Napoleon Bonaparte - John S. C. Abbott (book club reads .txt) 📗

that of the Great St. Bernard. The traveler, accompanied by a guide, and mounted on a mule, slowly and painfully ascended a steep and rugged path, now crossing a narrow bridge, spanning a fathomless abyss, again creeping along the edge of a precipice, where the eagle soared and screamed over the fir tops in the abyss below, and where a perpendicular wall rose to giddy heights in the clouds above. The path at times was so narrow, that it seemed that the mountain goat could with difficulty find a foothold for its slender hoof. A false step, or a slip upon the icy rocks would precipitate the traveler, a mangled corpse, a thousand feet upon the fragments of granite in the gulf beneath. As higher and higher he climbed these wild and rugged and cloud-enveloped paths, borne by the unerring instinct of the faithful mule, his steps were often arrested by the roar of the avalanche and he gazed appalled upon its resistless rush, as rocks, and trees, and earth, and snow, and ice, swept by him with awful and resistless desolation, far down into the dimly discerned torrents which rushed beneath his feet. At God’s bidding the avalanche fell. No precaution could save the traveler who was in its path. He was instantly borne to destruction, and buried where no voice but the archangel’s trump could ever reach his ear. Terrific storms of wind and snow often swept through those bleak altitudes, blinding and smothering the traveler. Hundreds of bodies, like pillars of ice, embalmed in snow, are now sepulchred in those drifts, there to sleep till the fires of the last conflagration shall have consumed their winding sheet. Having toiled two days through such scenes of desolation and peril, the adventurous traveler stands upon the summit of the pass, eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, two thousand feet higher than the crest of Mount Washington, our own mountain monarch. This summit, over which the path winds, consists of a small level plain, surrounded by mountains of snow of still higher elevation.

 

The scene here presented is inexpressibly gloomy and appailing.

Nature in these wild regions assumes her most severe and sombre aspect. As one emerges from the precipitous and craggy ascent, upon this Valley of Desolation, as it is emphatically called, the Convent of St. Bernard presents itself to the view. This cheerless abode, the highest spot of inhabited ground in Europe, has been tenanted, for more than a thousand years, by a succession of joyless and self-denying monks, who, in that frigid retreat of granite and ice, endeavor to serve their Maker, by rescuing bewildered travelers from the destruction with which they are ever threatened to be overwhelmed by the storms, which battle against them. In the middle of this ice-bound valley, lies a lake, clear, dark, and cold, whose depths, even in mid-summer, reflect the eternal glaciers which soar sublimely around. The descent to the plains of Italy is even more precipitous and dangerous than the ascent from the green pastures of France. No vegetation adorns these dismal and storm-swept cliffs of granite and of ice. Even the pinion of the eagle fails in its rarified air, and the chamois ventures not to climb its steep and slippery crags. No human beings are ever to be seen on these bleak summits, except the few shivering travelers, who tarry for an hour to receive the hospitality of the convent, and the hooded monks, wrapped in thick and coarse garments, which their staves and their dogs, groping through the storms of sleet and snow. Even the wood which burns with frugal faintness on the hearths, is borne, in painful burdens, up the mountain sides, upon the shoulders of the monks.

 

Such was the barrier which Napoleon intended to surmount, that he might fall upon the rear of the Austrians, who were battering down the walls of Genoa, where Massena was besieged, and who were thundering, flushed with victory, at the very gates of Nice. Over this wild mountain pass, where the mule could with difficulty tread, and where no wheel had ever rolled, or by any possibility could roll, Napoleon contemplated transporting an army of sixty thousand men, with ponderous artillery and tons of cannon balls, and baggage, and all the bulky munitions of war. England and Austria laughed the idea to scorn. The achievement of such an enterprise was apparently impossible. Napoleon, however was as skillful in the arrangement of the minutest details, as in the conception of the grandest combinations. Though he resolved to take the mass of his army, forty thousand strong, across the pass of the Great St.

Bernard, yet to distract the attention of the Austrians, he arranged also to send small divisions across the passes of Saint Gothard, Little St. Bernard, and Mount Cenis. He would thus accumulate suddenly, and to the utter amazement of the enemy, a body of sixty-five thousand men upon the plain of Italy. This force, descending, like an apparition from the clouds, in the rear of the Austrian army, headed by Napoleon, and cutting off all communication with Austria, might indeed strike a panic into the hearts of the assailants of France.

