Napoleon Bonaparte's descendants witness retrieval of three cannons from sunken French fleet

Count and countess De Bonaparte, grand children of French leader Napoleon Bonaparte arrived yesterday in Alexandria to witness the retrieval of pieces there of Napoleon's fleet, which was sunk in the sea in the French defeat in the maritime battle of Abu Keir at the hands of the British in August 1798.

The most important of these pieces are three huge cannons of bronze and 500 pieces of golden, silver and bronze currency that were salaries for the campaign's soldiers.

The chairman of the European Institute of Marine Archaeology, Franck Goddio, was able to determine the location of the shipwreck in association with the Egyptian Higher Council for Antiquities.

Goddio said the remains of the French flagship, L'Orient, provided new information about the ship's fate.

"Our underwater explorations around L'Orient have not only revealed thousand of new artifacts, but give us a better idea of how the ship exploded," Goddio said.

He added, "The explosion scattered artifacts over 60 meters, giving us an idea of the explosion which killed 800 men in less than half a second. Shoes, bits of clothes, a gold buckle, silverware, cooking pots were all found close to L'Orient."