"Thou art the great chief to whom Mahomet gives power and victory," said the mufti.
Napoleon closed the conversation with this not very pertinent Oriental proverb, "The bread which the wicked seizes upon by force, shall be turned to dust in his mouth."[392]
Though the mufti played his part in the above scene with becoming gravity, Buonaparte over-estimated his own theatrical powers, and did too little justice to the shrewdness of the Turks, if he supposed them really edified by his pretended proselytism. With them as with us, a renegade from the religious faith in which he was brought up, is like a deserter from the standard of his country; and though the services of either may be accepted and used, they remain objects of disregard and contempt, as well with those to whose service they have deserted, as with the party whom they have abandoned.
INSURRECTION IN CAIRO.
The Turks and Arabs of Cairo soon afterwards showed Buonaparte, by a general and unexpected insurrection, [October 22,] in which many Frenchmen were slain, how little they were moved by his pretended attachment to their faith, and how cordially they considered him as their enemy. Yet, when the insurgents had been quelled by force, and the blood of five thousand Moslems had atoned for that of three hundred Frenchmen, Napoleon, in an address to the inhabitants of Cairo, new-modelling the general council or divan, held still the same language as before of himself and his destinies. "Sheriffs," he said, "Ulemats, Orators of the Mosque, teach the people that those who become my enemies shall have no refuge in this world or the next. Is there any one not blind enough to see, that I am the agent of Destiny, or incredulous enough to call in question the power of Destiny over human affairs? Make the people understand, that since the world was a world, it was ordained, that having destroyed the enemies of Islamism, and broken down the Cross,[393] I should come from the West to accomplish the task designed for me—show them, that in more than twenty passages of the Koran my coming is foretold. I could demand a reckoning from each of you for the most secret thoughts of his soul, since to me everything is known; but the day will come when all shall know from whom I have my commission, and that human efforts cannot prevail against me."
It is plain from this strange proclamation, that Buonaparte was willing to be worshipped as a superior being, as soon as altars could be built, and worshippers collected together. But the Turks and Arabs were wiser than the Persians in the case of young Ammon. The Sheik of Alexandria, who affected much devotion to Buonaparte's person, came roundly to the point with him. He remarked the French observed no religious worship. "Why not, therefore," he said, "declare yourself Moslem at once, and remove the only obstacle betwixt you and the throne of the East?" Buonaparte objected the prohibition of wine, and the external rite which Mahomet adopted from the Jewish religion. The officious sheik proposed to call a council of the Moslem sages, and procure for the new proselytes some relaxation of these fundamental laws of the Prophet's faith. According to this hopeful plan, the Moslems must have ceased to be such in two principal articles of their ritual, in order to induce the French to become a kind of imperfect renegades, rejecting, in the prohibition of wine, the only peculiar guard which Mahomet assigned to the moral virtue of his follower's, while they embraced the degrading doctrine of fatality, the licentious practice of polygamy, and the absurd chimeras of the Koran.
Napoleon appears to have believed the sheik serious, which is very doubtful, and to have contemplated with eager ambition the extent of views which his conversion to Islamism appeared to open. His own belief in predestination recommended the creed of Mahomet, and for the Prophet of Mecca himself he had a high respect, as one of those who had wrought a great and enduring change on the face of the world.[394] Perhaps he envied the power which Mahomet possessed, of ruling over men's souls as well as their bodies, and might thence have been led into the idea of playing a part, to which time and circumstances, the character of his army and his own, were alike opposed. No man ever succeeded in imposing himself on the public as a supernatural personage, who was not, to a certain degree, the dupe of his own imposture; and Napoleon's calculating and reflecting mind was totally devoid of the enthusiasm which enables a man to cheat himself into at least a partial belief of the deceit which he would impose on others. The French soldiers, on the other hand, bred in scorn of religion of every description, would have seen nothing but ridicule in the pretensions of their leader to a supernatural mission; and in playing the character which Alexander ventured to personate, Buonaparte would have found in his own army many a Clitus, who would have considered his pretensions as being only ludicrous. He himself, indeed, expressed himself satisfied that his authority over his soldiers was so absolute, that it would have cost but giving it out in the order of the day to have made them all become Mahometans; but, at the same time, he has acquainted us, that the French troops were at times so much discontented with their condition in Egypt, that they formed schemes of seizing on their standards, and returning to France by force. What reply, it may be reasonably asked, were they likely to make to a proposal, which would have deprived them of their European and French character, and levelled them with Africans and Asiatics, whose persons they despised, and whose country they desired to leave? It is likely, that reflections on the probable consequences prevented his going farther than the vague pretensions which he announced in his proclamations, and in his language to the sheiks. He had gone far enough, however, to show, that the considerations of conscience would have been no hinderance; and that, notwithstanding the strength of his understanding, common sense had less influence than might have been expected, in checking his assertion of claims so ludicrous as well as so profane. Indeed, his disputes with the Ottoman Porte speedily assumed a character, which his taking the turban and professing himself a Moslem in all the forms, could not have altered to his advantage.
OTTOMAN PORTE.
It had been promised to Buonaparte, that the abilities of Talleyrand, as minister of foreign affairs, should be employed to reconcile the Grand Signior and his counsellors to the occupation of Egypt.[395] But the efforts of that able negotiator had totally failed in a case so evidently hopeless; and if Talleyrand had even proceeded to Constantinople, as Napoleon alleged the Directory had promised, it could only have been to be confined in the Seven Towers. The Porte had long since declared, that any attack upon Egypt, the road to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, would be considered as a declaration of war, whatever pretexts might be alleged. They regarded, therefore, Buonaparte's invasion as an injury equally unprovoked and unjustifiable. They declared war against France, called upon every follower of the Prophet to take the part of his vicegerent upon earth, collected forces, and threatened an immediate expedition, for the purpose of expelling the infidels from Egypt. The success of the British at Aboukir increased their confidence. Nelson was loaded with every mark of honour which the Sultan could bestow, and the most active preparations were made to act against Buonaparte, equally considered as enemy to the Porte, whether he professed himself Christian, infidel, or renegade.
Meantime, that adventurous and active chief was busied in augmenting his means of defence or conquest, and in acquiring the information necessary to protect what he had gained, and to extend his dominions. For the former purpose, corps were raised from among the Egyptians, and some were mounted upon dromedaries, the better to encounter the perils of the desert. For the latter, Buonaparte undertook a journey to the Isthmus of Suez, the well-known interval which connects Asia with Africa. He subscribed the charter, or protection, granted to the Maronite Monks of Sinai, with the greater pleasure, that the signature of Mahomet had already sanctioned that ancient document. He visited the celebrated fountains of Moses, and, misled by a guide, had nearly been drowned in the advancing tides of the Red Sea.[396] This, he observes, would have furnished a splendid text to all the preachers in Europe.[397] But the same Deity, who had rendered the gulf fatal to Pharaoh, had reserved for one, who equally defied and disowned his power, the rocks of an island in the midst of the Atlantic.