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

46 NAPOLEON’S EGYPTMarmont described Rahmaniya as a village where the typical dwelling consistedof “a hut, the walls of which are made of earth or sometimes sun-bakedbricks, four feet high. The size is proportional to the family. One can only enterhunched down—one cannot get in standing up straight. Typically there is apretty structure above, gracefully constructed, serving as home to a great quantityof pigeons.” He saw mounds of recently harvested lentils, beans, and onionspiled outside these humble adobe homes. “Next to every village in Egypt, thereis a date grove, trees of very great revenue (each date tree generates about sevenfrancs per year). These groves are more or less extensive, depending on the populationand wealth of the villages. They make for most agreeable scenery. Thegracious tuft that crowns these trees gives them great elegance.” 3 Marmontcould not at that point appreciate the logic of these arrangements. In so hot aclimate, having the foundation beneath the level of the ground helped cool theinterior. And in a country where it almost never rains, it is an unnecessary expenseto build from stone rather than from adobe.Malus remembered that some town elders “came around” the French, with“Turkish banners.” One does not know whether he means Ottoman flags or Islamicstandards, or whether they were a sign of subtle defiance or a result ofBonaparte’s propaganda that he had come on behalf of Sultan Selim III in Istanbul.Bernoyer also arrived in Rahmaniya, which lay on the west bank of theNile, on 10 July. He had not heard about the encounter with the emirs, butrecorded that the population of the city, as usual, promptly fled. The examplesof Damanhur and Rahmaniya show the manner in which ordinary Egyptianwomen helped frustrate the French advance down the Nile by simply fleeingfrom the towns along the way, taking with them as much in the way of provisionsas they could. They thus deprived the soldiers of food and sex. Women’swillingness to desert their homes to deny the enemy any comfort showed notonly a fear of the French, for that could equally well have been demonstrated byacquiescence, but a strategy of defiance. Soldiers stole flour from some desertedhomes and made small biscuits of it that they devoured ravenously. EnragedFrench troops, faced with such empty and fairly useless towns, sometimes setdestructive blazes in revenge. Bernoyer reported,Two hours later, on 10 July, we arrived at Rahmaniya, a city on the bank of theNile. When the population of this town noticed us from afar, they took flight.The women uttered horrific ululations, kicking up clouds of dust in their haste,a sign of terror in that country. Despite the beauty of that city, a feeling of sadnessand desolation reigned in the wake of the flight of its inhabitants. Faced