"Bonaparte visiting the plague-stricken at Jaffa" by Antoine Jean Gros (1771-1835).

Few painters have succeeded in representing a dramatic event on a large scale as successfully as Antoine Jean Gros in his painting " Bonaparte Visiting the Plague-stricken at Jaffa." This immense canvas (17 ft. 5 in. by 23 ft. 7 in.; 5.3 by 7.2 mi.) hangs in the Salle Daru of the Louvre, Paris. The event depicted took place during the Syrian Campaign in March 1799. Worried by the fear and loss of morale in his army due to the outbreak of plague, Napoleon decided to go himself to the Pest House at Jaffa. He visited all parts of the hospital, consoling the despairing men and touching many who were very sick. He watched as doctors lanced buboes (inflammatory swellings of a group of superficial lymphatic glands in the armpit and groin). Napoleon (1847) related in his Mimoires that in an attempt to allay their fears the soldiers were told that they were not suffering from the plague but from a known fever, " la fi&vre i bubons." The hospital is shown as a converted mosque. Napoleon stands in the full light, a calm, dignified figure, in sharp contrast to the anxious officials who surround him, and to the suffering plague victims. One of the soldiers has raised his right arm to show the bubo which Napoleon is touching with his ungloved left hand. Immediately behind Napoleon to his left stands Dr. Ren6-Nicolas Desgenettes, who tries to restrain Napoleon's gesture, as also does the soldier kneeling on the ground. Behind Napoleon, on his right, stands Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bessieres with a handkerchief to his mouth, and behind him Marshal Daure, Director of the Hospital, can be seen stealing away from the scene. Bessieres has a look of intense fear on his face-this was pointedly intentional, as Gros was taking his revenge on his one-time friend. After being promoted marshal, Bessieres no longer recognized Gros, who determined to obtain his revenge. When asked if the officer in the painting was really Bessieres, Gros replied: "It is perfectly true," and added, "To defend oneself against' an insult, the porter has his fists, the officer has his sword, the writer has his pen, and the painter has his brush" (Tripier Le Franc,., 1880). The plague victims lie on rough straw matting in the shadows in the foreground and in the arcade to the left. Their red, inflamed eyes stare from gaunt faces. A Turkish doctor (in front of Napoleon to the right) is about to lance the bubo of the kneeling soldier who turns towards the General. The shadowy figure in the left foreground, head in hands, is after Michelangelo, and symbolic of despair.