tant, an officer sent from Minorca with a letter from
Lord Keith to Kleber, arrived at the headquarters. Kleber, fired with
indignation at the demand for surrender, caused Lord Keith's letter
to be inserted in the order of the day, adding to it these few words:
"Soldiers, to such insults there is no other answer than victory.
Prepare for action."

Agents from Sir Sidney had hastened up to interpose between the French
and the Turks, and to make fresh proposals of accommodation. Letters,
they said, had just been written to London, and, when the convention of
El Arish was known there, it would be ratified to a certainty; in this
situation, it would not be right to suspend hostilities, and wait. To
this the grand vizier and Kleber consented, but on conditions that were
irreconcilable. The grand vizier insisted that Cairo should be given up
to him; Kleber, on the contrary, that the vizier should fall back to the
frontier. Under these conditions, fighting was the only resource.

On the 20th of March, 1800, in the plain of Heliopolis, ten thousand
soldiers, by superiority in discipline and courage, dispersed seventy
or eighty thousand foes. Kleber gave orders for the pursuit on the
following day. When he had ascertained with his own eyes that the
Turkish army had disappeared, he resolved to return and reduce the towns
of Lower Egypt, and Cairo in particular, to their duty.

He arrived at Cairo on the 27th of March. Important events had occurred
there since his departure. The population of that great city, which
numbered nearly three hundred thousand inhabitants, fickle, inflammable,
inclined to change, had followed the suggestions of Turkish emissaries,
and fallen upon the French the moment they heard the cannon at
Heliopolis. Pouring forth outside the walls during the battle, and
seeing Nassif-Pasha and Ibrahim Bey, with some thousand horse and
janizaries, they supposed them to be the conquerors. Taking good care
not to undeceive the inhabitants, the Turks affirmed that the grand
vizier had gained a complete victory, and that the French were
exterminated. At these tidings, fifty thousand men had risen in Cairo,
at Bulak, and at Gizeh, and Cairo became a scene of plunder, rapine, and
murder.

[Illustration: 137.jpg CITADEL OF CAIRO]

During these transactions, General Friant arrived, detached from
Belbeys, and lastly Kleber himself. Though conqueror of the grand
vizier's army, Kleber had a serious difficulty to surmount t