Episode 502: To Egypt

a rivalry with Britain. A direct invasion of England was impossible as long as the Royal Navy ruled the Channel, but the idea of striking at Britain's trade routes, particularly its link to India, tempted French imaginations. Napoleon told the Directory, we must go to the Orient, where all great reputations are made. Egypt, nominally ruled by the Ottoman Empire but in practice dominated by the fierce Mameluke Bays, offered both

strategic and symbolic allure. If France could seize Egypt, it might threaten British India and revive French influence in the East, Napoleon declared to his officers, we shall found there Egypt, a colony that will change the face of the world. So it was that on July the third, seventeen ninety seven, Talirand proposed a French expedition against Egypt. But of course

you might be wondering, wait, who's Teleyrand? And so I think it's high time we introduce this critical player in the Napoleonic period who will outlive the Emperor himself, Charles

Maurice de Taland Pettigo. By the time Europe reached the summer of seventeen ninety seven, one of the most improbable survivors of the French Revolution, a nobleman turned revolutionary, a bishop turned to political exile, and now, as the tides of the directory shifted towards stability and diplomacy, France's best negotiator. His life up to that moment reads as a study in adaptability, or, as his critics would later say, opportunism. Yet beneath his polished cynicism lay one of the most

perceptive and important political minds of the age. Born in Paris on February second, seventeen fifty four, into one of the oldest noble families of France. Talleyrand seemed destined for prominence, but not for action. A childhood injury, most likely a genital club foot, though he later claimed it was caused

by a fall, left him permanently lame. He would later remark with bitter wit, I was disinherited by my leg His father, a soldier, deemed him unfit for military service, and steered him toward the church, an institution that could offer power without the sword. Tallyrand's early education was with the clergy at the Cole des Arcorps and the Seminary of Saint Sopice, where he later impressed teachers with his intelligence his memory, an ironic detachment even from piety itself.

Ordained a priest in seventeen seventy nine, he soon became Abbe de Perigo and began a lifelong pattern using institutions not for faith or ideology, but for influence. In seventeen eighty, tali Rand gained the lucrative position of Agent General des Clerget, making him responsible for the church's financial affairs, a perfect training ground for the fiscal machinations of later years. He

moved very easily throughout the world of Versailles. He could cultivate relationships with financiers, courtiers, and even the famously pragmatic Queen Marie Antoinette. His charm was legendary. He had a soft voice. His wit was cutting but never vulgar. His conversation could be both worldly and discreet. In seventeen eighty eight, through a mix of influence and intrigue, he was appointed Bishop of Attune. It seemed like nothing could come between

him and rising up the ranks of monarchical power. Yet he, as himself, would later admit, quote I never had the vocation. His diocese saw little of him. He preferred Paris and the company of thinkers like Minabu, who shared his conviction that reform, not rebellion, might yet save the monarchy. When Louis the sixteenth some in the Estates General in seventeen eighty nine, Talimrand was chosen to represent the clergy of Attune.

His speech on June tenth, calmly inviting the clergy to join the Third Estate, helped precipitate the formation of the National Assembly. Within weeks the revolution had begun. Tallyrand quickly aligned himself with moderate reformers. He supported the confiscation of church lands to stabilize France's finances, proposing in November of seventeen eighty nine quote that the property of the clergy

is at the disposal of the nation end quote. The motion passed, and with it the secularization of French property began. In seventeen ninety he affreciated at the first massed celebrating of the Fete de la Ferriacion, blessing the Republic before

a crowd of hundreds of thousands. His image as the Bishop of Liberty became immortalized and scandalized the Church, and of course in Rome, Pope Pius the Six condemned tally Rand's actions, and in early seventeen ninety one, after tally Rand consented to the civil constitution of the clergy, he was formally excommunicated. Unperturbed, easibly resigned his bishopric, remarking, I have always found religion useful to those who govern, and

