Abd al-Rahman al-Jabartī was a scholar born into the intellectual elites of Mamluk-ruled Egypt, one of a family of ulema, or religious scholars. He was living in Cairo when the French invaded in July 1798, and his chronicle was written in the immediate shock of foreign assault, the collapse of the Mamluk order and the imposition of French rule. His vivid account reveals the deep ambiguities, hostility, misunderstandings and curiosity at play in the interactions between local people and the invader. Al-Jabartī was scornful of the ideology of the French, their lack of religion and their bad faith in their relations with Egyptians. He was also particularly appalled by the daily habits of the soldiers who occupied his city. Yet at the same time, he was impressed by the learning of the French scholars with whom he engaged in discussions at the Institut d’Égypte, founded by Bonaparte in August 1798 from among the savants who travelled with the expedition in order to document Egypt’s past and present. He was fascinated, too, by the administrative system introduced by the French and awe-inspired (in this case from a distance) by the French way of waging war.