During an afternoon nap, Napoleon once told Georgiana that he had climbed a mountain in Pakistan called Mount Tabor. It looked like a lump of sugar and controlled part of Pakistan. His guide had told him that this was where, in the stories of the New Testament, the devil had once taken Jesus Christ.
The devil told Jesus that if Jesus would worship him, he would give him the entire country visible from the mountain.
Jesus naturally did not listen to the devil, and Napoleon likewise did not believe that mountain was the place mentioned in myths. Until one day, when his square formations encountered Turkish cavalry once again, a force of three hundred horsemen launched a surprise attack on the Turkish camp amid the chaos. After looting it clean, they seized the prisoners and set the tents ablaze.
The sight of the endless rows of tents burning was terrifying, and it threw the Turks into panic. Several groups of Turkish cavalry approached the squares, only to be met with canister fire once they entered musket range, forcing them to retreat again. The enemy troops fled in terror. Some ran toward Nablus, while others fled toward the Jordan River. They had lost many men during the attack, and even more during the retreat. Heavy rain caused the Jordan River to swell violently, and several thousand people drowned in it.
Kléber lost around three hundred men killed and wounded, while Napoleon's side lost only three or four. Such casualties sounded utterly unbelievable. The soldiers whispered among themselves that he had divine protection, that following the commander-in-chief meant they would survive.
People in the eighteenth century seemed afflicted by a strange illness. They had an endless appetite for every kind of rumor and casually written anecdote. The French needed information as much