it has never though harmed those who are governed. When the monarchy began to crumble in seventeen ninety two, tally Rand saw the storm before others did, accepted a mission to London in January of that year, carrying a letter from Louis the sixteenth to George the third. His goal was to avert war between Britain and France, or at the very least to buy time, but the king's letter

was already meaningless. Revolutionaries in Paris controlled the agenda. Now Tallyrand lingered in London as an unofficial envoy, cultivating contacts with William Pitt and Charles James Fox. When the French Republic was proclaimed and Louis the sixteenth executed in January seventeen ninety three, France declared war on Britain. Tallyrand was ordered home, but he wisely refused the order in state poot. In December, the revolutionary government placed him on a list

of emigres. His property was confiscated and his name was marked for arrest. In exile, he wrote his memoir Sur Relacion's Commercial Estate Estates Anglais, in which he argued for liberal economic policies and the importance of transatlantic commerce, arguments that would resurface in his diplomacy, as we'll see in later years. By seventeen ninety four, fearing arrest in Britain as a potential spy, he crossed the Atlantic and landed

in the American city of Philadelphia. There he moved among American intellectuals and merchants, including both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, both of whom admired his intellect but distrusted his slippery nature. In a letter to a friend, Jefferson described him as

a man of great sagacity, but of non principle. The fall of Robespierre in July seventeen ninety four marked a shift in France and an opportunity for tallyrandt In seventeen ninety six, through the influence of his friends, including the scientist and politician Madame de Stael, he secured removal from the Migrae list, and he returned to Paris. The France he found was unrecognizable, weary of terror, governed by the corrupts, but pragmatic, directory and desperate for stability, tally Rand, now

forty two, reinvented himself once again. He declared himself no longer a priest. He donned the fashionable close of the directorial elite and began attending salons where diplomacy, intrigue, and business mixed freely. Speech, tally Rand said, was given to man to disguise his thoughts. Madame de Stell, ever, the social catalyst, recommended him to barras one of the five directors at the time. In July seventeen ninety seven, the government needed a new Minister of Foreign Affairs, someone with

aristocratic polish but no royalist illusions. Bur Us proposed Talirand, as he later put it, with characteristic irony. I accepted. I have never refused anything except responsibility. By the time Tallyrand took up the portfolio of Foreign Affairs on July the sixteenth, seventeen ninety seven, France's armies were triumphants under the young General Bonaparte in Italy, but its diplomacy was

still chaotic. The Directory needed someone who could negotiate peace without surrendering advantage, and who could speak to kings and republics alike. Talirand immediately set about reorganizing the ministry. He sought to stabilize France's relations with Austria and Prussia and to explore peace with Britain, and to profit from the Republic's victories. With a blend of realism and greed behind his polished smile, a clear ambition to make himself indispensable

to any future regime, whatever its form. In fact, he once said, regimes parish, but institutions endure, and so do the clever men who serve them. Will find out just how true this is for tally Rand before too long. By July seventeen ninety seven, the Revolution had consumed nobles, priests, Jacobins,

and monarchists alike, but not Tallyrand. The former Bishop of Attune, excommunicated, priest, exile, philosopher of self preservation, He had returned to power once more, poised to steer the di palmacy of France, just as Europe prepared for peace, or, in the alternative, for another round of war. Within two years he would meet the man who would define the next act of his career,

Napoleon Bonapartes. But in the summer of seventeen ninety seven, as Napoleon was talking about Egypt, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand stood at the center of power, urban, enigmatic, and of

course indestructively French. He is perhaps second to Napoleon, the most important figure in French history throughout this period, and we will see why that, of course, will be after Napoleon's critical expedition to Egypt in May seventeen ninety eight, the greatest expedition since Alexander the greats marched to Persia. Sailed from Toulon more than three hundred ships, carried thirty eight thousand soldiers, ten thousand sailors, and an entourage unlike

