The French made full use of their printing press, medical instruments, telescopes, clocks, electricity, balloons and other modern wonders to try to awe them, which al-Jabartī readily admitted did ‘baffle the mind’, but none of it appears to have advanced their cause politically. (When Berthollet demonstrated a chemical experiment at the Institut, a sheikh asked whether it could enable him to be in Morocco and Egypt at the same time. Berthollet replied with a Gallic shrug, which led the sheikh to conclude: ‘Ah well, he isn’t such a sorcerer after all.’
