ondly, a dead horse will stop a whole convoy, whereas a dead man, not
being fastened to the traces, can be pushed aside and his place taken
without even stopping the march. An officer and a subordinate officer
of artillery were placed in charge of each carriage or caisson, with
the promise of six hundred francs for the transport of each gun or wagon
beyond the range of the fort.

General Marmont, who had proposed the plan, superintended the first
operation himself. Happily, a storm prevailed and made the night
extremely dark. The first six cannon and the first six caissons passed
without a single shot from the fortress. The men returned, picking their
steps silently, one after another, in single file; but this time the
enemy must have heard some noise, and, wishing to knew the cause, threw
hand-grenades. Fortunately, they fell beyond the road.

Why should these men, who had once passed, return? Merely to get their
muskets and knapsacks. This might have been avoided had they been
stowed on the caissons; but no one can think of everything, and, as it
happened, no one in the fort at Bard had thought at all.

As soon as the possibility of the passage was demonstrated, the
transport of the artillery became a duty like any other; only, now
that the enemy were warned, it was more dangerous. The fort resembled a
volcano with its belching flames and smoke; but, owing to the vertical
direction in which it was forced to fire, it made more noise than it did
harm. Five or six men were killed to each wagon; that is to say, a tenth
of each fifty; but the cannon once safely past, the fate of the campaign
was secure.

Later it was discovered that the pass of the Little Saint-Bernard would
have been practicable, and that the whole artillery could have crossed
it without dismounting a gun or losing a man. It is true, however, that
the feat would have been less glorious because less difficult.

The army was now in the fertile plains of Piedmont. It was reinforced on
the Ticino by a corps of twelve thousand men detached from the Army of
the Rhine by Moreau, who, after the two victories he had just won, could
afford to lend this contingent to the Army of Italy. He had sent them
by the Saint-Gothard. Thus strengthened, the First Consul entered Milan
without striking a blow.

By the bye, how came the First Consul, who, according to a provision
of the constitution of the year VIII., could not assume command of the
army, nor yet leave Fran