Cour­tesy of Michelle Cameron

1. As was com­mon dur­ing this time in his­to­ry, when it became known that Mirelle had slept with a sol­dier with­out mar­ry­ing him, her rep­u­ta­tion was ruined. Clear­ly, our sen­si­tiv­i­ties are dif­fer­ent now. What do you think Mirelle could have done to change her ​“ruined” status?
2. It is his­toric fact that Napoleon man­aged to con­ceal that he planned to invade Egypt from most of his troops – who were still eager to fol­low him – as well as the savants who had no idea where they were head­ing. Can you con­ceive of so many men blind­ly fol­low­ing a mil­i­tary leader today? Do you feel their loy­al­ty was war­rant­ed? Was this blind faith in one man dangerous?
3. How could the out­come of Napoleon’s expe­di­tion have changed had Robe­spierre deliv­ered on his promise to inform the sul­tan that the gen­er­al was only seek­ing to free Egypt from the grip of the Mamelukes? Do you think the sul­tan would have accept­ed this excuse? Should Napoleon have heed­ed Ethan’s (fic­tion­al) warn­ing that the sul­tan was not informed?
4. Napoleon is con­sid­ered one of the world’s great­est mil­i­tary strate­gists and tac­ti­cians. Did his many mis­takes in Egypt and Israel – march­ing through the desert with woolen uni­forms and no water, for instance – change your mind about this assessment?
5. Napoleon’s own troops – includ­ing his gen­er­al staff – were frus­trat­ed by his mis­takes. Yet his charis­ma meant that he kept tight con­trol of the expe­di­tion, despite the com­plaints he field­ed. Daniel and Christophe dif­fered great­ly in their atti­tude toward the gen­er­al as a result of these mis­takes. If you had been a young offi­cer in Napoleon’s army, how would you have reacted?
6. Al-Jabar­ti was actu­al­ly a real-life per­son, and many of his thoughts about the French are con­tained in his Chron­i­cle of the French Occu­pa­tion. What did you think about this char­ac­ter? How much was he influ­enced by his own bias when it came to describ­ing the French?
7. Napoleon, whose views on reli­gion were pri­mar­i­ly dic­tat­ed by prag­mati­cism and mil­i­tary expe­di­en­cy, attempt­ed to win over the Egyp­tians by pre­tend­ing to be an adher­ent to Islam. Why do you think he wasn’t successful?
8. Do you believe that Napoleon actu­al­ly issued his Procla­ma­tion to the Jews? His­to­ri­ans dif­fer fierce­ly on whether this actu­al­ly hap­pened or not. Do you think he sent out such a doc­u­ment? And do you believe he would have hon­ored this procla­ma­tion if he had tri­umphed in Israel?
9. Napoleon, who admired Alexan­der the Great, wished to head to India after con­quer­ing Egypt, par­tic­u­lar­ly to rob his ene­my, the British, of that country’s rich­es. Clear­ly he did not suc­ceed. How do you believe world his­to­ry might have changed if he had?
10. In Beyond the Ghet­to Gates, we have very lit­tle sym­pa­thy for Ancona’s rab­bi. Has his attempts to help Mirelle in Napoleon’s Mirage changed your opin­ion about him?
11. Mirelle breaks her engage­ment to the bak­er, Jacopo, when she dis­cov­ers that Daniel was unable to respond to her let­ters due to the British block­ade of French ships. What do you think about her treat­ment of him?
12. The fact that the British block­ade pre­vent­ed Daniel and Mirelle from cor­re­spond­ing had a huge impact on their rela­tion­ship in this nov­el. In this day of email, texts, video chats, etc., this is almost incon­ceiv­able to mod­ern read­ers. Did you ever expe­ri­ence a time when you could not com­mu­ni­cate with some­one? How did that make you feel?
13. Toward the end of the nov­el, Napoleon was will­ing to poi­son his plague-rid­den troops and then aban­doned the entire army to chase his polit­i­cal ambi­tions. Did these actions change your opin­ion about him?