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Voyage in Lower and Upper Egypt, during the Campaigns of General Bonaparte. Vivant Denon | | | | |
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Chapter 48, part 3: Hermontis. - Coptos. - Battle with Mamluks at Benhouth. (p.231)
The
coalition of beys was already broken; Soliman remained in Déir; Assan,
with forty Mamluks, had separated from Mourat at the height of Esnê,
and had gone back to Etfu; all the sheikhs on the left had to separate
further down: and Mourat, alone with his three hundred Mamluks, had to
go down to beyond Siouth; but met at Souhama, below Girgé, by General
Friand, who had destroyed all the gatherings he had formed, he took the
road to Elouah, one of the Oases, where he went (p.232) to wait for
this that fate would ordain for him and for us. There had been two
affairs between the Meccans and the division of General Friand, on the
left bank between Thebes and Kous; six hundred of these adventurers had
perished there: it was said that the sheriff of Mecca himself was
expected, who, with six thousand of his people, was to join the eight
to nine hundred who remained from the first crusade.
Fig.1: General plan of the ruins of the ancient city of Hermontis, and the town modern Erment, from Plate 97, fig.8 of Description de l'Egypte, vol. 1, 1809, drawn by the French engineer Jomard.
"D.
Traces of ancient constructions which appear to have formed a general
enclosure. A. Ancient basin where Nile water still arrives toda.
AC. Old path, directed towards the center of the basin."
(Plate explanations by M. Jomard, in Description de l'Egypte, volume 1, 1809.)
On March 4 [1799], in the morning, we arrived at
Hermontis [1]; we stopped there to wait for news from the Mamluks, the
Meccans, and the rest of our army, scattered at that moment over a
number of points. Reduced to the temple of which I had already seen, I
again went to question the hieroglyphs, and to draw everything which
seemed to me most useful to present to the observations of the Curious
and the learned.
I
was able to better observe the location of the ancient city, which had
had a circumvallation and had several temples. But still temples! not a
public building, not a house that would have had enough substance to
withstand time, not a king's palace! what then was the nation? what
then were the sovereigns? It seems to me that the first was made up of
slaves; the seconds, pious captains; and the priests, humble and
hypocritical despots, hiding their tyranny in the shadow of a vain
monarch, possessing all the sciences and shrouding them in emblem and
mystery, to thus put a barrier between them and the people. The king
was served by priests, advised by priests, fed by them, preached by
them; every morning, after dressing him, they read to him the duties of
the sovereign towards his people, towards his religion; they took him
to the temple; the rest of the day, like the Doge of Venice, he was
never without six councilors, who were still six priests. With such
precautions there could perhaps be no bad kings; but what did the
people gain (p.233) if the priests replaced them? The only two
sovereigns who, according to history, dared to shake off the yoke, who
closed the temples for thirty years, Chephrenes and Cheops, were
regarded and recorded in the annals that the priests wrote, as
rebellious and impious princes.
"Fig.1. Plan of the temple.
"Fig.2.
Elevation on line A B, fig.1. The elevations and the section are shown
with their full height, which was found through excavations. The side
galleries were also restored... The dice which top the columns should
receive figures of Typhon. Due to lack of sufficient data, the walls
were not decorated with the hieroglyphic paintings which probably
covered them.
"Fig.3. Longitudinal elevation on line D C, fig.
1. (See the observations in Figure 2.) Note. The cornice of the
intermediate construction being partly overturned, it was restored with
its listel; but it was made too low by the height of this same listel,
to consult the rule of analogy, according to which the cornice and the
architrave are always of equal height.
"Fig.4. Section taken on line E F, fig. 1. (See observations in Figure 2.)
(Plate explanations by M. Jomard, in Description de l'Egypte, volume 1, 1809.)
The
Palace of the Hundred Rooms, the only palace mentioned in the history
of Egypt, was the work of a new form of government where the priests
could not have the same influence. These famous canals, of which
history speaks to us so sumptuously, have preserved no magnificence, no
dike, no lock, no entanglement: what I have encountered of shoulders
and quays on the banks of the Nile are small works in comparison with
these colossal and immortal temples whose circumvallations occupied a
large part of the site of the cities. The Jesuits of Paraguay could
perhaps have given us the secret or the example of the system of this
theocratic domination; and, in this case, I would only see in this rich
country of Egypt a mysterious and dark government, weak kings, a sad
and unhappy people.
