The History of Napoleon Buonaparte eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 679 pages of information about The History of Napoleon Buonaparte.

The History of Napoleon Buonaparte eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 679 pages of information about The History of Napoleon Buonaparte.
eyes, and blinds many; water is scarce and bad:  and the country had been swept clear of man, beast, and vegetable.  Under this torture even the gallant spirits of such men as Murat and Lannes could not sustain themselves:—­they trod their cockades in the sand.  The common soldiers asked, with angry murmurs, if it was here the General designed to give them their seven acres?  He alone was superior to all these evils.  Such was the happy temperament of his frame, that—­while others, after having rid them of their usual dress, were still suffused in perpetual floods of perspiration, and the hardiest found it necessary to give two or three hours in the middle of the day to sleep—­Napoleon altered nothing; wore his uniform buttoned up as at Paris; never showed one bead of sweat on his brow; nor thought of repose except to lie down in his cloak the last at night, and start up the first in the morning.  It required, however, more than all his example of endurance and the general influence of Napoleon’s character, could do to prevent the army from breaking into open mutiny.  “Once,” said he at St. Helena, “I threw myself suddenly amidst a group of generals, and, addressing myself to the tallest of their number with vehemence, said, You have been talking sedition:  take care lest I fulfil my duty:  your five feet ten inches would not hinder you from being shot within two hours.

For some days no enemy appeared; but at length scattered groups of horsemen began to hover on their flanks; and the soldier, who quitted the line but for a moment, was surrounded and put to death ere his comrades could rescue him.  The rapidity with which the Mamelukes rode, and their skill as marksmen, were seconded by the character of the soil and the atmosphere; the least motion or breath of wind being sufficient to raise a cloud of sand, through which nothing could be discerned accurately, while the constant glare of the sun dazzled almost to blindness.  It was at Chebreis that the Mamelukes first attacked in a considerable body; and at the same moment the French flotilla was assaulted.  In either case the superiority of European discipline was made manifest; but in either case also the assailants were able to retreat without much loss.  Meantime the hardships of the march continued; the irregular attacks of the enemy were becoming more and more numerous; so that the troops, continually halting and forming into squares to receive the charge of the cavalry by day, and forced to keep up great watches at night, experienced the extremes of fatigue as well as of privation.  In the midst of this misery the common men beheld with no friendly eyes the troop of savans mounted on asses (the common conveyance of the country), with all their instruments, books and baggage.  They began to suspect that the expedition had been undertaken for some merely scientific purposes; and when, on any alarm, they were ordered to open the square and give the learned party safe footing within, they used to receive them with military jeerings.  “Room for the asses:—­stand back, here come the savans and the demi-savans.”

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The History of Napoleon Buonaparte from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.