exploits of Alexander than this masterly concentration of force; and
possibly some memory of this may have prompted the words of
Kléber--"General, how great you are!"--as he met and embraced his
commander on the field of battle. Bonaparte and his staff spent the
night at the Convent of Nazareth; and when his officers burst out
laughing at the story told by the Prior of the breaking of a pillar by
the angel Gabriel at the time of the Annunciation, their untimely
levity was promptly checked by the frown of the commander.

The triumph seemed to decide the Christians of the Lebanon to ally
themselves with Bonaparte, and they secretly covenanted to furnish
12,000 troops at his cost; but this question ultimately depended on
the siege of Acre. On rejoining their comrades before Acre, the
victors found that the siege had made little progress: for a time the
besiegers relied on mining operations, but with little success; though
Phélippeaux succumbed to a sunstroke (May 1st), his place was filled
by Colonel Douglas, who foiled the efforts of the French engineers
and enabled the place to hold out till the advent of the long-expected
Turkish succours. On May 7th their sails were visible far out on an
almost windless sea. At once Bonaparte made desperate efforts to carry
the "mud-hole" by storm. Led with reckless gallantry by the heroic
Lannes, his troops gained part of the wall and planted the tricolour
on the north-east tower; but all further progress was checked by
English blue-jackets, whom the commodore poured into the town; and the
Turkish reinforcements, wafted landwards by a favouring breeze, were
landed in time to wrest the ramparts from the assailants' grip. On the
following day an assault was again attempted: from the English ships
Bonaparte could be clearly seen on Richard Coeur de Lion's mound
urging on the French; but though, under Lannes' leadership, they
penetrated to the garden of Gezzar's seraglio, they fell in heaps