PTOLEMAIS  
However indifferent Bonaparte was in regard to Jerusalem, having passed within twenty miles of it without tarrying to visit it, he was none the less interested in the ground on which he stood. Being unable, or not having cared to do as Alexander did at the time of his conquest of India, to go out of his way to visit the high-priest of Jerusalem, he regarded it as some compensation to stand upon the ancient site of Ptolemais, and to set up his tent where Richard C?ur-de-Lion and Philippe-Auguste had set up theirs.
Far from being indifferent to his historical surroundings, his heart rejoiced in it; and he had chosen the little hill where he had watched the fight on the first day as his headquarters, confident that the heroes who had preceded him had placed their banners on the same spot.
But he, the first of the leaders of political crusades, following the banner of his own fortune and leaving behind him all the religious beliefs which had led millions of men to the same place, from Godfrey de Bouillon to Saint Louis—he, on the contrary, brought in his train the science of the eighteenth century, of Volney and Dupuis; or, in other words, scepticism.
While caring little for Christian traditions, he was on the other hand deeply interested in historical legends.
The very evening of the unfortunate assault in which poor Mailly had perished by the same death as his brother, he assembled his officers and generals in his tent, and ordered Bourrienne to take the few books which composed his library from the boxes. Unfortunately it contained but few historical works relating to Syria. He had only Plutarch, the lives of Cicero, Pompey, Alexander and Antony;[Pg 602] and in the way of political literature he had only the Old and New Testaments and a Mythology.
He gave each of the books which we have just named to the most literary of his generals or his young friends, and then called upon the historical reminiscences of the others, which, combined with his own, formed the only information which he could obtain in that desert country. Thus he was but incompletely informed. We who, more fortunate than he, have the literature of the Crusades before our eyes, can raise the veil of centuries for our readers, and give them the history of this little corner of the earth, from the time when it fell to the share of the tribe of Asher in the distribution of the Promised Land, until the day when Richard C?ur-de-Lion endeavored to take it for the third time from the Saracens.
Its old name was Acco, meaning "burning sands," and the Arabs still call it Acca. Made tributary to Egypt by the kings of the Greek dynasty of Ptolemy, who inherited Alexandria upon the death of the conqueror of the Indies, it bore the name of Ptolemais about one hundred and six years before the birth of Christ.
Vespasian, when preparing his expedition against Judea, spent three months at Ptolemais, and held court there for the kings and princes of the adjacent countries.
It was there that Titus saw Berenice, daughter of Agrippa I., and fell in love with her.
But Bonaparte had nothing relating to this period save a tragedy of Racine's, fragments of which he was wont to make Talma declaim with great frequency.
The Acts of the Apostles says: "From Tyre we came to Ptolemais, where our voyage ended, and having saluted our brethren, we abode one day with them." As you know, Saint Paul says that, and it was he who came from Tyre to Ptolemais.
The first siege of Ptolemais by the Crusaders began in 1189. Boah-Eddin, an Arab historian, says, in speaking of the Christians, that they were so numerous that God[Pg 603] alone could number them. But on the other hand a Christian author, one Gauthier Yinisauf, chronicler of Richard C?ur-de-Lion, assures us that Saladin's army was more numerous than that of Darius.
After the battle of Tiberius (of which we shall have occasion to speak in describing the battle of Mount Tabor), Guy de Lusignan, having escaped from captivity, laid siege to Jerusalem, whose fortifications had just been rebuilt. Strong towers defended it on the seaward coast. One was called the Tower of the Flies, because the pagans offered up their sacrifices there, and the smell of the human flesh attracted the flies. The other was called the Accursed Tower, because, says Gauthier Vinisauf in his "Itinerary of King Richard," it was in this tower that the pieces of silver were struck for which Judas sold Christ.
It was by this very same old "accursed tower" that the Saracens made their way into the city in 1291.
Although he was ignorant of the fact, that was the very tower which Bonaparte had so unsuccessfully attacked. Walter Scott, in one of his best novels, "The Talisman," has related an incident of this famous siege, which lasted two years. The Arab histories, much less well-known than the French, contain some interesting data concerning this siege.
Ibn-Alatir, one of Saladin's physicians, has, among others, left us an interesting account of the Mussulman camp.
"In the midst of the camp (it is Ibn-Alatir who is speaking) was a vast square where the farriers' forges were located. There were one hundred and forty of them. We can judge of the rest of the camp in proportion.
"In a single kitchen there were twenty-nine pots, each one large enough to hold a sheep. I myself counted the number of shops registered as markets. I counted seven thousand. You must know that they are not like our city shops. A shop in a camp would make a hundred of ours. All were well supplied. I have heard that when Saladin changed his camp to retire to Karouba, although the dis[Pg 604]tance was short, that it cost one butter-merchant seventy gold pieces to move his shop. As for the old and new clothes shops, they were something beyond description. There were more than one thousand baths in the camp. They were kept by Africans, and it cost a piece of silver to take a bath.
"The camp of the Christians was like a fortified city. All the trades and all the mechanical arts were represented there."
The markets were supplied with meat, fish ............