150 JOSEPH FOURIER. 



indebted for an oflensive aud defensive treaty of alliance Avitb Mourad 

 Bey. Justly proud of this result, Fourier omitted to make known the 

 details of the negotiation. This is deeply to be regretted, for the pleni- 

 potentiary of Mourad was a woman, the same Sitty Nefigah whom Kle- 

 ber has immortalized by proclaiming lier hcnejicence, her noble character, 

 in the bulletin of Heliopolis. and who, moreover, was already celebrated 

 from one extremity of Asia to the other, in consequence of the bloody 

 revolutions which her unparalleled beauty had excited among the 

 Mamelukes. 



The incomparable victory which Kleber gained over the army of the 

 Grand Vizier did not damp the energy of the janissaries, who had seized 

 upon Cairo while the war was raging at Heliopolis. They defended 

 themselves from house to house with heroic courage. The besieged had 

 to choose between the entire destruction of the city and an honorable 

 capitulation. The latter alternative was adopted. Fourier, charged, 

 as usual, with the negotiations, conducted them to a favorable issue ; 

 but on this occasion the treaty was not discussed, agreed to, aud signed 

 within the mysterious precincts of a harem, upon downy couches, under 

 the shade of balmy groves. The preliminary discussions were held in 

 a house half ruined by bullets and grape-shot, in the center of the 

 quarter of which the insurgents valiantly disputed the possession with 

 our soldiers, before even it would have been possible to agree to the 

 basis of a treaty of a few hours. Accordingly, when Fourier was pre- 

 paring to celebrate the welcome of the Turkish commissioner conform- 

 ably to oriental usages, a great number of musket-shots were iired from 

 the house in front, and a ball passed through the cofiee-i)ot which he 

 was holding in liis band. Without calling in question the bravery of 

 any person, do you not think, gentlemen, that if diplomatists were usu- 

 ally placed in equally perilous positions, the public would have less rea- 

 son to complain of their proverbial slowness 1 



In order to exhibit, under one point of view, the various administrative 

 duties of our indefatigable colleague, I should liave to show him to you 

 on board the English fleet, at the instant of the capitulation of Menou, 

 stipulating for certain guarantees in favor of the members of the Insti- 

 tute of Egypt ; but services of no less importance and of a different nature 

 demand also our attention. They will even compel us to retrace our 

 steps, to ascend even to the epoch of glorious memory when Desaix 

 achieved the concjuest of Upper Egypt, as much by the sagacity, the 

 moderation, and the inflexible justice of all his acts, as by the rapidity 

 and boldness of his military operations. Bonaparte then appointed two 

 numerous commissions to proceed to explore in those remote regions a 

 multitude of nu)iiuments of which the moderns hardly suspected the 

 existence. Fourier and Costas were the commandants of these com- 

 missions. I say tlie coiumiuulants, for a sufficiently imposing military 

 force had been assigned to them: since it was freipiently after a (rombat 

 Aviih the wandeiing triU^s of Arabs that the astronomer found in the 



