He found it crowded with the French. Having sold his sheep, he had wandered about among the soldiers, and had entered into conversation with some of the natives who had been engaged at Cairo as drivers of the baggage-carts. From them he had learned that the French general-in-chief, Menou, who had succeeded Kleber on the latter's assassination at Cairo, was himself there, and that he intended to attack at once with the troops he had brought, and with those in the city. As soon as he obtained this news he returned to the village, changed his dress, mounted, and rode off at full speed.