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

GRAND CAIRO81nate curiosity; they surrounded me, pressed in on me, wanted to touch and undomy clothing, and put their hands on me to the utmost degree of indecency. Invain, Madame Murad Bey ordered them to retire; in vain, I repulsed themrudely myself. It was necessary to call the eunuchs, who came running at thesound of the voice of their mistress, struck some blows with a whip at thesefrenzied women, and obliged them at last to let go.” 27 The slave girls, facingpenury now that their master was gone, were perhaps hoping that a French officermight take them on. Their hopes were often not in vain.In the end, Nefise Hanim returned to him with a fine shawl and someweapons of her husband’s, and for the moment escaped suspicion of harboringinsurgents. Initially, Bonaparte decreed that Nefise could keep her propertyand slaves, but had to pay 600,000 francs to the French army on pain of havingthe other property that her husband left her repossessed. In fact, this paymentwas only the beginning. “The wife of Murad Bey was made to pay imposts severaltimes, and the last time she had to pay 8000 talaris.” 28 Al-Jabarti says thatthe French “extorted” the other noblewomen in the same way, as they didmany officers and soldiers, “using as intermediaries Syrian Christians” and“foreigners.”A young officer, Jean-Gabriel de Niello Sargy, alleged that the wife ofOsman Bey was imprisoned and fined 10,000 talaris after being charged withmaintaining contact with her husband’s camp. The wife of Süleyman Bey wasalso mulcted, though her mansion in Cairo had been among the first to be pillagedby the populace after the fall of the old government. The exception herewas Züleyha, the wife of Ibrahim Bey, who had played an important role in protectingthe resident European merchants in Cairo from being massacred duringthe French invasion. Bonaparte rewarded her with a writ of safe conduct and aguard. (She nevertheless found a way to slip out of the country, joining Ibrahimin Syria.)It was not only the jewelry and possessions of the wives of the beys that theofficers coveted. Niello Sargy observed, “The common women were horrible.But the beys had left behind some pretty Armenians and Georgians, whom thegenerals grabbed for the so-called good of the nation.” Bonaparte himself,wounded by Josephine and determined to assert his own sexuality, “relaxed atfirst with some women of the beys and the Mamluks. But finding with thesebeautiful Georgian women neither reciprocity nor any charm of society, hesmelled a void in all of them, and missed all the more the lascivious Italian andfriendly French women.” The officers were used to flirting with a wide range ofwomen, including others’ wives.