the men received
new shoes; those of the morning were in shreds. A biscuit was eaten, a
drop of brandy from the canteen was swallowed, and on they went. No man
knew whither he was climbing. Some asked how many more days it would
take; others if they might stop for a moment at the moon. At last they
came to the eternal snows. There the toil was less severe. The gun-logs
slid upon the snow, and they went faster.

One fact will show the measure of power given to the artilleryman who
commanded each gun.

General Chamberlhac was passing. He thought the advance not fast enough.
Wishing to hasten it, he spoke to an artilleryman in a tone of command.

"You are not in command here," replied the man; "I am. I am responsible
for the gun; I direct its march. Pass on."

The general approached the artilleryman as if to take him by the throat.
But the man stepped back, saying: "General, don't touch me, or I will
send you to the bottom of that precipice with a blow of this tiller."

After unheard-of toil they reached the foot of the last rise, at the
summit of which stands the convent. There they found traces of Lannes'
division. As the slope was very steep, the soldiers had cut a sort of
stairway in the ice. The men now scaled it. The fathers of Saint-Bernard
were awaiting them on the summit. As each gun came up the men were taken
by squads into the hospice. Tables were set along the passage with bread
and Gruyere cheese and wine.

When the soldiers left the convent they pressed the hands of the monks
and embraced the dogs.

The descent at first seemed easier than the ascent, and the officers
declared it was their turn to drag the guns. But now the cannon
outstripped the teams, and some were dragged down faster than they
wished. General Lannes and his division were still in the advance. He
had reached the valley before the rest of the army, entered the Aosta,
and received his orders to march upon Ivrea, at the entrance to the
plains of Piedmont. There, however, he encountered an obstacle which no
one had foreseen.

The fortress of Bard is situated about twenty-four miles from Aosta. On
the road to Ivrea, a little behind the village, a small hill closes the
valley almost hermetically. The river Dora flows between this hill and
the mountain on the right. The river, or rather, the torrent, fills
the whole space. The mountain on the left presents very much the same
aspect; only, instead of the river, it is the highroad which pas