and the departure of the French army; crimes had been committed, and the
Christians had been massacred in several quarters. Kleber laid siege to
it; the resistance was long and furious, and it was as conquerors that the
French re-entered the city which formerly cost them such slight efforts.
All the rebel cities of Lower Egypt were again brought back into obedience
to France. The war indemnities and the prizes taken from the enemy
restored the finances. Kleber labored for the completion of the forts
scattered over the hills; he enrolled Copts, Syrians, and some blacks from
Darfour; he treated with Murad Bey, who had driven from Upper Egypt the
Turkish corps of Dervish Pacha; Ibrahim Bey and Nassif Pacha, who had
sustained the revolt of Cairo, obtained an authorization to retire. Egypt
appeared to be once more submissive; but the illusions which the
Mohammedans had conceived were promptly dissipated: they recognized their
traditional enemies, and the old fanaticism was reawakened. An assassin
had already arrived in Cairo from Palestine, and shut up in the great
mosque he had confided to the sheiks his project of killing General
Kleber. They sought to dissuade him from it, but without informing the
French. On the 14th of June, as the general was walking in his garden with
the architect of the army, Suleiman presented himself before him,
pretending to ask alms, and struck him several times with his dagger. The
architect was wounded in striving to defend Kleber. When the soldiers came
hurrying up the general had already breathed his last. The assassin made
no attempt to flee; he expired under torture. At Cairo, and on the
battlefield of Marengo, Kleber and Desaix succumbed on the same day, and
almost at the same hour, both young, and serving to their last day the
designs of the chief to whom they were very unequally attached. The First
Consul wished to unite them in the same patriotic honors; he had never had
much liking for Kleber, but he did not the less keenly feel the greatness
of his loss. General Menou, who took by seniority the command of the army
of Egypt was incapable, and of a chimerical spirit. Bonaparte comprehended