[Illustration: POISONING THE SICK AT JAFFA.]
‘Buonaparte was not to be diverted from his object by moral considerations; he persevered, and found an apothecary, who (dreading the weight of power, but who since has made an atonement to his mind, by unequivocally confessing the fact) consented to become his agent, and to administer poison to the sick. Opium, at night, was distributed in gratifying food, the wretched, unsuspecting, victims banqueted, and, in a few hours, five hundred and eighty soldiers, who had suffered so much for their country, perished thus miserably by the order of its idol....
‘If a doubt should still exist as to the veracity of this statement, let the Members of the Institute at Cairo be asked what passed in their sitting after the return of Buonaparte from Syria; they will relate, that the same virtuous physician, who refused to become the destroyer of those committed to his protection, accused Buonaparte of high treason, in the full assembly, against the honour of France, her children, and humanity; that he entered into the full details of the poisoning of the sick, and the massacre of the garrison, aggravating these crimes by charging Buonaparte with strangling, previously, at Rosetta, a number of French and Copts, who were ill of the plague; thus proving that this disposal of his sick was a premeditated plan, which he wished to introduce into general practice. In vain Buonaparte attempted to justify himself; the members sat petrified with terror, and almost doubted whether the scene passing before their eyes was not an illusion.’
Dr. Wittman assures his readers that whilst he was in Egypt with the army, a man was pointed out to them as having been the executioner of Napoleon’s commands to poison the sick and wounded French soldiers in the hospitals of Jaffa.
Barre says: ‘Although neither Sir Robert Wilson nor Dr. Wittman mention the name of the worthy physician who refused with horror, and of the infamous wretch, who basely consented to become the executioner of the sick soldiers, it is now well known that the former was the worthy physician Dr. Desgenettes, and the latter, one Rouyer, an infamous apothecary, who thus became the murderer of his own countrymen, in compliance with the wishes of a Corsican assassin.’