A FRENCH EXPEDITION TO EGYPT BEFORE BONAPARTE
as published in Thebes and beyond: Studies in Honour of Kent R. Weeks, Cairo, 2011
My association and friendship with Kent Weeks goes back over forty years to a time
when we worked together on the excavations at Mendes in the eastern Delta. I offer
this brief discussion of an early traveler to Kent, knowing his interest in the history of
discovery and exploration of Egypt.
In 1777 an exploratory venture to Egypt was commissioned by Louis XVI to determine the possibility of making the country a colony of France. This little-known expedition receded the Napoleonic Campaign by twenty years but it certainly has not received the attention it deserves as a predecessor to the more celebrated venture. Led by François, Baron de Tott,1 it included a naval officer and naturalist named Nicholas Sigisbert Sonnini de Manoncourt,2 the subject of this essay, as well as other specialists, including artists and draftsmen. De Tott published his Memoirs of the\Turks and the Tarters, which included an account of the Egyptian trip, and Sonnini produced a more focused work on his travels which were to go through two separate English translations at the time of the later, large-scale, expedition of Bonaparte.3
Nicholas Sonnini was born in Lunéville in 1751. He studied with the Jesuits at the University of Pont-à-Mousson where he received a doctorate of philosophy at the age of fifteen. He went on to study law but his interest in natural history and exploration led him to enlist as a naval cadet. His first foreign experience was gained in Cayenne in Guiana in 1772, where he collected rare birds and made observations that resulted in his being awarded the title Naturaliste voyageur
du gouvernment. After a second voyage to Guiana in 1775, he was selected to join de Tott’s group on the voyage to Egypt where he was able to continue his pursuits as a naturalist. In his travels he recorded much of what he saw of the people, the animal and plant life as well as the antiquities. He was able to anticipate Lane’s classic Modern Egyptians by almost fifty years in his descriptions of modern customs. With his training in the arts and sciences he was equipped to make a remarkable number of observations in many fields of investigation. Regrettably, his record of Egypt in the second half of the eighteenth century is little read today.
Sonnini departed from Toulon with the de Tott expedition on April 26, 1777, on the frigate Atalanta and, after several ports of call, including Genoa, Palermo, and Malta, arrived at Alexandria in mid-June. In all, he was able to spend eighteen months in Egypt, during which time he visited the western Delta, the Wadi Natrun and the length of the Nile as far south as the villages of Karnak and Luxor. The nature of his description of the country is only somewhat colored by the intention of his mission: to determine the suitability of Egypt as a French colony. There are numerous digressions in his narrative where he speaks of the time when he believes that the land will prosper under French direction and guidance and he inserts suggestions to those to follow him as to the "proper" methods with which to cope with local problems and "manage" the inhabitants.
A proposal, which he added when his manuscript was being prepared for its original publication, was the re-naming of Pompey’s Pillar in Alexandria with the title of "Column of the French Republic" and an attendant transportation of that monument to Paris. Standing in a public square, it "could not fail to produce the most majestic effect." Although obelisks were transported, Pompey’s Pillar fortunately never received that kind of treatment. As an educated European, Sonnini’s personal relations with the Egyptians he encountered were, at best, uneven. When he was able to strike up a friendship or where he had a particularly hospitable host or reliable guide, his observations reflect the increased ease with which he traveled or moved among the people. In Sonnini’s day the local reaction to European dress was still so marked that he was wise to assume Eastern costume early in his stay, a custom adopted by others in his time and well into the nineteenth century. He apparently learned little Arabic and was forced to use interpreters. Where he employs Arabic words or phrases in his account, they are generally still recognizable in the French transliteration which has been retained in the English translation. Even small villages can be located on modern maps if sufficient allowance
is made for the variety of spellings used by European travelers and cartographers. Sonnini spent a month aboard the Atalanta in the harbor of Alexandria, perhaps a good choice of accommodation but still subject to "continual rolling." From his ship he could visit the city and he gives the following description:
"Its houses, like those of the Levant, have flat terrace roofs: they have no windows, and the apertures which supply their place are almost entirely obstructed by a wooden lattice projection of various forms, and so close, that the light can hardly force a passage..." He observed that "beauty" was permitted to see what passed in the street without being seen as a result of the lattice-work, the mashrabbiya, that concealed them, but this observation also Gave him a chance to moralize on the state of what he saw as the oppressed womanhood of Egypt and the "tyrannical" attitudes of the Egyptian male. Of Alexandria itself:
"Narrow and awkwardly disposed streets are without pavement as without police; no public edifice, no private building arrests the eye of the traveler, and, on the supposition that the fragments of the old city had not attracted his attention, he would find no object in the present one that could supply matter for a moment’s thought. Turks, Arabians, Barbaresques, Cophts, Christians of Syria, Jews, constituted a population which may be estimated at five thousand as far as estimation can be made in a country where there is no register kept of anything."