any army in history. There were one hundred and seventy six savants, scientists, engineers, botanists, artists, and mathematicians enlightened by Napoleon, to quote unquote enlighten the Orient. Among them were men like the mathematician Gaspard mon, chemist Claude Though, and the future discoverer of the Rosetta stone. Napoleon kept the destination secret even from his officers. Some believed they were bound

for Malta and others for Ireland. The fleet captured Malta on June tenth, after a token resistance by the Knights of Saint John, whose medieval order seemed an absurd relic in this new age of reason. Napoleon told his men, in a few days, we have conquered the strongest fortress in Europe and ended an empire of six hundred years. Hyperbole a bit well, perhaps factually accurate. On July the first,

the French landed near Alexandria. The heat was suffocating, the light blinding, and the sand seemed to stretch to infinity. The city fell easy, but to conquer Egypt, the true test lay ahead, because Napoleon had to face the Mamelukes, the mounted warrior elite who still ruled from Cairo. Marching south along the Nile, the French endured thirst, mirages, and ambushes at Embabe, across the river from Cairo, Murad Bay and Ibraham By gathered some sixty thousand men, many of

the magnificent horsemen glittering in silk and gold. On July the twenty first, seventeen ninety eight, under the burning Egyptian sun, Napoleon formed his troops into a massive hollow square, each bristling with cannon and muskets. He told his soldiers, from the summit of these pyramids forty centuries looked down upon you. It was pure theater. I guess what, folks, It worked. The Mamlukes charged again and again, their horses crashing into

walls of discipline fire. Within hours their army broke, the Nile ran red, and thousands lay dead. The battle was won by geometry, wrote one French officer. Cairo surrendered soon after Napoleon entered the city. As both conqueror and reformer. He promised respect for Islam, attended prayers at Al Hazar, and issued proclamation declaring that the French were quote true friends of the prophet. But his enlightenment zeal baffled the Egyptians.

One proclamation he wrote announced to people of Egypt, I am more a Muslim than the Mamelukes. Few believed him. While Napoleon celebrated in Cairo, disaster approached from the sea. The French fleet had anchored at Abukir Bay near Alexandria to guard the coast, but Admiral Bruce made a fatal mistake. He assumed that the British, led by Horatio Nelson, would not dare to attack in the narrow waters between the

shore and the French line. On the evening of August first, seventeen ninety eight, Nelson struck in a brilliantly executed as so the British ships slipped between the French fleet and the shore, raking their enemy with broadsides from both sides. The battle lasted through the night. The Mediterranean lit by the burning flagship Leorient, which exploded in a column of fire visible for miles. When dawn came, the French navy

was shattered. Only two total ships escaped. Nelson reportedly triumphantly reported back to London, quote, Bonaparte's army is stranded, his hopes of empire are buried in the sea. He wasn't quite right on that part, But all that being said, Napoleon was in fact now kind of stranded in Egypt, cut off from France, really, with no way to return. Isolated but unbroken, Napoleon turned to the task of governing.

He reorganized Egypt's taxation, established hospitals, and founded an Institute of Egypt for his various scientific savants, and began mapping, measuring, and cataloging the country. The scholars produced a monumental survey of ancient monuments in natural history, later published as The Descripton de Egypt, one of the Enlightenment's greatest works. But for the Egyptians, French rule meant conscription, heavy taxes, and sacrilege. In October seventeen ninety eight, Cairo erupted in revolt. The

mob massacred French soldiers and local collaborators. Napoleon responded with brutal efficiency. His troops stormed the Alazar Mosque, executed the insurgents, and shelled parts of the city. The people must learn, he told his officers that we are stronger than the Mamelukes, stronger than the Turks, stronger than the fanatics 'uring an

