The Tricolor and the Scimitar

Book excerpt: The Tricolor and the Scimitar is the first historical novel in a brilliant and compelling four-part series that recounts Napoleon Bonaparte and l’Armée d’Orient’s invasion and occupation of Egypt and the Holy Land between 1798-1801. The book opens with the conquest of Malta in June 1798 and then moves to Egypt and the death march to Cairo, the Battle of the Pyramids, and the annihilation by Admiral Nelson of the French Mediterranean fleet at the Battle of the Nile. Initially victorious on land but marooned, Bonaparte and his troops of thirty-five thousand soon confront fanatical resistance, insurrection, guerrilla desert warfare, the plague, ancient superstitions, slavery, harems, and the birth of Egyptology. Using nineteenth-century French military records and journals, Lewis brings to life the historical actors of this incredible time in history, from rankers to famous generals, to a young Bonaparte and the ruthless leaders that resisted him.