He laid his hand on the arm of the astonished Bernadotte, and, with eyes fixed on space, like a man who pursues through space the phantom of a vanished project, he said: "Yes, yes! I thought of it.

That is why I persisted in taking that hovel, Saint-Jean-d'Acre.

Here you only thought it obstinacy, a useless waste of men sacrificed to the self-love of a mediocre general who feared that he might be blamed for a defeat.

What should I have cared for the raising of the siege of Saint-Jean-d'Acre, if Saint-Jean-d'Acre had not been the barrier in the way of the grandest project ever conceived.

Cities! Why, good God! I could take as many as ever did Alexander or Caesar, but it was Saint-Jean-d'Acre that had to be taken! If I had taken Saint-Jean-d'Acre, do you know what I should have done ?" And he fixed his burning eyes upon Bernadotte, who, this time, lowered his under the flame of this genius.
"What I should have done," repeated Bonaparte, and, like Ajax, he seemed to threaten Heaven with his clinched fist; "if I had taken Saint-Jean-d'Acre, I should have found the treasures of the pasha in the city and three thousand stands of arms.