Ottoman counter attack, Napoleon decided to strike first. In February seventeen ninety nine, he led thirteen thousand men across the Sayinai Peninsula into Syria modern day Israel and Palestine, intending to seize Oker and then march on Constantinople itself. Unfortunately, it was a march quite literally through hell. The troops trudged through burning sand and freezing rain, short on food and water. At Jaffa, they stormed the city and massacred

several thousand captured Ottoman troops. Napoleon justified it as a necessity. He couldn't feed them. One soldier wrote, it was a terrible example, but perhaps a necessary one. At Ocher, however, his luck ran out. The fortress was defended by an Ottoman governor, de Zez Pasha and supplied by the British navy under commodore Sidney Smith repeated French assault failed. Disease

ravaged the camp, especially the plague. Napoleon himself visited the hospital at Jaffa, a scene immortalized in Antoine Jean Gross's later painting Napoleon visiting the plague victims at Jaffa. Whether he actually touched the sick and courage or posed for effect remains uncertain. In May seventeen ninety nine, after two months of futile siege, Napoleon ordered a retreat. Fortune, he would later write, bitterly has turned against me, only for

a moment. Back in Egypt, Napoleon defeated an Ottoman landing at Abukir in July seventeen ninety nine, a brief return to triumph, but the strategic situation had decisively changed. France was at war again in Europe, and the directory, as we'll see in a moment, was collapsing. The general realized that his destiny lay not in Cairo, but back in Paris. On August the twenty second, seventeen ninety nine, leaving the army in the hands of General Clebert, Napoleon secretly boarded

the frigate Marion. He sailed past the British blockade under cover of darkness, and reached France in October. His sudden appearances, we'll see, electrified the nation now. The Egyptian army that he left behind was less fortunate. Cleavert was assassinated in eighteen hundred. His successor, General Mineau, surrendered to the British and Ottomans in eighteen oh one. The remnants of the French expedition returned home under British ex court. Militarily, the

Egyptian campaign was a failure. France lost its fleet, its army, and its hold on the East, but the intellectual and cultural consequences were immense. The sciences that Napoleon had taken with him carried out one of the first modern scientific studies of an ancient civilization. Their discoveries, especially the Rosetta Stone, found in seventeen ninety nine near Rosetta, Egypt by a French officer, would later enable the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

For Napoleon himself, Egypt had become part of his legend. He had not conquered the Orient, but he had brought science, reason and ambition to its lands. He left behind pyramids, and ruins, bathed in the light of a new mythology, the image of Bonaparte not just the general, but a modern day Alexander. As he would later reflect, when he was in exile from the heights of the Pyramids, I first saw the world vast, silent, and full of promise.

But of course, back in France, things remained tenuous. In the summer of seventeen ninety seven, back then, the French Revolution and Republic, secured for the first time in years, seemed perfect. Its armies, once starving and mutinism, were victorious. As we know. Back then, Bonaparte had already humbled Austria and northern Italy, But inside France the revolution continued to

teeter on a knife's edge. The elections in the spring of seventeen ninety seven brought a royalist resurgence into the councils of legislature, men who spoke of reconciliation but in reality wanted a royal restoration. Their newspapers mocked the Republic's ideals and whispered of a constitutional monarchy under Louis the eighteenth.

To the directors who governed France, this was treason, and so the stage had now been set domestically for another act of revolutionary self defense or self destruction, whichever way

you want to look at it. On September the fourth, seventeen ninety seven, General Pierre Aguiro, a loyal ally of Napoleon Bonaparte, surrounded the Tuleery Palace with troops at dawn, entered the legislative chambers and arrested the Royalist leaders, the director of Francois buffal May, the veteran general Jean Charles Pergat, and dozens of deputies, accused of all conspiring against the Republic.

And we've heard that before. As cannon stood in the courtyards, Aziro's proclamation declared, quote, the Republic is one and indivisible, Woe to conspirators who seek to betray it. End quote. You could have literally taken that quotation from Robespierre himself. But it was in every sense not a restoration, not a refreshing, nothing that was going to cleanse the republic. This was a coup d'etas. It was carried out not by monarchists but by republicans against their own elected legislature.

