If Napoleon’s conduct on this occasion was as it has been commonly represented, it was strangely contrasted with the tenor of his General Order to the army, issued immediately before their disembarkation.  “The people,” he then said, “with whom we are about to live, are Mahometans; the first article of their faith is, There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his Prophet. Do not contradict them:  deal with them as you have done with the Jews and the Italians.  Respect their muphtis and imans, as you have done by the rabbis and the bishops elsewhere....  The Roman legions protected all religions.  You will find here usages different from those of Europe:  you must accustom yourselves to them.  These people treat their women differently from us; but in all countries he who violates is a monster; pillage enriches only a few; it dishonours us, destroys our resources, and makes those enemies whom it is our interest to have for friends.”

To the people of Egypt, meanwhile, Napoleon addressed a proclamation in these words:—­“They will tell you that I come to destroy your religion; believe them not:  answer that I come to restore your rights, to punish the usurpers, and that I respect, more than the Mamelukes ever did, God, his Prophet, and the Koran.  Sheiks and Imans, assure the people that we also are true Mussulmans.  Is it not we that have ruined the Pope and the Knights of Malta?  Thrice happy they who shall be with us!  Woe to them that take up arms for the Mamelukes! they shall perish!"[24]

Buonaparte was a fatalist—­so that one main article of the Mussulman creed pleased him well.  He admired Mahomet as one of those rare beings, who, by individual genius and daring, have produced mighty and permanent alterations in the world.  The General’s assertion of his own belief in the inspiration of the Arab impostor, was often repeated in the sequel; and will ever be appreciated, as it was at the time by his own soldiery—­whom indeed he had addressed but the day before in language sufficiently expressive of his real sentiments as to all forms of religion.  Rabbi, muphti, and bishop, the Talmud, the Koran, and the Bible, were much on a level in his estimation.  He was willing to make use of them all as it might serve his purpose; and, though not by nature cruel, he did not hesitate, when his interest seemed to demand it, to invest his name with every circumstance of terror, that could result from the most merciless violation of those laws of humanity which even his Koran enforces, and which his own address to his army had so recently inculcated.

Napoleon left Alexandria on the 7th July, being anxious to force the Mamelukes to an encounter with the least possible delay.  He had a small flotilla on the Nile, which served to guard his right flank:  the infantry marched over burning sand at some distance from the river.  The miseries of this progress were extreme.  The air is crowded with pestiferous insects, the glare of the sand weakens most men’s