ish corsairs crossed from Italy, and seized the pass
of St. Maurice. Thus history is full of events to suggest the idea of
crossing.

Nor is this all. From the time the French entered Switzerland in 1796,
troops occupied, manoeuvred, and even _fought_ on this mountain. The
Austrians having succeeded in turning the summit, contended an entire
day with their enemies, who remained masters of the field, or rather
rock. Ebel estimates the number of the hostile troops who were on this
pass, between the years 1798 and 1801, 150,000, including the army of
Napoleon, which was 30,000 strong.

These facts of themselves, and I presume they cannot be contested, give
a totally different colouring, from that which is commonly entertained,
to the conception of the enterprise of the First Consul, so far as the
difficulties of the ascent were concerned. If the little community can
transport stores for 8,000 souls to the convent, there could be no great
difficulty in one, who had all France at his disposal, in throwing an
army across the pass. When we quitted Martigny, I began to study the
difficulties of the route, and though the road as far as Liddes has
probably been improved a little within thirty years, taking its worst
parts, I have often travelled, in my boyhood, during the early
settlement of our country, in a heavy, high, old-fashioned coach over
roads that were quite as bad, and, in some places, over roads that were
actually more dangerous, than any part of this, _as far as Liddes_. Even
a good deal of the road after quitting Liddes is not worse than that we
formerly travelled, but wheels are nearly useless for the last league or
two. As we rode along this path, C---- asked me in what manner I would
transport artillery up such an ascent. Without the least reflection I
answered, by making sledges of the larches, which is an expedient that I
think would suggest instantly itself to nineteen men in twenty. I have
since understood from the Duc de ----, who was an aide of Napoleon, on
the occasion of the passage, that it was precisely the expedient
adopted. Several thousand Swiss peasants were employed in drawing the
logs, thus loaded, up the precipices. I do not think it absolutely
impracticable to take up guns limbered, but the other plan would be much
the easiest, as well as the safest. In short, I make no doubt, so far as
mere toil and physical difficulties are concerned, that a hundred
marches have been made through the swamps a