hem spoke a
word to him, and Bonaparte well knew that he possessed no protection
against the plague. Is Fortune to be again brought forward here? She
had, in truth, little favoured him during the last few months, when he
had trusted to her favours. I ask, why should he have exposed himself to
certain death, and have left his army in the midst of a desert created by
our ravages, in a desolate town, without succour, and without the hope of
ever receiving any? Would he have acted rightly in doing so--he who was
evidently so necessary, so indispensable to his army; he on whom depended
at that moment the lives of all who lead survived the last disaster, and
who had proved their attachment to him by their sufferings, their
privations, and their unshaken courage, and who had done all that he
could have required of men, and whose only trust was in him?

Bonaparte walked quickly through the rooms, tapping the yellow top of his
boot with a whip he held in his hand. As he passed along with hasty
steps he repeated these words: "The fortifications are destroyed.
Fortune was against me at St. Jean d'Acre. I must return to Egypt to
preserve it from the enemy, who will soon be there: In a few hours the
Turks will be here. Let all those who have strength enough rise and come
along with us. They shall be carried on litters and horses." There were
scarcely sixty cases of plague in the hospital; and all accounts stating
a greater number are exaggerated. The perfect silence, complete
dejection, and general stupor of the patients announced their approaching
end. To carry them away in the state in which they were would evidently
have been doing nothing else than inoculating the rest of the army with
the plague. I have, it is true, learned, since my return to Europe, that
some persons touched the infected with impunity; nay; that others went so
far as to inoculate themselves with the plague in order to learn how to
cure those whom it might attack. It certainly was a special protection
from Heaven to be preserved from it; but to cover in some degree the
absurdity of such a story, it is added that they knew how to elude the
danger, and that any one else who braved it without using precautions met
with death for their temerity. This is, in fact; the whole point of the
question. Either those privileged persons took indispensable
precautions; and in that case their boasted heroism is a mere juggler's
trick; or they touched the infected without using