On the 6th, we set out to meet Osmanbey, who
was said to have crossed the Nile at Kéné. I had the pain of crossing
the site of Thebes, and of experiencing even more privations there than
the first time: without measuring a column, without drawing a view,
without approaching a single monument, we followed the edges of the
Nile, equally distant from the temples of Medinet-a-Bou, Memnonium, the
temples of Kournou, which I left on my left, the temples of Luxor and
Karnaq, which I left on my right; temples! more temples, still temples!
and not a vestige of these hundred gates so vain and so famous, no
walls, no quays or bridges, no thermal baths, no theaters, not a
building of public utility or convenience: I observed (p.234)
carefully, I even searched, and I saw only temples, walls covered with
obscure emblems, hieroglyphics which attested to the ascendancy of the
priests who still seemed to dominate all these ruins. and whose empire
still obsesses my imagination.
Four
villages and as many hamlets, in the middle of vast fields, now replace
this incomprehensible town, like a few wild shoots recall the existence
of a tree famous for the majesty of its shade or the sweetness of its
fruits. Leaving this famous ground with regret, we stopped in the
western suburbs, the Necropolis district, where I found the inhabitants
of Kournou, who once again disputed with us the entrance to the tombs,
which had become their asylum; we would have had to kill them to teach
them that we did not want to harm them, and we did not have time to
start the discussion: we were content to block them during a small meal
that we had on the location of their retirement; I took advantage of
this moment to draw the desert and the exterior of these habitats of
death.
Towards
the evening one of our spies reported to us that the Meccans, united
with Osman-bey, were waiting for us entrenched at. Benhoute, three
leagues ahead of Kéné; that they had cannon, and were resolved to make
war and attempt a battle; they added that they had stopped several of
our boats on the Nile, and that after a stubborn fight, in which many
peasants and Meccans had been killed, the French had succumbed to their
numbers and had. were all massacred. We came to sleep on the banks of
the river: we had to cross it to meet the enemy; we waited for our
boats which followed. We saw, beyond any doubt, that we were being
observed from the other bank; every moment armed horsemen arrived and
left: we made a retrograde march to meet our convoy, which we soon
joined; the whole (p.235) rest of the day was spent on our passage,
which we made to el-Kamontéh. On March 8, we set out; on our arrival in
Kous we were confirmed the story of the day before.
Kous,
placed at the entrance to the mouth of the desert which leads to
Bérénice and Cosséir, still has some appearance on the southern side;
its immense melon plantations, its gardens, quite abundant, must make
it seem delicious to the inhabitants of the banks of the Red Sea, and
to thirsty travelers who have just crossed the desert; it succeeded
Copthos by its commerce and by its catholicity: because the Copthians
are still the most numerous inhabitants. Their zeal gave us all the
information they had been able to collect; they accompanied us with
their persons and their wishes to the confines of their territory.
I
was struck by the sincere interest of the sheikh, who, believing that
we were heading towards assured death, gave us the most detailed
advice, without hiding any of our dangers, warned us with the most
perfect intelligence about everything that could to make them less
fatal, followed us as far as he could, and left us with tears in his
eyes. Desaix had been at Kous for eight days; he had seen the sheikh a
lot; and this tender interest that was shown to us was a very natural
result of the advantageous idea that he had given of his loyal and
communicative character, of this gentle and constant fairness which
later earned the nickname àejusle, the most beautiful title that a
victor has ever obtained, a foreigner arriving in a country to wage war
there. We could not imagine anything about these boats, about this
fight; we were far from guessing the importance of the report that had
been made to us: we were only four leagues from the enemy; an hour
after passing Kous we saw on our right, at the foot of the desert, the
ruins of Coptos [2], famous in the fourth century for its oriental trade;
we only recognize its ancient splendor at the height of the mountain of
rubble (p.236) with which it is surrounded, and which still
indicates how great was the location it occupied. The ancient city is
now as dry and as disinhabited as the desert on whose edge it sits.
"Fig.5. Frieze composed of triglyphs, bull's heads and floral motifs, found in the ruins of Coptos."
"Fig.6.
Figure with Isis hairstyle. She carries bouquets of lotuses in both
hands which she presses to her heart. Her clothing consists of a kind
of petticoat attached above the hips by a belt whose ends hang
forward."
"Fig.7. Figure similar to the previous one, except
that the lotuses in her hands are still only in bud. Before her is an
arrangement of blooming lotus flowers and buds."
"Fig.8. Ornament of lotus stems and flowers, which appears to be a Greek work in imitation of the Egyptians."
"Fig. 9 Bas-relief taken from a section of column."
(Plate explanations by Jollais and Devilliers, in Description de l'Egypte, volume 4, 1817.)
