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

6 NAPOLEON’S EGYPTthe authorities had the house of the Commune (the revolutionary municipal governmentof Toulon) illuminated and the troops planted at its door a tree of libertywith the inscription, “It grows each day.” 9 Supporters of the Revolutionthroughout France planted liberty trees each May, often decorated in the colorsof the French flag. The authorities designed the ritual planting at Toulon as ameans of reinforcing solidarity among the troops. Bonaparte in his communiquéclearly conveyed the idea that the Republican army incarnated the virtue of liberty,and was now exporting it to an exotic locale, engaging in what was in effecta vast tree-planting ceremony.The weather was still not cooperating. Bonaparte wrote back to his politicalsuperiors in Paris, “We have been here at anchor three days, Citizen Directors,ready to depart. But the winds are extremely strong and contrary.” 10 He issuedorders on how to punish the substantial number of soldiers and sailors whojumped ship at the last moment, who declined to go off into the unknown andso would be missing their chance to “reestablish the glory of the French navy.”Some may have left just for lack of nourishment. The merchant Grandjean latergrumbled that hunger gnawed at him during his two days of filling out paperworkin Toulon, which thus seemed to him like two centuries, since the crush ofnewcomers had made even a crust of bread hard to find, and then at astronomicalprices. At last, on the eighteenth of May, the mistral died down.A memoirist, who was a young sailor at the time, recalled,One of the last days of [that month], the commander in chief, Bonaparte, accompaniedby his numerous and brilliant general staff, boarded the Orient andafterwards visited all the ships of the line. During that day, the entire fleet celebrated,and each ship fired a twenty-one gun salute, while the batteriesthroughout the city, the port and the harbors rang out, responding with alltheir artillery. What a magnificent spectacle! On arriving at our ship, theDubois, I saw General Bonaparte for the first time, and I was struck by his severeand imposing features. Although short in stature, he was enveloped by ahalo of glory that made him seem very great to me.The troops boarded their vessels with a show of great élan, reminding morethan one observer of grooms going off enthusiastically to their weddings. Thecannoneer Louis Bricard, who left instead from Marseilles, spoke of a “supernaturaljoy” among them, though he said that their girlfriends in the port didnot share it, complaining tearfully about the flower of French young manhoodbeing sent far away from France “without knowing their destination,” and worryingthat “they might never return.” 11