[4] General Yaqub recruited young Copts from Cairo and Upper Egypt for the Legion.
The Coptic Legion consisted of 2 battalions each with 5 companies, and numbered 896 men, including officers, in 1800.
Under articles 12 and 13 of the treaty signed between France and Great Britain, protection for those who had helped the French was guaranteed.
[15] Nonetheless, most of the members of the Coptic Legion chose to remain in Egypt, and were eventually murdered by the Ottomans.
The Egyptian writer Rifa'a at-Tahtawi recounts in his book Takhlis al-ibriz fi talkhis Bariz about encountering some of the former members of the Legion during his visit to Paris in 1826.