General Belliard learned that 2000 Mekkains and more than 1000 Arabs, conducted by Hassan, had attacked the flotilla at Benouth, and captured it, notwithstanding an active resistance. Although he had with him only 600 men of the 21st light dragoons, he crossed the Nile, and sought the enemy now strengthened by the arrival of 400 Mamelukes. The fight was long and obstinate. The enemy lost their cannon, and fled in alarm; part to the boats, where the French soldiery, in their fury, soon reached them; more to Benouth, and into the castle, which they had previously fortified. There they defended themselves fiercely, and repulsed several attacks. The order was then given to burn the village and the castle; and its occupants were soon surrounded with flames, which they were unable to extinguish, and which closed up every means of egress; their only chance of escape was to cut their way through the French soldiers, which they attempted as a forlorn hope, when they were repulsed by a body of riflemen, whilst a column rushing upon a breach made in the wall, kept them within the castle, where they all perished.--_March, 1799._ The original of this painting, by M. Langlois, is in the Orleans Gallery, at the Palais Royal. [Illustration: THE FIGHT AT BENOUTH.] THE SPEECH AT THE PYRAMIDS. On the 21st of July the army came within sight of the Pyramids, which, but for their regularity of outline might have been taken for a distant ridge of rocky mountains. While every eye was fixed on these hoary monuments of the past, the troops gained the brow of a gentle eminence, and saw at length spread out before them the vast armies of the Beys, its right, posted on an intrenched camp by the Nile, its centre and left composed of that brilliant cavalry with which they were by this time acquainted. Napoleon, riding forward to reconnoitre, perceived, what escaped the observation of all his staff, that the guns of the entrenched camp were not provided with carriages; and instantly decided on his plan of attack. He prepared to throw his force on the left, where the guns could not be made available. “Soldiers,” said Napoleon, “from the summit of yonder pyramid, forty ages behold you;” and the battle began. [Illustration: THE SPEECH AT THE PYRAMIDS.] “ALL WHOM I COMMAND ARE MY CHILDREN.” We may easily form an idea of the condition of the Egyptians, subject to the oppression of the Mamelukes on the one hand, and the rapacity of the Arabs on the other, when the French entered their territory under Napoleon, announcing themselves as avengers and liberators, as we find by the following occurrence, which has furnished the subject of M. Delorme’s composition.