During the night following Faraud's promotion1 to a sub-lieutenancy, Bonaparte received eight heavy pieces of artillery2 and an abundance of ammunition3. Faraud's thirty-four hundred balls had served to repulse4 the sorties from the town. The "Accursed Tower" was almost completely demolished5, and Bonaparte resolved to make a last effort.
Then, too, the circumstances rendered this imperative6.
A Turkish fleet of thirty vessels7, escorted by English warships8, was sighted on the 8th of May. It was scarcely daylight when Bonaparte learned of this. He climbed the little hill whence he could survey the entire harbor. It was his opinion that the fleet came from the Island of Rhodes, and was conveying ammunition, troops and provisions to the besieged9.
It became imperative therefore to take Saint-Jean-d'Acre before the town received these reinforcements.
When Roland saw that he had decided10 upon the attack, he asked the general for two hundred men with full permission to use them in any way and for whatever purpose he should choose.
Bonaparte asked for an explanation. He had great con[Pg 641]fidence in Roland's bravery, which amounted almost to rashness; but because of this very rashness he feared to intrust the lives of two hundred men to him. Then Roland explained that the day when he took his long swim he had seen a breach11 in the walls from the sea which could not be seen from land, and which had evidently caused the besieged no anxiety, defended as it was by an inside battery and the fire from the English frigates12. He intended to enter the town through this breach and then create a diversion with his two hundred men.
Bonaparte gave him the desired permission. Roland chose two hundred men from the thirty-second brigade, and among them Sub-lieutenant Faraud.
Bonaparte ordered a general attack. Murat, Rampon, Vial, Kléber, Junot, generals of division, generals of brigade, chiefs of corps13, all were to charge at once.
At ten o'clock in the morning all the outer works which had been recaptured by the enemy were thrown down once more. Five flags were taken, three cannon14 carried off, and four more spiked15. But the besieged did not yield an inch; as fast as they were beaten down, others took their places. Never had such audacity16 and ardor17, never had more impetuous courage and obstinate18 valor19, struggled for the possession of a city.
Generals, officers and soldiers fought together in confusion in the trench20. Kléber, armed with an Albanian rifle which he had wrested21 from its owner, made a club of it, and raising it above his head as a thresher uses his flail22, he brought down a man with every blow. Murat, with his head uncovered and his long hair floating in the wind, was flashing his sabre back and forth23, its fine temper bringing its message of death to all those who came in contact with it. Junot killed a man, now with a pistol, now with a rifle, every time he fired.
Boyer, the commander of the eighteenth brigade, fell in the disorder24 with seventeen officers and more than a hundred and fifty soldiers of his corps; but Lannes, Bon, and[Pg 642] Vial passed over their bodies, which only served to raise them closer to the ramparts.
Bonaparte, not in the trench, but upon it, was directing the artillery himself, and motionless, a target for all, was making a breach in the wall on his right with the cannon in the tower. They had made a practicable opening at the end of an hour. They had no bushes with which to fill up the ditch; but they threw in the corpses25 as they had already done at another part of the ramparts. Mussulmans and Christians26, French and Turks, thrown out through the windows of the tower where they laid heaped up, raised a bridge as high as the ramparts.
Shouts of "Long live the Republic!" were heard, with cries of "To the assault!" The band played the "Marseillaise," and the rest of the army joined in the fight.
Bonaparte sent one of his ordnance27 officers named Raimbaud, to tell Roland that the time had come for him to effect his diversion; but when he learned what had been projected, instead of returning to Bonaparte, Raimbaud asked permission to remain with Roland. The two young men were friends, and when a battle is on one does not refuse favors of that sort to a friend.
Roland no sooner heard the order than he placed himself at the head of his two hundred men, plunged28 into the water with them, turned the corner of the bastion with the water up to their waists, and presented himself in the breach with the trumpets29 in front. The attack was so unexpected, although the siege had lasted two months, that the gunners were not even at their posts. Roland took possession of them, and having no men to work them, he spiked them. Then shouting, "Victory! Victory!" they dashed into the winding30 streets of the town.
