Egypt, 1800–1820: an Albanian tobacco merchant's son arrives with a Turkish contingent, outlasts the French, the British and the Sultan's governors, and massacres the Mamelukes in the Citadel to make himself Pasha. Mühlbach was Klara Mundt, who wrote nearly three hundred volumes; the rise here is history, and Mehmet Ali's method — patience, then one afternoon of violence — is not softened.