the last assault
during the night following faraud's promotion to a sub-lieutenancy, bonaparte received eight heavy pieces of artillery and an abundance of ammunition. faraud's thirty-four hundred balls had served to repulse the sorties from the town. the "accursed tower" was almost completely demolished, and bonaparte resolved to make a last effort.
then, too, the circumstances rendered this imperative.
a turkish fleet of thirty vessels, escorted by english warships, 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 besieged.
it became imperative therefore to take saint-jean-d'acre before the town received these reinforcements.
when roland saw that he had decided 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 breach 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 frigates. 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 corps, 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 cannon carried off, and four more spiked. but the besieged did not yield an inch; as fast as they were beaten down, others took their places. never had such audacity and ardor, never had more impetuous courage and obstinate valor, struggled for the possession of a city.
generals, officers and soldiers fought together in confusion in the trench. kléber, armed with an albanian rifle which he had wrested from its owner, made a club of it, and raising it above his head as a thresher uses his flail, 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 forth, 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 disorder 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 corpses as they had already done at another part of the ramparts. mussulmans and christians, 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 ordnance 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, plunged 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 trumpets 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 winding 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 barricades, 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 plumes 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 destined to be the last.
the soldiers who were to effect a junction 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 assailed 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 musket 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 sublime page could be written by the historian who could tell what thoughts passed through his mind in that hour of despair.