We
had barely passed Coptos when someone came to tell us that the enemy
was on the march: we stopped, and after a light meal we started moving
again to join the enemy. We soon saw its flags; their development
occupied a line of more than a league: we continued to march in the
order we had taken, that is to say, in a square battalion, flanked by a
single piece of cannon of three, and fifteen cavalry men; we looked
like a point about to touch a line: we soon heard cries, and we found
ourselves at a village that the end of their development had come to
occupy; we. detached skirmishers who at the same moment found
themselves mixed hand to hand with them: despite some effective
discharges from our piece, they did not retreat; their valor and
dedication made up for the shortage of weapons among them.
After
this outpost had been destroyed rather than repulsed, more resistance
was found in the villages, where the walls and a few firearms gave them
some equality in the combat; However, we pushed them back to under
another village a quarter of a league further on: at this moment, the
Mamluks began to parade, and to appear to want to charge our right to
create a diversion from the advantage we were gaining over their
coalition; we marched straight towards them, without stopping or even
weakening the fight that the hunters were waging against the Meccans;
our smooth march and a few cannon shots delivered us from the
neighborhood of the Mamluks, who did not go there in as good faith as
the Meccans, and only wanted to try if the number of the latter and
their bravery would detach enough soldiers from the great squared so
that it could be attacked with advantage.
After having dislodged
the infantry from the second village, we (p.237) found ourselves in a
small plain which preceded Benhoute, where we knew that the large enemy
force was entrenched, and where all those we had were still gathered
together. already beaten. We fully expected a bloody fight; but not to
be cannonaded by a battery in order, which sent us both grapeshot and
cannonballs, which reached our quarter and even overtook it. Death
hovered around me; I saw her all the time; in the space of ten minutes
that we were arrested, three people were killed while I was talking to
them: I no longer dared to speak to anyone; the last was hit by a ball
which we both saw arriving plowing the ground and appearing at the end
of its movement; he raised his foot to let him pass, a final jerk of
the ball hit him in the heel and tore all the muscles in his leg;
injury from which this young officer died the next day, because we
lacked the tools to carry out amputations.
We believed that,
according to the custom of the country, their guns without mounts had
only one direction; but we were not a little surprised to see their
shots follow our movements, and force us to hasten our pace to occupy
the head of the village, and maintain the fight there, while the
riflemen and hunters had gone to turn their batteries and removed with
the bayonet. At the moment when the charge was being beaten, the
Mamluks rushed on our carabiniers, who received them with musketry fire
which turned them back; then, falling on the battery, they made a
general massacre of those who served it: the pieces were found to be
French, and it was recognized that they were those of Italy,
the flagship of our flotilla. We hoped that after this important
capture the fight would end with the dispersion or flight of the
Mekkain army; one part, however, still held out for quite a long time
in a small grove of palm trees, while the other, and the most
considerable, made a sort of retreat, which we could not (p.238)
disturb, because, every time if we went beyond the covered areas to
make a rapid movement, the Mamluks, whom we always had on our flank,
could attack us and overthrow us; it was therefore necessary to march
in battle order and always trained to receive them.
It had
already been six hours that we had been fighting relentlessly against
an inexperienced enemy, but brave, fanatical, and tenfold in number,
who attacked with fury and resisted with obstinacy: he only retreated
en masse; it was necessary to kill everything that had advanced in
detachments. Exhausted, panting from the heat, we stopped for a moment
to take breath: we were absolutely lacking in water, and we had never
needed it so much. I remember that at the height of the action I found
a jug at the corner of a wall, and that, not having time to drink,
while walking I poured the water into my breast. to quench the ardor
with which I was consumed.
As long as the enemy had his
batteries he fell back with confidence, because he fell back on new
forces: we even had to think that his design had been to attract us
towards them, but that after having lost them, the little wood where he
had retired becoming his last point of defense, he would try the fate
of a last fight, throw himself into the water, cross the Nile, or join
the Mamluks, and disappear with them; which it was impossible for us to
prevent: but, as we approached this wood, we noticed that it contained
a large village with a house of Mamluks, fortified, crenellated,
bastioned, and an approach all the more difficult that the enemy was
supplied with all kinds of arms and ammunition, which we recognized as
ours, both by the range of the rifles and by the bullets he sent at us.
We had already been attacking this house for more than two hours from
all sides, without finding one who was not murderous; we had lost sixty
men and had as many wounded: when night came, we set fire to the
adjacent houses, we captured a (p.239) mosque, we separated the enemy
from the Nile, and we worked to restore the parts taken back.
