BARON LARREY. 199 



food or potable water. However, the troops took 

 hope and courage, and assaulted the outworks of the 

 city with alacrity, and carried them by storm. In the 

 barracks were sick and disabled Mamelukes, Bedouin 

 Arabs, and Oriental tramps, and here for the first time 

 was seen evidence of the bubonic plague. A number 

 of the French soldiers took the disease, and in a few 

 days the army was threatened with the hateful mal- 

 ady. After the siege of Acre was entered upon, and 

 prisoners from sorties were captured, it was ascer- 

 tained that the besieged were afflicted with "the 

 plague." Under the circumstances, it is no wonder 

 the siege was not conducted more vigorously. Not 

 well men enough could be found to excavate parallels 

 and to conduct hand-to-hand assaults. About twenty 

 thousand English soldiers had been thrown into the 

 city to help the Turks in the defense of the fortress. 

 The French were greatly dispirited through fear of 

 the pestilence. Following the u chill of invasion " 

 came the dreadful aching in the bones and muscles, 

 swelling of the lymphatics in the axilse and groins, 

 suppuration, delirium, and death. One day, while 

 Napoleon was walking through the hospitals, he said 

 to Drs. Desgenettes and Larrey, who were in consulta- 

 tion : " Why don't you give these poor fellows a dose 

 of opium and put an end to their sufferings?" Larrey 

 playfully replied : u It is your avocation to kill, and 

 ours to save life." 



After sixty-eight days of varying fortune before 

 the fortifications of Acre, the French army, decimated 

 and discourged, abandoned the fruitless siege and hur- 

 ried back to Egypt. The desert had to be repassed, 

 and the Mamelukes and Bedouins hung on the rear 

 and flanks of the dispirited soldiers, ready to strip 



