3o Egypt
a, repetition of this incident on a large scale. Ten
thousand Mameluke horse, thousands of janissary foot,
and swarms of native levies were defeated and driven into
the Nile to drown, at a cost to the French of about
a hundred casualties. The Mameluke Beys not only
charged home, but actually broke into the squares of
Desaix and Reynier. Yet their desperate courage could
only achieve their own more complete destruction.
Thenceforward, as a military force, this Caucasian Free
Company was no more important than the corps of
Albanian bashi-bozouks, or the contingents of Turkish
Janissaries. But as a political faction the Mamelukes
remained predominant until broken by Mehemet AH ;
while, as a landed gentry, their descendants lead a
parliamentary party at the present day. Not that they
now have any importance as a caste, for once their
peculiar method of recruitment was ended degeneracy
swiftly did its deadly work.
The French, having entered Cairo (July 27, 1798),
Napoleon at once began establishing his embryo Empire
in that ancient capital of the Khalif. Great efforts were
made both to conciliate religious prejudice and to instil
revolutionary principles. Napoleon's proclamations began
with the consecrated Islamic forms, and copied the
phraseology of Mahomedan rulers. The conversion to
Islam of the whole French force and of Napoleon him-
self was propounded ; and, as an instalment, Menou, his
third in command, became a Mahomedan and bought a
harem. The building of a mosque was begun, and in all
formalities and festivities Mahomet and c< MarianneJf
were given equal honours. The French, anticipating
Russian revolutionaries of to-day, represented them-
selves as being the liberators of Egypt from the alien
rule of Circassian Mamelukes and of Turkish pashas,