For
their part, the besieged were busy increasing the number of their
battlements, making low batteries, and aiming cannons which they had
not yet used. Peasants, who escaped from the fire of the besiegers and
that of the besieged, came to tell us that the day after the day of
General Desaix's departure to pursue Mourat, the Meccans, newly
descended from the desert, had come to attack Italy and the flotilla
she commanded; that after a fight of twenty-four hours, those who were
on board it broke out, and, fearing the collision, had burned the large
boat and mounted the small ones; but that a strong wind having
constantly thwarted their maneuver, tired by the number and the
relentlessness of the attackers, these unfortunate people had all been
killed; that since that time the Meccans had only thought of gathering
together all the means of attack and defense that this defeat provided
them with; that they had grounded one of our vessels, in order to force
everything that would sail on the river to pass under their battery,
and had thus made themselves masters of the Nile; that, despite all the
people they had lost, they were still very numerous and very determined.
At
daybreak, we began to batter the house: built of uncooked bricks, each
ball made no progress because of the courtyards which separated the
main building from the circumvallation. At nine o'clock in the morning,
the Mamluks advanced with camels as if to bring relief to the place; we
marched on them, and they withdrew without real resistance: General
Belliard, seeing that the conservative means were wearing out both men
and time, ordered an assault, which was given and received with
incredible valor; the first circumvallation was opened under enemy
fire, and, through the shootings and the exit of the besieged,
combustibles were introduced which began (p.240) to make their retreat
painful: one of their stores blew up; from then on the fire reached
them from all sides; they lacked water, they put out the fire with
their feet, with their hands, they smothered it with their bodies.
Black and naked, we saw them running through the flames; it was the
image of the devils in hell: I did not look at them without a feeling
of horror and admiration. There were moments of silence in which a
voice was heard; they responded to him with sacred hymns, with battle
cries; They then fell on us from all sides despite the certainty of
death.
Towards dusk an assault was made; it was long and
terrible; twice we entered the enclosure, twice we were forced to
leave: I was not so much upset by our losses as by the thought that we
would have to start new efforts against enemies who were ever more
reassured; I also knew that we were reduced to the last box of
cartridges. Captain Buliiot, an officer of distinguished bravery,
perished in the last attempt: this man, known for his reckless
imprudence, moved by a feeling of predestination, shook my hand as he
took me with him, and bade me a sinister farewell; the next moment I
saw him dragging himself on his hands, and trying to escape death.
When night came we stopped: we had been fighting for two days.
Danger
was followed by sad care; we heard the cries of our wounded, to whom we
had no remedies to give, to whom, for lack of instruments, we could not
carry out the most urgent operations; we had lost many people, and we
still had many enemies to defeat: the need to spare brave people led to
the reestablishment of fire in place of the assaults; fires were lit;
Posts were placed on all the avenues; or took turns to rest; the square
lay in battle; (p.241) danger dictated the accuracy of the service: in
the middle of the night, a donkey, chasing a donkey, galloped into the
neighborhood; everyone found themselves standing and at their post with
a silence and order as august that the cause was ridiculous.
An
unfortunate Coptic bishop, prisoner in the castle, under cover of
darkness escaped with a few companions, and only reached us through the
fire of our posts, covered with wounds and bruises: after having taken
some food, he told us the details of the horrors from which he had just
escaped. The besieged had had no water for twelve hours; their walls
glow; their thickened tongues choked them; Finally, their situation was
terrible. Indeed, a few moments later, an hour before daylight, thirty
of the best-armed besieged, with two camels, forced one of our posts
and passed through. At daybreak, we entered through the gaps in the
fire, and we finished knocking out those who, half burned, still put up
some resistance.
One was brought to the general; he appeared
to be one of the leaders; he was so swollen that when he bent down to
sit down, his skin burst all over: his first sentence was: If it is to
kill me that I am being brought here, let them hurry and put an end to
my pain. A slave had followed him; he looked at his master with such a
profound expression that it inspired in me esteem for both: the dangers
which surrounded him could not distract his sensitivity for a moment;
he only existed for his master; he looked, he saw only himself.
What
looks! what tender and deep melancholy! How good he must have been who
had made himself loved by his slave in this way! however dreadful his
fate was, I envied him: how loved he was! and I, looking back on
myself, said to myself: To satisfy a proud curiosity, here I am a
thousand leagues from my country; I accompany the brave, and I seek a
friend; while I grieve over the vanquished, over the victors, I see
(p.242) death striking around me; it is always his scythe that I
encounter everywhere: yesterday I was with warriors whose loyalty I
valued, whose brilliant bravery I admired; today I accompany their
convoy; tomorrow I will abandon their remains on a foreign land which
can only be disastrous for me: just now a young man, brilliant in
health and daring, braved the enemy he was going to fight; I see him
attack a deadly door, he falls; expressions of courage are followed by
accents of pain; he calls in vain; he drags himself, the fire reaches
him, communicates itself to the cartridges with which he is loaded; he
already has no form, and yet I still hear his voice; and tomorrow . . .
tomorrow his job will console the companion who will replace him for
his loss. O man, where will you draw virtues, if the noblest profession
still hides such small passions? Cruel selfishness, which misfortune
does not correct, and which becomes atrocious, because danger no longer
allows it to be hidden! it is in war that we can truly know it and
experience its terrible effects. But let’s turn our eyes to the
beautiful side of the profession.
