174 AN ALARMING ACCUSATION. 



his situation. A universal expression of dissatisfac- 

 tion throughout the ranks of the army gave unmis- 

 takable proof that the blow had fallen upon a worthy 

 and deserving man. Even the most ardent repub- 

 licans, those who had denounced the so-called aris- 

 tocrats, made application in favour of Dufresnoy. 

 The result was a partial retraction of the severity 

 of the sentence against him. The minister wrote 

 to the Committee of Public Safety that Dufresnoy 

 might probably have been innocent of any bad 

 intention in the application he had made on behalf 

 of his predecessor, but that, as he had given proof 

 of a weakness incompatible with the duties of a 

 firm republican, he could not efficiently occupy the 

 post of physician-in-chief to the Army of the North, 

 since that official must necessarily be brought irto 

 contact with a vast number of soldiers over whom 

 he must exercise considerable influence, and con- 

 sequently he would be required to serve the state 

 as much by his devotedness as a citizen as by hit 

 medical skill. Dufresnoy was consequently sent to 

 St Omer, to superintend the military hospital there. 

 But he was now a suspected man, and in a short 

 time a new and much more alarming accusation was 

 brought against him, which was very near conduct- 

 ing him to the scaffold. 



Dufresnoy had been the first to introduce into 

 France the cultivation of the Elms radicans ; he 



