Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/55

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38
ARAGO.

ter, pledged the Khedive to establish a Parliamentary Government. A manifesto was issued by the "National Party" on Dec. 18, 1881, containing an exposition of their views and purposes. They professed loyalty to the Sultan both as Imperial Suzerain and as Caliph of the Mussulman community, but would never suffer Egypt to be reduced to a Turkish Pashalic, and they claimed the guarantee of England and of Europe for the administrative independence of Egypt. They also professed loyalty to the Khedive, but would not acquiesce in a despotic rule, and they insisted upon his promise to govern by the advice of a representative assembly. At the beginning of 1882 the Khedive and Sheriff Pasha called together the Assembly of Notables. Arabi was then appointed Under-Secretary for the War Department, and was raised to the rank of Pasha. The Assembly of Notables wanted to vote the budget. This claim was refused by the Khedive's Government on account of the financial Controllers, and hence arose the Egyptian crisis. Arabi and the army had, however, a monopoly of power. The Khedive was forced to accept a National Ministry, and the Organic Law, adopted in defiance of the protests of the Controllers, placed the Budget in the hands of the Notables, thus subverting the authority of England and France embodied in the Control. Arabi, now substantially Dictator, and supported almost undisguisedly by the Sultan, proceeded to more daring measures. Eventually the English Government felt obliged to intervene by armed force. Then followed the bombardment of Alexandria by the fleet under the command of Sir Beauchamp Seymour (July 11, 1882), and subsequently (Sept. 13), the decisive defeat of Arabi and his army at Tel-el-Kebir by the British troops under Sir Garnet Wolseley. Arabi and his lieutenant, Toulba Pasha, fled to Cairo, where they surrendered to General Drury Lowe. It was intended at first to charge Arabi with murder and incendiarism, but he was actually brought to trial on the simple charge of rebellion (Dec. 3). He pleaded guilty, and was condemned to death, but immediately afterwards the sentence was commuted by the Khedive to perpetual exile from Egypt and its dependencies. Ceylon having been chosen as the place of banishment, Arabi, with other leaders in the rebellion, were landed at Colombo, Jan. 16, 1883.


ARAGO, Etienne, journalist, brother of the late celebrated astronomer, was born at Perpignan, Feb. 9, 1802, studied at the College of Sorrèze, and held, during the Restoration, an appointment in the Polytechnic School, which he resigned to enter upon a literary career. He has written many vaudevilles and melodramas; and established two opposition journals, La Lorgnette and Le Figaro; the latter in conjunction with M. Maurice Alhoy. In 1829 he became director of the Theatre de Vaudeville, the doors of which he closed July 27, 1830, the day after the publication of the ordonnanees of Charles X.; thus being one of the first to give the signal for the Revolution of July. Afterwards, with a number of his friends, he took part in the insurrectionary movements of June and April, 1834; but it was his good fortune to be either unnoticed or forgotten, and he was not included among the accused who expiated their imprudence in St. Pelagie. After the Revolution of 1848 he opposed the policy of Louis Napoleon, and signed the act of accusation against the President and his ministers on the occasion of the siege of Rome. Having quitted France, he was in his absence condemned, in default, to transportation, by the High Court of Versailles, in 1849, and resided in England, Holland, Geneva, and Turin;