Fig.5:
General Augustin Daniel Belliard (1769-1832) fought in the Battle of
the Pyramids, became governor of Upper Egypt, and advanced with his
troops into Nubia.
We
felt better than ever how useless it was to pursue them when they did
not want to fight, and the impossibility of surprising them in a
country where there remained for them on each side of the river a
retreat always open and always assured, as long as they would maintain
the superiority of the cavalry and that they would know how to protect
their camels. We therefore abandoned a useless pursuit, and wisely
returned to the guard of our boats: General Belliard spent the rest of
the day gathering and loading what we had captured of artillery,
ammunition and utensils of war.
It is after the attack that the
patient feels what strength the fever has taken from him. As long as we
had been fired upon with our powder and our cannonballs, we had not
calculated how much we would have to spend to exhaust or recapture that
which had been taken from us; but, calmer, we counted one hundred and
fifty men out of action, that is to say that we had played a lottery
where every seventh ticket was a red ticket, and that having made the
expenditure on ammunition on both sides, we barely had enough left to
provide for a fight; finally that the convoy which was to replace them
was destroyed along with all those who were supposed to defend it; that
we were a hundred and fifty leagues from Cairo where we were believed
to have no need. I had admired the quiet courage of General Belliard
during a fight of three days and two nights; I was no less edified by
his administrative intelligence in the hours which followed this
action, less brilliant than perilous: the slightest imprudence would
have added to the misfortune of having lost our fleet; disaster which
her prudent intelligence could not repair, but which at least she had
stopped what disastrous consequences the consequences of this loss
could have had.
(p.244) While we were dealing with the fate of
the inhabitants who had remained in Benhouth, and that of those who had
fled, I was not a little surprised to find in the posts we had in the
village all the established women with a cheerfulness and ease that
deceived me; I could not persuade them that they do not hear us. they
had each freely made their choice, and seemed very satisfied with it:
there were some lovely ones; it seemed so new to them to be fed, served
and well treated by victors, that I believe they would have willingly
followed the army. Belonging is so much their destiny that it was only
through the feeling of obedience that they returned to the power of
their fathers and their husbands; and, in these disastrous cases, they
are not received with that scrupulously inexorable jealousy which
characterizes the Orientals. It's war, they say, we couldn't defend
them; it is the law of the victors that they have suffered; they are no
more dishonored than we are by the wounds they have inflicted on us:
they return to the harem, and there is never any question of everything
that happened.
Through such delicate distinctions, does not
purified jealousy become a noble passion of which we can even be proud?
We learned that the sheikh who commanded or rather exhorted the
Mekkains had fled towards the end of the last night; that during the
siege he had prayed without fighting; that from time to time he came
out of his retirement and said to his people: I pray to heaven for you;
it's up to you to fight for him. It was after these exhortations that
we heard these pious chants, followed by war cries, sorties, and
general discharges.
Footnotes:
1. [Editor's note:] See also Chapter 37 of this volume, with two drawings by Denon of the main temple at Hermontis.
2.
[Editor's note:] Koptos was first excavated by W.M. Flinders
Petrie in 1893-4 . Earliest occupations date from the 4th Dynasty
of the Old Kingdom. Other structural remains date from the 18th
Dynasty of Thutmose III and Ramesses II of the 19th Dynasty. More
numerous are tombs and features from the Ptolemaic period including
a small granite temple from the reign of Ptolemy 13th Neos
Dionysos, the father of the famous Cleopatra VII. A nearby Roman temple
also lies in the village of Kaleh, less than a mile north of Kuft. For
more information, see Weigall, 1910, Antiquities of Upper Egypt; and Petrie and Hogarth, Koptos,
1896, Egypt Exploration Society, Quaritch, London. Recent surveys of
the site are being conducted by the Egypt Exploration Society and the
University of Lyon (see Pantalacci, L, and Gobeil, C. 2016. ‘Coptos:
the sacred precincts in Ptolemaic and Roman times’, Egyptian Archaeology 49).
.
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