The Directory justified the action as a defense against the return of kings, but it violated the very constitution it claimed to preserve. The next day, September the fifth, the intimidated councils obediently just ratified the purge that had already been carried out. They annulled the elections of more than two hundred royal deputies from fifty three departments, and ordered the deportation of sixty five leading Royalist politicians and journalists

to Guiana. Barthaay was removed from the Directory, and Carneault, who had refused to condone the coup, fled into exile. In their place, the Council elected two more firm Republicans. The balance of power in Paris had shifted again. The Directory was now a military backed oligarchy, ruling by the Bayonets of Aguau and the distant victories of Bonaparte. It would soon learn that such power carried both strength and danger.

Now all this was going on in Paris. This was while Bonaparte was still in Italy, and honestly, his army, more than any other decree by the Directory, secured the Republic's fate. He watched sort of in fascination, and later remarked, if I had been in Paris, the coup would not have been so bloodless. Bonaparte quietly supported everything that was going on through Aguirero, but he resented the director's meddling. His victories made the Republic rich. Now he demanded that

they use them to make it secure. Of course, the Army of Italy still faced the Habsburg, so there was a long way to go. At the same time, on the September the twenty third, the Directory rewarded Aguiro by giving him command of a new army of the Rhine.

A sense of gratitude and exile combined. Meanwhile, Bonaparte was ordered to conclude peace on Austria when the most advantageous terms possible, and if the Austrians refused, well, then the Director said he was to march on Vienna himself, which of course he did, resulting in the Treaty of Campo Formio, the first great diplomatic triumph of the French Revolution. It was around the same time that Buonaparte eliminated the ancient Republic of Venice, which he wrote simply has ceased to exist,

and the treaty confirmed what everybody now understood. France's conquests were no longer the people's victories. These were Bonapartes victories. The Directory hailed him as the savior of Europe. He privately dismissed them as just simply mediocre. He told his secretary quote, the pair is ripe, and I saw soon take the tree now. In December seventeen ninety seven, anti French riots also broke out in Rome, after months of tension between the papal government and the French embassy that

was stationed there. A mob, inflamed by rumors that the French sought to kidnap the Pope, attacked the Palazzio Corsini, the residence of the French ambassador Joseph Bonaparte. In the chaos, General Mutine Dunhaupe, a French officer and aide to the ambassador, was killed, probably accidentally by Papal soldiers. The Pope Pious the sixth hastened to apologize, but the Directory rejected his plea and demanded vengeance Rome. They decided had to play

for the blood of a Frenchman. The French legislation on January the fifth, seventeen ninety eight, authorized an emergency loan of eighty million francs to fund quote expeditions necessary for the safety of the republic. The language was vague, but the meaning was clear. A campaign of vengeance was coming, and so on January eleventh, the Directory ordered General Luis Berthaer, one of Bonaparte's most capable lieutenant, to march on the city of Rome. The radical press back in Paris declared,

let the thunder of France make the Tiara tremble. Bonaparte, though still in Italy, saw an opportunity. If he could seize control over central Italy, he could complete the cordon of French satellite republics that now stretched from the Alps to the Adriatic. Meanwhile, in Paris, a larger vision started to take shape. As we talked about previously, Charles Maurice de Tallyrand, the smooth and worldly Foreign Minister, started to lay the groundwork for endaring an ambitious project, the French

Ambitious Expedition to Egypt. The goal, of course, was to strike at Britain in directly by cutting off the trade with India. And as we know, that's exactly what Bonaparte is going to attempt to do. Now, Wow, this was all going on on February tenth, seventeen ninety eight, birth Year's army did enter Rome unopposed. Five days later, he proclaimed the creation of the Roman Republic, modeled after the French, with liberty trees planted in the Piazza de Popolio and

papal arms torn down. Pius the sixth was then taken prisoner, eventually dying in exile in the next year, the first pope in centuries to be a captive of a foreign power. North of the Alps, France's revolution spread quickly, now into Switzerland. The Vaud region, long restive under the rule of the Bernice, declared its independence on January the twenty fourth, with French encouragement.

