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

202 NAPOLEON’S EGYPTammunition from this raid. The elderly geologist Tête-vuide, who ran out ofthe house trying to escape, was struck by a stone thrown from the roof, thensurrounded by the crowd and crushed. The rioters paraded the heads of theFrench military engineers through the streets and then suspended them fromthe doors of the al-Husayn Mosque. “The sight of blood galvanized the fanatics,”he observed, adding that the Egyptian “notables, terrified, closeted themselvesat home.” The people, Bonaparte recalled, ran and dragged them fromtheir mansions and led them in triumph to the al-Azhar Seminary. Some theytreated with disdain for having collaborated with the French. Another officerobserved, “Sheikh El-Sarah, who had appeared to be a protégé of the French,was dressed in the uniform of an assassinated soldier; they shaved off his beardand sold him in the middle of the bazaar for thirteen piasters.” The Egyptianssaw being clean-shaven as the mark of a slave, and disdained many of the Frenchsoldiers on those grounds. The insurgents then created a committee, or divan,of defense, organized popular militias, dug up weapons that had earlier beenburied, and took whatever measures they could to ensure the success of their rebellion.Al-Jabarti recalled that they brought out earlier-concealed “clubs,goads, truncheons, sticks, and hammers. He who had none of these, took latchbars,axes, and hoes.” 38Among the first victims of the rioters were French merchants established inCairo and married to local Armenian women. Whatever was tainted with thesymbols of European or Christian association became an object of rage. Rampagingmobs invaded the al-Jawaniya district, home to many Syrians and EasternOrthodox Christians, looting their homes and raping the women and girls.Some of the crowds even attacked Muslim homes. Then they turned on thelocal market that specialized in women’s clothing, the Khan al-Malayat, emptyingits stores of goods. Some lower-class Cairene women suffered through therest of the French occupation in fine fashion. In another incident, mobs attackedthe hospital of Ibrahim Bey, apparently in order to loot it, and when twoFrench engineers and two surgeons got in their way, they killed them. “The citizenRoussel, son of the chief surgeon of Toulon, and another officer of the firstclass were riddled with blows from a halberd,” Saint-Hilaire lamented. Al-Jabarti observed, “They committed many disgraceful acts without thinking ofthe consequences.” The orgy of looting and rapine went on all night. 39