174 AN ALARMING ACCUSATION.

his situation. A universal expression of dissatisfac-
tion throughout the ranks of the army gave unmis-
takable proof that the blow had fallen upon a worthy
and deserving man. Fiven the most ardent repub-
licans, those who had denounced the so-called aris-
tocrats, made application in favour of Dufresnoy.
The result was a partial retraction of the severity
of the sentence against him. ‘The minister wrote
to the Committee of Public Safety that Dufresnov
might probably have been mnocent of any bad
intention in the application he had made on behalf
of his predecessor, but that, as he had given proof
of a weakness incompatible with the duties of a
firm republican, he could not efficiently occupy the
post of physician-in-chief to the Army of the North,
since that official must necessarily be brought into
contact with a vast number of soldiers over whom
he must exercise considerable influence, and con-
sequently he would be required to serve the state
as much by his devotedness as a citizen as by his
medicalskill. Dufresnoy was consequently sent to
St Omer, to superintend the military hospital there.
But he was now a suspected man, and in a short
time a new and much more alarming accusation was
brought against him, which was very near conduct-
ing him to the scaffold.

Dufresnoy had been the first to introduce into
France the cultivation of the Rhus radicans; he