whilst heading the attack. He came to Pompey's Pillar, where many members of the staff were assembled, and where the General-in-Chief was watching the attack. I then spoke to Kléber for the first time, and from that day our friendship commenced. I had the good fortune to contribute somewhat towards the assistance of which he stood in need, and which, as we were situated, could not be procured very easily.
It has been endeavoured to represent the capture of Alexandria, which surrendered after a few hours, as a brilliant exploit. The General-in-Chief himself wrote that the city had been taken after a few discharges of cannon; the walls, badly fortified, were soon scaled. Alexandria was not delivered up to pillage, as has been asserted, and often repeated. This would have been a most impolitic mode of commencing the conquest of Egypt, which had no strong places requiring to be intimidated by a great example.
Bonaparte, with some others, entered the city by a narrow street which scarcely allowed two persons to walk abreast; I was with him. We were stopped by some musket-shots fired from a low window by a man and a woman. They repeated their fire several times. The guides who preceded their General kept up a heavy fire on the window. The man and woman fell dead, and we passed on in safety, for the place had surrendered.
Bonaparte employed the six days during which he remained in Alexandria in establishing order in the city and province, with that activity and superior talent which I could never sufficiently admire, and in directing the march of the army across the province of Bohahire'h. He sent Desaix with 4500 infantry and 60 cavalry to Beda, on the road to Damanhour. This general was the first to experience the privations and sufferings which the whole army had soon to endure. His great mind, his attachment to Bonaparte, seemed for a moment about to yield to the obstacles which presented themselves. On the 15th of July he wrote from Bohahire'h as follows: "I beseech you do not let us stop longer in this position. My men are discouraged and murmur. Make us advance or fall back without delay. The villages consist merely of huts, absolutely without resources."
In these immense plains, scorched by the vertical rays of a burning sun, water, everywhere else so common, becomes an object of contest. The wells and springs, those secret treasures of the desert, are carefully concealed from the travellers; and frequently, after our most oppressive marches, nothing could be found to allay the urgent cravings of thirst but a little brackish water of the most disgusting description.
—[Some idea of the misery endured by the French troops on this
occasion may be gathered from the following description is
Napoleon's Memoirs, dictated at St. Helena:
"As the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness complained, and angrily
asked Moses for the onions and flesh-pots of Egypt, the French
soldiers constantly regretted the luxuries of Italy. In vain were
they assured that the country was the most fertile in the world,
that it was even superior to Lombard; how were they to be persuaded
of this when they could get neither bread nor wine? We encamped on
immense quantities of wheat, but there was neither mill nor oven in
the country. The biscuit brought from Alexandria had long been
exhausted; the soldiers were even reduced to bruise the wheat
between two stones and to make cake which they baked under the
ashes. Many parched the wheat in a pan, after which they boiled it.
This was the best way to use the grain; but, after all, it was not
bread. The apprehensions of the soldiers increased daily, and rose
to such a pitch that a great number of them said there was no great
city of calm; and that the place bring that name was, like
Damanhour, a vast assemblage of mere huts, destitute of everything
that could render life comfortable or agreeable. To such a
melancholy state of mind had they brought themselves that two
dragoons threw themselves, completely clothed, into the Nile, where
they were drowned. It is nevertheless true that, though there was
neither bread nor wine, the resources which were procured with
wheat, lentils, meat, and sometimes pigeons, furnished the army with
food of some kind. But the evil was, in the ferment of the mind.
The officers complained more loudly than the soldiers, because the
comparison was proportionately more disadvantageous to them. In
Egypt they found neither the quarters, the good table, nor the
luxury of Italy. The General-in-Chief, wishing to set an example,
tried to bivouac in the midst of the army, and in the least
commodious spots. No one had either tent or provisions; the dinner
of Napoleon and his staff consisted of a dish of lentils. The
soldiers passed the evenings in political conversations, arguments,
and complaints. 'For what purpose are we come here?' said some of
them, 'the Directory has transported us.' 'Caffarelli,' said others,
'is the agent that has been made use of to deceive the
General-in-Chief.' Many of them, having observed that wherever there
were vestiges of antiquity they were carefully searched, vented their
spite in invective against the savants, or scientific men, who, they
said, had started the idea of she expedition to order to make these
searches. Jests were showered upon them, even in their presence.
The men called an ass a savant; and said of Caffarelli Dufalga,
alluding to his wooden leg, 'He laughs at all these troubles; he has
one foot to France.'">[