The capture and the violent sack of Jaffa by the French army under Bonaparte on 7 March 1799 were rapidly followed by an outbreak of bubonic plague, identified by January 1799, which decimated the army. On 11 March, Bonaparte made a spectacular visit to his sick soldiers and touched them, which was considered to be either magnificent or suicidal, according to one's point of view on the Napoleonic legend or of the terrors of an age of plagues.