| |
|
|
|
|
| |
THIS MONTH'S PAINTING
Basking in the afterglow of the Musée de Malmaison exhibition, 'The Empress and her painters', we here bring you 'François I and the queen of Navarre', a painting by Fleury Richard, a specialist in the Troubadour style several of whose works Josephine had in her collection.
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO
30 Nivôse, An XII, (21 January, 1804), the Mameluks were incorporated into the Regiment of Chasseurs à cheval of the Garde Impériale. There were about 240 of them.
The word "mameluk" comes from the Arabic verb "malaka" which means "possess". In the eleventh century, the Turcoman tribes imposed their power upon the Abbasids who were based in Baghdad and sold to them young children seized on raids in Georgia and Circassia and who had been trained to bear weapons. The fame of these children's boldness and skill spread so far and wide that even merchants commissioned by the Sultans of Cairo came to Georgia and Circassia to buy them and to bring them to Egypt further to trained in wielding of sabres and pistols. The mamluks thus became the elite of the Ayyubid army. However in the middle of the 13th century, in full confidence after their victories over the Crusaders, the mamluks of Egypt overthrew the Ayyubid dynasty, thus marking the beginning of several mamluk dynasties. In 1517, Selim I put an end to the independence of Egypt, making it an Ottoman province, itself divided up into 24 sub-provinces each administered by a mamluk Bey. In 1767, Ali Bey, spokesman for the 24 Beys, seized power and proclaimed himself the "Great Sultan of Egypt".
At the moment when Napoleon arrived in Egypt, this province was administered principally by Mourad Bey (army) and Ibrahim Bey (administration), both appointed by Constantinople. There were about 8 to 9,000 mamluks, not one of whom was an indigenous Egyptian. On 21 July, 1798, the French army was victorious at the encounter known as the Battle of the Pyramids, against 60,000 men, of which about 6,000 were mamluks. Shortly after the disaster of Aboukir, Bonaparte decided to make up for losses by enrolling mamluks (21 Fructidor, An VI / 7 September, 1798). On 14 december, 1799, Kleber created a company of mounted mamluk auxillaries. General Menou re-organised this on 18 Messidor, An VIII (7 July, 1800) creating a regiment of "Mameluks de la République".
When the French capitulated at Alexandria, 8 Messidor, An IX (27 June, 1801), several hundred mamluks and their families embarked with the French army for France. On 21 Vendémiaire, An X (13 October, 1801), a measure passed by the First Consul created the first squadron of mamluks under the orders of Colonel Barthélémy, and later Brigadier General Rapp. The 'Corps des Mameluks' appeared for the first time on parade on 25 Messidor, An X (14 July, 1802). They distinguished themselves notably at Austerlitz and in the Pensinsular War (2 May, 1808). During the Empire period, Frenchmen were to enter the corps. With the fall of the Empire, the mamluks were disbanded (end of July 1815), and those who took refuge in Marseilles were slaughtered. In Egypt, Méhémet Ali between 1810 and 1812 managed to rid himself of the last mamluks and their families.
One of the most famous mamluks was Roustam. Offered to Bonaparte by the Pasha of Cairo, this Georgian slave (born in Tiflis circa 1780) became the 'mameluk de l'Empereur', a sort of body guard, and he accompanied Napoleon in all of his campaigns up until the abdication at Fontainebleau on 11 April, 1814. Roustam decided to leave Napoleon at that time (without explaining why), shortly after the Emperor's attempt at suicide, fearing that he would be held responsible. He settled in Dourdan (50km south-west of Paris), dying there in December 1845. In 1806 he had married Alexandrine Douville, daughter of Josephine's Premier valet de chambre. Their children were a boy (who died young) and a girl.
Napoleon's second mamluk bore the name Aly or Ali. However, his real name was Louis-Etienne Saint-Denis, born in Versailles in 1788 to a family of servants to the Royal House going back several generations. After having been a solicitor's clerk, in 1806 he entered the 'écuries' of the 'Maison de l'Empereur' (the Imperial house). In 1811 he joined Napoleon's personal service as 'second mamluk' ('aide-porte-arquebuse/'aid and bearer of the arquebus'). He accompanied Napoleon on his campaigns, to Elba, during the Hundred Days, and finally to Saint Helena where in 1819 he married Mary Hall (governess to the Bertrand children); here the first of his three daughters was born. He died in Sens on 9 May, 1856, thirty-five years to the day after Napoleon's first burial.
See also the Mamluk harness in THIS MONTH'S OBJECT
Bibliography:
- Journal du Retour des Cendres. 1840, du Mameluck Ali. Manuscrits déchiffrés, annotés et présentés par J. Jourquin, Ed. Tallandier, 2003.
- Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena; personal recollections of the emperor's second mamluke and valet, Louis Etienne St. Denis (known as Ali), by Saint-Denis, Louis Etienne, translated from the French by Frank Hunter Potter, New York: Harper, 1922, 302 p.
- L'odyssée mamelouke. A l'ombre des armées napoléoniennes, de B. Kasbarian-Bricout, Ed. L'Harmattan, 1988.
- Les mameloucks d'Egypte. Les mameluks de la Garde impériale, de Jean et Raoul Brunon, 1957.
- Les Mamelouks de Napoléon, de Jean Savant, Ed. Calmann-Lévy, 1949.
Wishing you an excellent, Napoleonic, week!
Peter Hicks
Historian and Web editor
|
|
|
|
|
|
THIS WEEK:
What's on
- Conference: The emperor's residences in Italy, Lucca (Italy)
- Conference: Talleyrand, prince of negotiators
- Exhibition: Elisa's Days: the public and private life of a princess, Lucca (Italy)
- Exhibition: Art booty in the Napoleonic period. The "French gift" to Mainz, 1803
Recently published
- 1812: Napoleon's Russian Campaign, by Richard K. Riehn
- Earl Bathurst and the British Empire, by Neville Thompson
Web sites
Goethe portal
Go to the Napoleonic Directory and select 'Databases' in the web sites scroll bar menu
The monthly titles
- This month's book: Napoleon Guide, Guides Gallimard
- This month's painting: François I and the queen of Navarre, by Fleury Richard
- This month's article: The History of Lord Seaton's Regiment, (The 52nd Light Infantry) at the Battle of Waterloo, Chapter Four, by William Leake
- In the Collectors Corner, a leaf from Napoleon's coronation crown
<<
|
|
