On March 11 Napoleon visited it [the Armenian Monastery hospital on the seafront of Old Jaffa, now a quarantine station for plague victims] along with Desgenettes, and there according to Jean-Pierre Daure, an officer in the pay commissariat, he ‘picked up and carried a plague victim who was lying across a doorway. This action scared us a lot because the sick man’s clothes were covered with foam and disgusting evacuations of abscessed buboes.’
Napoleon spoke to the sick, comforted them and raised their morale; the incident was immortalized in 1804 in Antoine-Jean Gros’ painting Bonaparte Visiting the Plague House at Jaffa.
Source:
Roberts, Andrew. "Acre." Napoleon: A Life. New York: Penguin, 2014. 192. Print.
Original Source Listed:
ed. Bulos, Bourrienne et ses erreurs I p. 44.
Further Reading:
Napoleone di Buonaparte / Napoléon Bonaparte / Napoleon I
René-Nicolas Dufriche, baron Desgenettes
Antoine-Jean Gros / Baron Gros
Bonaparte visitant les pestiférés de Jaffa (Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa)
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