Christ.  The command went forth that he should go to Egypt.  See, again, his resemblance to the Son of God.  But that’s not all.  He called together his best veterans, his fire-eaters, the ones he had particularly put the devil into, and he said to them like this:  ’My friends, they have given us Egypt to chew up, just to keep us busy, but we’ll swallow it whole in a couple of campaigns, as we did Italy.  The common soldiers shall be princes and have the land for their own.  Forward, march!’ ‘Forward, march!’ cried the sergeants, and there we were at Toulon, road to Egypt.  At that time the English had all their ships in the sea; but when we embarked, Napoleon said:  ’They won’t see us.  It is just as well that you should know from this time forth that your general has got his star in the sky, which guides and protects us.’  What was said was done.  Passing over the sea, we took Malta like an orange, just to quench his thirst for victory; for he was a man who couldn’t live and do nothing.

“So here we are in Egypt.  Good.  Once here, other orders.  The Egyptians, d’ye see, are men who, ever since the earth was, have had giants for sovereigns, and armies as numerous as ants; for, you must understand, that’s the land of genii and crocodiles, where they’ve built pyramids as big as our mountains, and buried their kings under them to keep them fresh—­an idea that pleased ’em mightily.  So then, after we disembarked, the Little Corporal said to us:  ’My children, the country you are going to conquer has a lot of gods that you must respect; because Frenchmen ought to be friends with everybody, and fight the nations without vexing the inhabitants.  Get it into your skulls that you are not to touch anything at first, for it is all going to be yours soon.  Forward, march!’ So far, so good.  But all those people of Africa, to whom Napoleon was foretold under the name of Kebir-Bonaberdis—­a word of their lingo that means ’the sultan fires’—­were afraid as the devil of him.  So the Grand Turk, and Asia, and Africa had recourse to magic.  They sent us a demon, named the Mahdi, supposed to have descended from heaven on a white horse, which, like its master, was bullet-proof; and both of them lived on air, without food to support them.  There are some that say they saw them; but I can’t give you any reasons to make you certain about that.  The rulers of Arabia and the Mamelukes tried to make their troopers believe that the Mahdi could keep them from perishing in battle; and they pretended he was an angel sent from heaven to fight Napoleon and get back Solomon’s seal.  Solomon’s seal was part of their paraphernalia which they vowed our general had stolen.  You must understand that we’d given ’em a good many wry faces, in spite of what he had said to us.

“Now, tell me how they knew that Napoleon had a pact with God?  Was that natural, d’ye think?