The Directory promptly ordered its troops to support the rebels in the region, and so by early March, French forces had entered Berne itself, looting its treasury and now extinguishing the old Swiss Confederation. Now there was a new Helbenic Republic, which was proclaimed on March the twenty second, a secularized, centralized state, replacing the patchwork of cantons that had endured honestly since the Middle Ages. And that's really one of

the big takeaways of the Napoleonic period. All of these old holdovers from the Middle Ages. They're all just being wiped away in the matter of less than a couple of years. One Swiss patriot was happy about it, writing, liberty has crossed the Alps. Unfortunately, though for many French liberty arrived on French bayonets, and so by the spring the map of Europe shimmered with tons of new republics. There were cis, Alpine republics, Ligurian republics, Helvetic republics, Roman republics,

all born in the shadow of Bonapartes France. Yet, of course, even as Bonaparte reshaped the continent, he turned towards Egypt, which we know ultimately didn't work, though in reality it was a decent plan. The reality was Europe was changing and changing quickly. Even as Bonaparte ruled and then evacuated himself from the Nile River, Europe continued to slip towards war.

There was an Irish uprising that flared up in May, which was crushed by the British at Vinegar Hill in July, but small French expeditions still tried to aid the Irish cause. On August, the twenty second General Umbert landed with a token force of a thousand men at Calaia, a northwestern province of Ireland. Miraculously, he defeated a much larger British army at Castlebar five days later and proclaimed the Irish Republic born, just as the French had declared so many

other republics born. This time. The success was fleeting surrounded at Ballamock on September the ninth, Umbert surrendered. A second expedition, sailing from Brest on September the sixteenth, was wrecked by stormed and captured by the Royal Navy. At home, the Directory continued to face massive amounts of unrest. Peasants in the south of France rose in royalist revolt that same September,

quickly crushed by government troops. To maintain its armies, the Directory decreed the Jardains Law on September the fifth, imposing universal conscription on all young men between twenty and twenty five, the first ever modern draft. The law declared every Frenchman is a soldier and owes himself to the defense of the nation. In Belgium, annexed as a French territory, a peasant insurrection irrupted in October, provoked by forced conscription and

anti clerical measures. The revolt was drowned in blood. French troops massacred the rebels and has set in early December, and hundreds of priests were deported to the interior. But these were all symptoms of a bigger problem. The French Republic, exhaust rusted by war and repression, now ruled through fear and taxation. In November, desperate for revenue, the directors imposed new taxes, even on doors and windows, and sought new loans to fund its ever growing armies. Abroad, enemies continued

to gather. On November sixteenth, Austria and Britain signed a new accord to restore the seventeen eighty nine frontiers of France. This is the beginning of the Second Coalition. Within weeks, Russia, Naples, and the Ottoman Empire would join them, and so by the end of the year the French Republic was again encircled in Italy. King Ferdinand the fourth of Naples, encouraged by the victory of Nelson's fleet off the coast of Alexandria and by British ambassador Lady Hamilton, declared war on

France and marched north toward Rome. But the Neapolitan army collapsed in panic before the veterans of the Republic. On December sixth, the French general Champonet crushed the Royalists and drove them back to Naples. By December the fourteenth, his forces re entered Rome, restoring the Roman Republic. One week later, on December the twenty first, they assaulted Naples, forcing Ferdinand to flee aboard Horatio Nelson's flagship. The Directory for the

moment seemed victorious again, but the victory was hollow. Just before the start of seventeen ninety nine. On December the twenty ninth, seventeen ninety eight, the Alliance of Britain, Russia and Naples formally signed the treaty that will create the Second Coalition, a league of monarchies pledged to the destruction of the French Republic, and so across Europe armies mobilized. Danger was everywhere, and Napoleon slipped free of the blockade

in Egypt and was on his way home. And this is the pen ultimate moment of the French Republic, because next time the revolution ends and the age of Bonaparte truly begins.