In short, he preferred European architecture with decorated exteriors to the architecture of the east with its inward orientation. His scientific bent was offended by the governmental lack of concern with statistics and attention to the order that a Frenchman of his time would have found lacking. His impressions of Cairo were colored to a great extent by the fact that Europeans were not treated well there. He was forced to live in a district allotted to the French, shut in by a gate and guarded by "Janizaries." He sums up his dislike for Cairo by quoting Hasselquitz: "If a man were guilty of any crime, he could not expiate it better than by going to reside a little while in Cairo." Even so, he was able to visit houses with lofty interiors, make a circuit of the city walls, see the Citadel and climb the Mokkatam hills to the east. In the1830’s Edward Lane, in Modern Egyptians, was restrained by modesty from writing a description of the popular dances he saw but Sonnini had no such scruple their dances consist of quick and astonishing movements of the loins, which these women agitate with extreme suppleness, but great indecency, the rest of the body remaining still.
Sonnini’s interest was far ranging enough to include a typical belly dance, even if it was of "great indecency." It seems a pity that he found Alexandria a "den of thieves" and Cairo a place of "barbarous" people. The 1770’s in Egypt were not yet the most receptive years for the coming of the European hordes.
As a naturalist, he described the animals, fish, trees and plants he was able to observe, sometimes in great detail. Using the developing scientific methods of his time he attempted to evaluate each animal which he encountered by comparison with the same species as found in other parts of the world. Of the people, he speaks of physical appearance, dress, personal customs, such as the use of Kohl and henna, female circumcision and tattooing, but for the
Egyptian male, he had few sympathetic words. Because his contacts were most probably restricted to men, he could form a more telling impression of them. To Sonnini the Egyptian man was lazy, ignorant, intolerant and unlikely to change.
Sonnini made a trip to the "Wadi Natrun, a somewhat unusual venture for an early traveler, and he examined the Rosetta branch of the Nile in the delta with considerable interest, for he was amazed to see how many ruins there were to be found along the banks of that water-way. His inspection of the interior of the Great Pyramid at Giza was hurried and "fearful" because he was concerned for his safety. It is not clear, from his description, if he actually visited Saqqara at all.
On the 21st of March, 1778, he departed from Boulaq on the voyage which would take him as Lar south as Luxor. The mud huts of the dwellers on the Nile caught his eye, as did the peasants working the shaduf, the lever-like device for raising water to the level of the fields. His progress south is easy to trace on a map because he names every village, many of which still exist.
On a brief stop at Antinoopolis he saw the triumphal arch, still standing, which has since vanished. He set his draftsman the task of drawing the structure but this was interrupted by the approach of a gang of "robbers." He was told by the local people that the doors from this arch or gateway had been covered with plates of iron but they had been transported to Cairo by a "devil." At Dendera Sonnini had the good fortune to be entertained by an "emir" who provided him with horses, guides and even the offer of workmen if he had wanted to try his hand at excavation.
"I found myself before one of the most beautiful monuments of ancient Egypt,
which time, and the fatal genius of destruction, had equally assailed; but which,
in part, withstood their strokes and their efforts...this is one of the most striking
edifices on which antiquity has endeavored to impress the seal of immortality..."
His admiration for the temple of Dendera was almost without bounds; his wrath against the local fellahs who had contributed to its defacement was as strong. From Dendera he proceeded south toward Luxor, with stops on the way. One sentiment that is echoed by almost every traveler deserves quoting:
"(of the insects) the most numerous and troublesome, are the flies, both man
and beast are cruelly tormented by them. No idea can be formed of their obstinate
rapacity, when they wish to fix on some part of the body. It is vain to drive them
away, they return again in the self same moment, and their perseverance wearies
out the most patient spirit."
The flies of Egypt seem to have a character of their own; it is no different today than it was in Sonnini’s time. He was also constantly annoyed by the presence of lice. The search for body lice he and his companions characterized as "hunting a la Turque". In mid-July he arrived at the "miserable village" of Karnak which he was aware to be part of ancient Thebes. Like every traveler, on first seeing the ancient monuments, he was moved to record his impression in descriptions which were almost poetic.
"I felt inclined more than once to prostrate myself in token of veneration
before monuments, the rearing of which appeared to transcend the strength and
genius of man...Let the so much boasted fabrics of Greece and Rome come and
bow down before the temples and the palaces of the Thebes of Egypt. Its lofty
ruins are still more striking than their gaudy ornaments; its gigantic wrecks are
more majestic than their perfect preservation."
He began his tour on horseback but was unable to complete either the inspection of the ruins or the drawings that he had wished to make of them. He suddenly found himself in the center of a war zone where the forces of Muraud Bey and those of his enemies made the examination of ancient remains a dangerous occupation. Delaying his departure, much against the wishes of the Sheik of Luxor who feared for Sonnini’s safety, he crossed to the west bank to visit Gourna to attempt to see the ruins on the other side of the river. Although his companions were afraid for their safety, on his arrival Sonnini immediately began to bargain for antiquities. He was able to visit some of the ruins including a "superb portico" and the fragments of a colossal statue he identified as "Memnon." His description is somewhat vague and he may have seen the Ramesseum, the mortuary temple of Ramesses II, with its gigantic fallen statue of that king, but
he might just as easily have been describing the Temple of Seti I.
