- SIEGE OF JAFFA. 125 
‘This forcible passage of the manuscript of Malus is 
the faithful picture of what happens in every town taken 
by storm, even when the assailants belong to the most 
humane civilized army in the world. When historians 
know how to place themselves in a more elevated sphere, 
to free themselves from routine, and to follow in the 
opinions they express the eternal rules of justice and 
humanity, while they praise the indomitable courage of 
soldiers who will brave death in obedience to discipline, 
‘they will accord a deeper sympathy to the men who to 
preserve their nationality consent to expose themselves 
to scenes of massacre and bloodshed such as those which 
the narrative of Malus has revealed in all their horrors ; 
their condemnation will be reserved for those who pro- 
voke these impious wars, which have no other motive 
than personal ambition, and the desire for a vain and 
false glory. 
When the army set out for the attack on the town of 
St. John d’Acre, Malus received an order to remain at 
Jaffa with General Grezieux. ‘There were left with 
him only 150 efficient men; the town contained more 
than 300 wounded and 400 infected with the plague. 
Malus was charged with the arrangements necessary to 
be made in the Greek Convent, in order to establish 
there those suffering with the plague. For ten days 
successively he passed all his mornings in the infected 
air of this receptacle of corruption. Thus our celebrated 
painter Gros might have legitimately placed the portrait 
of Malus among the figures in that admirable picture for 
which modern art is indebted to him, in the place of 
some of those conventionally introduced there, who never 
really penetrated into the halls then choked up with the 
dying and dead. 
ee EE 