These cries were heard on the ramparts and redoubled the ardor of the besiegers. For the second time Bonaparte believed himself master of Saint-Jean-d'Acre, and sprang into the "Accursed Tower," which they had had such difficulty in taking. But when he reached it he saw with dis[Pg 643]may that the French troops had been brought to a halt by a second inclosure. This was the one which Colonel Phélippeaux—Bonaparte's companion at Brienne—had constructed behind the other.
Leaning half-way out of the window, Bonaparte shouted encouragement to his soldiers. The grenadiers, furious at meeting with this fresh obstacle, attempted to mount on each other's shoulders for want of ladders; but suddenly, while the assailants were being attacked in front by those who had been placed there to defend the inclosure, they were swept by a battery in the flank. A tremendous fusillade burst forth on all sides—from the houses, the streets, the barricades31, and even from Djezzar's seraglio. A thick smoke poured up from the city. It was Roland, Raimbaud and Faraud who had fired the bazar. In the midst of the smoke they appeared on the roofs of the houses, and endeavored to enter into communication with those on the ramparts. Through the smoke of the fire and of the artillery they saw the tri-colored plumes32 waving, and from the city and the ramparts they could hear the cry of "Victory!" which went up for the third time that day. It was destined33 to be the last.
The soldiers who were to effect a junction34 with Roland's two hundred men, a portion of whom had already slid down into the town, while the others were fighting on the ramparts or in the ditches, being assailed35 by volleys from four sides, hesitated as the bullets whistled and the cannon roared around them, falling like hail and passing like a hurricane. Lannes, wounded in the head by a musket36 ball, fell upon his knees, and was carried off by his soldiers. Kléber held his own like an invulnerable giant in the midst of the fire. Bon and Vial were driven back into the ditch. Bonaparte sought for some one to support Kléber, but every one was occupied. He then ordered the retreat with tears of rage in his eyes; for he did not doubt that all who had entered the town with Roland, together with those who had slipped over the ramparts to join him, some two hundred and fifty[Pg 644] or three hundred in all, were lost. And what a harvest of heads they would have to gather in the moat the next day.
He was the last one to retreat, and he shut himself up in his tent with orders that no one was to disturb him. This was the first time in the course of three years that he had doubted his own fortune.
What a sublime37 page could be written by the historian who could tell what thoughts passed through his mind in that hour of despair.
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1
promotion
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| n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传 | |
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2
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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3
ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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4
repulse
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| n.击退，拒绝；vt.逐退，击退，拒绝 | |
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5
demolished
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| v.摧毁( demolish的过去式和过去分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光 | |
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6
imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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7
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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8
warships
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| 军舰，战舰( warship的名词复数 )； 舰只 | |
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9
besieged
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| 包围，围困，围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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10
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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11
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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12
frigates
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| n.快速军舰( frigate的名词复数 ) | |
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13
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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14
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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15
spiked
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| adj.有穗的；成锥形的；有尖顶的 | |
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16
audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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17
ardor
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| n.热情，狂热 | |
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18
obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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19
valor
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| n.勇气，英勇 | |
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20
trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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21
wrested
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| （用力）拧( wrest的过去式和过去分词 )； 费力取得； （从…）攫取； （ 从… ） 强行取去… | |
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22
flail
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| v.用连枷打；击打；n.连枷（脱粒用的工具） | |
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23
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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24
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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26
Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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27
ordnance
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| n.大炮，军械 | |
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28
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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29
trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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30
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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31
barricades
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| 路障，障碍物( barricade的名词复数 ) | |
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32
plumes
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| 羽毛( plume的名词复数 )； 羽毛饰； 羽毛状物； 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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33
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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34
junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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35
assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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36
musket
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| n.滑膛枪 | |
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37
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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