49 Egypt. This campaign was not purely military in nature. Rather, it had other scientific and cultural aspects, and it was thanks to this campaign that the Arab Renaissance was rekindled. A so-called Scientific Commission comprising some 167 French scientists did excellent work in their Description de l’Égypte (1809–1822), a unique publication and an in-depth study in the field of archaeology, population, medicine and the arts. Napoleon also brought with him on board his ship, L’Orient , a printing press on which was later published the famousCall to the People of Egypt . This was thus the first Arabic press ever seen in Egypt. Furthermore, it was Napoleon who established Egypt’s postal services in 1798 and saw to the publication by his Scientific Academy of the periodical al-‘Ashriyya al-Masriyya . The nineteenth century saw the beginnings of a real renaissance in Oriental Studies in France. Any European seeking to acquire solid knowledge about the civilisations of the Near East had to go to the École spéciale des langues orientales, ( * ) estab- lished by the Convention in Paris in 1795. The school was established in an atmosphere of revolutionary zeal and with efforts exerted by the linguist Louis-Mathieu Langlès, and Silvestre de Sacy (1759–1838) was appointed as its first Professor of Arabic. This period also saw the establishment of the Parisian Société Asiatique in 1822, with de Sacy as its first President and with its own periodical that started to appear * Now named l’Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO).
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