One of the disappointments of his trip through Egypt he describes in the following manner:
"I was very desirous to visit some spacious grottos, cut in the rock, about a
league to the west of Gourna, the sepulchers of the ancient monarchs of Thebes.
But I could find nobody who would undertake to conduct me thither; the Sheik
himself assured me that the people of Gourna being at war with some neighboring
villages, a few of whose inhabitants they had lately killed, it would be imprudent
to expose myself with guides taken from among them, who, far from affording
me protection, would rather be the cause of bringing down upon my head the
effects of an implacable revenge."
After having made his way up the Nile to Luxor and Gourna, Sonnini was prevented from even visiting the tombs of the kings and the nobles and had to be content with escaping with his life. The English clergyman, Richard Pococke and the Danish naval officer, Frederick Norden, who were both in Egypt in 1737-38 were successful in visiting the royal tombs, and must have arrived at a time of more peaceful conditions in the mid-eighteenth century than Sonnini found at this later date, but to find local villages in peace with each other in Egypt is still sometimes a matter of chance.
Sonnini and his party stayed the night at Gourna, a rest which was disturbed in turn by a pack of gigantic rats and the collapse of part of the house wall. The remainder of the night was spent in "...walking in the open air, with our muskets on our shoulders." He encountered difficulties leaving Gourna by boat and was obliged to travel on horseback to Naqada and Qus. As he made his way north, he re-visited Dendera and at Balyana he heard descriptions of ruins but was unable to see them. What he missed was presumably the site of Abydos. North of Manfalut a fight broke out on the boat that they had acquired; four deserters from the army of Murad Bey had been allowed to join the party by the reis, head man, of the vessel. When they discovered that Sonnini and his companions were Europeans, they missed no opportunity to insult the infidels. He broke up the resulting fight by applying the flat of his saber to the shoulders of the aggressors, but the result to him was that he saw the ruins of Antinoopolis for the second time from the safety of the ship’s cabin. He was brought to trial at El Minya for the crime of having struck a Muslim but he had well learned the customs of the country during the course of his trip and simply bribed his way out of the difficulty.
On the fourth of September, 1776, he returned to Cairo after an absence of five months. After a few days rest at Rosetta,
one of the Egyptian cities that pleased his European sensibility the most, he found passage on a ship bound for Smyrna. On the 17th of October he sailed from Alexandria and "soon lost sight of the flat and naked regions of a country where the prodigies of art seemed to vie with the wonders of nature".
Sonnini left an account of Egypt that differs somewhat from other travelers. He was trained as a naturalist and his observations of the country are colored by that discipline. His picture of Egypt in 1778 is one of a situation filled with danger for the traveling foreigner. He was often concerned for his safety. Of Baron de Tott, the leader of the expedition commissioned by the King of France, we learn very little.
Sonnini had a low estimation of the Egyptian people and compared Egypt to the Europe he knew to the discredit of the country he was seeing for the first time. His narrative is uneven, but it reflects his diverse interests as well as the ever-changing conditions of travel. In its published version, the travel journal is amplified by comments and opinions added at a much later time. Its popularity in English translation was due to the recent invasion of Egypt by Bonaparte, and Sonnini’s Travels were offered to the English public as an exposure of the bckground to the current political situation. Sonnini’s original stated purpose was to evaluate Egypt as a possible French colony and the publication of his accounts clearly revealed that French designs on Egypt had a long history. The French Savants who were to accompany
Napoleon accomplished much of what Sonnini had attempted. They were able to succeed to a greater extent because of their number, areas of specialization, extended time, and proper equipment. Working independently, Sonnini did not have their advantages, but he left his own memorable account in his "Travels".
1 DE TOTT (1784) was a French officer who had acted as an advisor to the Turkish army and was considered an expert
on the Muslim East. His stated mission was to inspect French establishments in the Eastern Mediterranean but his
actual charge was to investigate the possibilities of making Egypt a colony of France (HEROLD 1962).
2 All quotations as well as information on the life of Sonnini are taken from C. S. SONNINI 1799 "engineer in the French
Navy and member of several scientific and literary societies".
3 "The publication of M. SONNINI’S Travels throws considerable light on Bonaparte’s expedition. …our author is a very
good observer of what is, but he knows nothing of what will be; he is an excellent naturalist, but a most wretched
prophet… These Travels, and the political and commercial views which they unfold, are peculiarly interesting to
Great Britain at this crisis." Travels, Tranlator’s preface, dated 9th of August, 1799.
Bibliography
SONNINI, C. S.
1799 Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt undertaken by order of the old government of France, H. HUNTER (trans.), VOLS.1-3, London.
FRANÇOIS, BARON DE TOTT
1784 Mémoires du baron de Tott, sur les Turcs et les Tartares, Paris.
HEROLD, C. J.
1962 Bonaparte in Egypt, London