 

The troops were collected in various places in the vicinity of Dijon, ready at a moment’s warning to assemble at the point of rendezvous, and with a rush to enter the defile. Immense magazines of wheat, biscuit, and oats had been noiselessly collected in different places. Large sums of specie had been forwarded, to hire the services of every peasant, with his mule, who inhabited the valleys among the mountains. Mechanic shops, as by magic, suddenly rose along the path, well supplied with skillful artisans, to repair all damages, to dismount the artillery, to divide the gun-carriages and the baggage-wagons into fragments, that they might be transported, on the backs of men and mules, over the steep and rugged way. For the ammunition a vast number of small boxes were prepared, which could easily be packed upon the mules. A second company of mechanics, with camp forges, had been provided to cross the mountain with the first division, and rear their shops upon the plain on the other side, to mend the broken harness, to reconstruct the carriages, and remount the pieces. On each side of the mountain a hospital was established and supplied with every comfort for the sick and the wounded. The foresight of Napoleon extended even to sending, at the very last moment, to the convent upon the summit, an immense quantity of bread, cheese, and wine. Each soldier, to his surprise, was to find, as he arrived at the summit, exhausted with Herculean toil, a generous slice of bread and cheese with a refreshing cup of wine, presented to him by the monks. All these minute details Napoleon arranged, while at the same time he was doing the work of a dozen energetic men, in reorganizing the whole structure of society in France. If toil pays for greatness, Napoleon purchased the renown which he attained. And yet his body and his mind were so constituted that this sleepless activity was to him a pleasure.

 

The appointed hour at last arrived. On the 7th of May, 1800, Napoleon entered his carriage at the Tuileries, saying, “Good-by, my dear Josephine! I must go to Italy. I shall not forget you, and I will not be absent long.” At a word, the whole majestic array was in motion. Like a meteor he swept over France. He arrived at the foot of the mountains. The troops and all the paraphernalia of war were on the spot at the designated hour. Napoleon immediately appointed a very careful inspection. Every foot soldier and every horseman passed before his scrutinizing eye. If a shoe was ragged, or a jacket torn, or a musket injured, the defect was immediately repaired. His glowing words inspired the troops with the ardor which was burning in his own bosom. The genius of the First Consul was infused into the mighty host. Each man exerted himself to the utmost. The eye of their chief was every where, and his cheering voice roused the army to almost superhuman exertions. Two skillful engineers had been sent to explore the path, and to do what could be done in the removal of obstructions. They returned with an appalling recitasl of the apparently insurmountable difficulties of the way. “Is it possible ,” inquired Napoleon, “to cross the pass?” “Perhaps,” was the hesitating reply, “it is within the limits of possibility .” “Forward, then,” was the energetic response.

Each man was required to carry, besides his arms, food for several days and a large quantity of cartridges. As the sinuosities of the precipitous path could only be trod in single file, the heavy wheels were taken from the carriages, and each, slung upon a pole, was borne by two men. The task for the foot soldiers was far less than for the horsemen. The latter clambered up on foot, dragging their horses after them. The descent was very dangerous. The dragoon, in the steep and narrow path, was compelled to walk before his horse. At the least stumble he was exposed to being plunged headlong into the abysses yawning before him. In this way many horses and several riders perished. To transport the heavy cannon and howitzers pine logs were split in the centre, the parts hollowed out, and the guns sunks into grooves. A long string of mules, in single file, were attached to the ponderous machines of war, to drag them up the slippery ascent. The mules soon began to fail, and then the men, with hearty good-will, brought their own shoulders into the harness—a hundred men to a single gun. Napoleon offered the peasants two hundred dollars for the transporation of a twelve-pounder over the pass. The love of gain was not strong enough to lure them to such tremendous exertions. But Napoleon’s fascination over the hearts of his soldiers was a more powerful impulse. With shouts of encouragement they toiled at the cables, successive bands of a hundred men relieving each other every half hour. High on those craggy steeps, gleaming through the midst, the glittering bands of armed men, like phantoms appeared. The eagle wheeled and screamed beneath their feet. The mountain goat, affrighted by the unwonted spectacle, bounded away, and paused in bold relief upon the cliff to gaze upon the martial array which so suddenly had peopled the solitude.

 

When they approached any spot of very especial difficulty the trumpets sounded the charge, which reechoed, with sublime reverberations, from pinnacle to pinnacle of rock and ice. Animated by these bugle notes the soldiers strained every nerve as if rushing upon the foe. Napoleon offered to these bands the same reward which he had promised to the peasants. But to a man, they refused the gold.

They had imbibed the spirit of their chief, his enthusiasm, and his proud superiority to all mercenary motives. “We are not toiling for money,” said they, “but for your approval, and to share your glory.”

 

Napoleon with his wonderful tact had introduced a slight change into the artillery service, which was productive of immense moral results. The gun carriages had heretofore been driven by mere wagoners, who, being considered not as soldiers, but as servants, and sharing not in the glory of victory, were uninfluenced by any sentiment of honor. At the first approach of danger, they were ready to cut their traces and gallop from the field, leaving their cannon in the hands of the enemy. Napoleon said, “The cannoneer who brings his piece into action, performs as valuable a service as the cannoneer who works it. He runs the same danger, and requires the same moral stimulus, which is the sense of honor.” He therefore converted the artillery drivers into soldiers, and clothed them in the uniform of their respective regiments. They constituted twelve thousand