During Napoleons campaign in Egypt and Syria, bubonic plague broke out among the French ranks. Legend has it that to calm the troops, Napoleon fearlessly entered the Armenian Monastery in Jaffa and walked among the French patients. This scene is depicted in the oil painting[ “Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonaparte_Visiting_the_Plague_Victims_of_Jaffa) by Antoine-Jean Gros, on commission by Napoleon and displayed in the Paris Salon to huge success. What this all ignores, conveniently, is that Napoleon who was fearing the plague spreading, likely ordered these same soldiers to be poisoned when he retreated from Jaffa.
Edit so i dont keep getting downvoted for posting a meme on a meme sub: im not trying to slander Napoleon or arguing he did it for good or bad reasons, just that he was ignoring it in his PR
EmperorBamboozler on
Napoleon was never a really good person lol. He did so much shit just for publicity and doubled back on it later. He very purposely created a heroic mythos around himself for propaganda purposes. To be fair a shitload of rulers did that, like Louis XIV and Alexander the Great. Propaganda is incredibly effective and well, when you completely control how information gets out you can just lie and nobody can do shit about it. I don’t know if this event was real or not honestly but it’s not out of character for him. The reasons he did it were understandable given how devastating the disease has been in the past but this was the 19th century and outbreak/quarentine protocols really meant that the spread of bubonic plague was far easier to control without just killing the victims. It wasn’t like it was the 14th century and plague victims would be self fagellating in the streets. Seems excessive to just poison the plague victims during an era where the understanding of disease was far better and outbreaks could be reliably controlled.
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During Napoleons campaign in Egypt and Syria, bubonic plague broke out among the French ranks. Legend has it that to calm the troops, Napoleon fearlessly entered the Armenian Monastery in Jaffa and walked among the French patients. This scene is depicted in the oil painting[ “Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonaparte_Visiting_the_Plague_Victims_of_Jaffa) by Antoine-Jean Gros, on commission by Napoleon and displayed in the Paris Salon to huge success. What this all ignores, conveniently, is that Napoleon who was fearing the plague spreading, likely ordered these same soldiers to be poisoned when he retreated from Jaffa.
Edit so i dont keep getting downvoted for posting a meme on a meme sub: im not trying to slander Napoleon or arguing he did it for good or bad reasons, just that he was ignoring it in his PR
Napoleon was never a really good person lol. He did so much shit just for publicity and doubled back on it later. He very purposely created a heroic mythos around himself for propaganda purposes. To be fair a shitload of rulers did that, like Louis XIV and Alexander the Great. Propaganda is incredibly effective and well, when you completely control how information gets out you can just lie and nobody can do shit about it. I don’t know if this event was real or not honestly but it’s not out of character for him. The reasons he did it were understandable given how devastating the disease has been in the past but this was the 19th century and outbreak/quarentine protocols really meant that the spread of bubonic plague was far easier to control without just killing the victims. It wasn’t like it was the 14th century and plague victims would be self fagellating in the streets. Seems excessive to just poison the plague victims during an era where the understanding of disease was far better and outbreaks could be reliably controlled.
Kre