Napoleon's Egypt: Invading The Middle East - Reenactor.ru

116 NAPOLEON’S EGYPTtouched her buttocks with the tips of their fingers and brought them back totheir lips.” 19 He expressed astonishment that they should have found any blessingin the old woman’s bum, but his interpreter was not along, so he could notask the meaning of it all. In Egyptian folk Islam, blessings, or baraka, werethought to inhere in particular trees, shrines, or persons. The crone’s reversals(nakedness, a female on a horse) endowed her with supernatural powers in theeyes of the people. The chronicler al-Jabarti also told her story, as a “God-intoxicated”female mystic of the people. He shared Bernoyer’s disdain for popularreligious practices.Bonaparte was destined to disappoint both Bernoyer and al-Jabarti by hispolicy on religion. Despite many past statements and proclamations of an anticlericaltenor, Bonaparte had decided that he needed religion on his side. Hewas not overly discriminating about the forms of religion to which he was willingto appeal. His first instinct was to seek the cachet of the formally recognizedgreat clerics in ensuring the success of his endeavor in Egypt. Failing that, oralongside it, he was entirely willing to manipulate the themes of folk Islam, of itssaints and its rituals and its all-seeing charismatic holy men, if that is whatwould secure him the allegiance of the people. His sponsorship of the Festival ofthe Nile was in his view only a first step toward acquiring religious charisma inEgypt as the Great Sultan and defender of the faith.The French forced march to Cairo from Alexandria had left no time to securethe territory in Lower Egypt through which these armies had advanced. Rebelliousand largely unsubdued, these populations were further emboldened to attackthe French when they heard of the sinking of the fleet at Abuqir. For hispart, Bonaparte, marooned in Egypt and facing concerted resistance in thesouth, now had to make the Delta his power base. The Mediterranean portcities blockaded by the British fleet had to be provisioned from their rural hinterland,which the French did not control. Bedouin chieftains still loyal to thedeposed Ottoman-Egyptians dominated trade routes, granaries, villages, andsome cities. Some emirs were hiding out in Delta towns and villages and directingthe resistance. French terror tactics sometimes produced more determinationthan submission.Even near the capital, unwary troops were not safe from villagers andBedouin. Millet recounted how he and his unit were posted to the area aroundthe Pyramids for two weeks in late July and early August. 20 There, amid thesand of the desert and the eldritch tombs of the pharaohs, they lacked basics