Part 1 (1/2)

Napoleon Bonaparte

by John S C Abbott

Napoleon, finding his proffers of peace rejected by England with contumely and scorn, and declined by Austria, now prepared, with his wonted energy, to repel the assaults of the allies As he sat in his cabinet at the Tuileries, the thunders of their unrelenting onset ca in upon his ear froland swept the channel, utterly annihilating the corants upon her coast, furnishi+ng money and munitions of war to rouse the partisans of the Bourbons to civil conflict, and throwing balls and shells into every unprotected town On the northern frontier, Marshal Kray, cah the black Forest, to the banks of the Rhine, with a ions, to pour into all the northern provinces of France Artillery of the heaviest calibre and a nificent array of cavalry accompanied this apparently invincible army In Italy, Melas, another Austrian marshal, with 140,000 men, aided by the whole force of the British navy, was rushi+ng upon the eastern and southern borders of the Republic The French troops, disheartened by defeat, had fled before their foes over the Alps, or were eating their horses and their boots in the cities where they were besieged From almost every promontory on the coast of the Republic, washed by the Channel, or the Mediterranean, the eye could discern English frigates, black and threatening, holding all France in a state of blockade

One always finds a certain pleasure in doing that which he can do well Napoleon was fully conscious of hishumanity, implored peace in vain He noith alacrity and with joy, roused himself to inflict blows that should be felt upon his y did he do this, that he received froonists the most complimentary sobriquet of the one hundred thousand men

Wherever Napoleon made his appearance in the field, his presence alone was considered equivalent to that force

The following proclae over the hills and valleys of France ”Frenchovernreater ardor

Its first efforts, its lish ministry has exposed the secret of its iniquitous policy It wishes to dismember France, to destroy its commerce, and either to erase it frorade it to a secondary power England is willing to embroil all the nations of the Continent in hostility with each other, that she ain possession of the trade of the world For the attainal of her proues”

At this call all the martial spirit of France rushed to arms

Napoleon, supreet even his own glory in the intensity of his desire to nanis of jealousy, he raised an army of 150,000 men, the very elite of the troops of France, the veterans of a hundred battles, and placed them in the hands of Moreau, the only man in France who could be called his rival Napoleon also presented to Moreau the plan of a caenius Its acco brilliance to the reputation of Moreau But the cautious general was afraid to adopt it, and presented another, perhaps as safe, but one which would produce no dazzling iinations of men ”Your plan,” said one, a friend of Moreau, to the First Consul, ”is grander, more decisive, even enius of thehich is superior to all others Moreau has his own, inferior certainly, but still excellent

Leave him to himself If you impose your ideas upon him, you ound his self-love, and disconcert hie of the huht, Moreau is not capable of grasping the plan which I have conceived Let him follow his own course The plan which he does not understand and dare not execute, I myself will carry out, on another part of the theatre of war What he fears to attempt on the Rhine, I will accolory which he yields to me” These were proud and prophetic words Moreau, wasback the invaders The sun of Napoleon soon rose, over the field of Marengo, in a blaze of effulgence, which paled Moreau's twinkling star into utter obscurity But we know not where, upon the page of history, to find an act of enerosity than this surrender of the noblest army of the Republic to one, who considered himself, and as deemed by others, a rival--and thus to throw open to him the theatre of here apparently the richest laurels were to be won And he knohere to look for a deed ive Moreau,” said he by this act, ”one hundred and fifty thousand of the most brave and disciplined soldiers of France, the victors of a hundred battles I iments which remain, and with them I will march to encounter an equally powerful enemy on a more difficult field of warfare”

Marshal Melas had spread his vast host of one hundred and forty thousand Austrians through all the strongholds of Italy, and was pressing, with trey and self-confidence upon the frontiers of France Napoleon, instead ofwith his inexperienced troops, two-thirds of whom had never seen a shot fired in earnest, to meet the heads of the triued and apparently inaccessible fastnesses of the Alps, and, descending from the clouds over path-less precipices, to fall with the sweep of the avalanche, upon their rear It was necessary to asseazines its munitions of war It was necessary that this should be done in secret, lest the Austrians, clies through which the troops of Napoleon would be coht render the passage utterly ilish and Austrian spies were prompt to communicate to the hostile powers every movement of the First Consul Napoleon fixed upon Dijon and its vicinity as the rendezvous of his troops He, however, adroitly and co the very plan he intended to carry into operation

Of course, the allies thought that this was a foolish attempt to draw their attention froinary army at Dijon, the more loudly did Napoleon reiterate his coazines to be collected there The spies who visited Dijon, reported that but a few regiments were assembled in that place, and that the announcement was clearly a very weak pretense to deceive The print shops of London and Vienna were filled with caricatures of the arlish especially rand aries the Republic were utterly exhausted in raising the force which was given to Moreau One of the caricatures represented the ar of a boy, dressed in his father's clothes, shouldering aa piece of gingerbread, and an oldThe artillery consisted of a rusty blunderbuss This derision was just what Napoleon desired Though dwelling in the shadow of that mysterious melancholy, which ever enveloped his spirit, he must have enjoyed in the deep recesses of his soul, the majestic movements of his plans

On the eastern frontiers of France there surge up, from luxuriant es of the Alps, piercing the clouds and soaring with glittering pinnacles, into the region of perpetual ice and snow Vast spurs of the htful detiles, through which foa torrents rush impetuously, walled in by almost precipitous cliffs, whose summits, croith melancholy firs, are inaccessible to the foot of e was that of the Great St Bernard The traveler, accouide, and mounted on a ed path, now crossing a narrow bridge, spanning a fathoe 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 tioat 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 ranite in the gulf beneath As higher and higher he clied 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 as 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 storh those bleak altitudes, blinding and s 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 consuh such scenes of desolation and peril, the adventurous traveler stands upon the suht thousand feet above the level of the sea, two thousand feet higher than the crest of Mount Washi+ngton, our own mountain monarch This summit, over which the path winds, consists of a sher elevation

The scene here presented is inexpressibly glooions assues froy 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 ranite and ice, endeavor to serve their Maker, by rescuing bewildered travelers from the destruction hich they are ever threatened to be overwhelainst them In the middle of this ice-bound valley, lies a lake, clear, dark, and cold, whose depths, even in laciers which soar sublimely around The descent to the plains of Italy is even reen pastures of France No vegetation adorns these disranite and of ice Even the pinion of the eagle fails in its rarified air, and the chas No hus are ever to be seen on these bleak su travelers, who tarry for an hour to receive the hospitality of the convent, and the hooded arh the storal 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 surht fall upon the rear of the Austrians, ere battering down the walls of Genoa, where Massena was besieged, and ere 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 conte an army of sixty thousand men, with ponderous artillery and tons of cannon balls, and baggage, and all the bulky hed the idea to scorn The achievement of such an enterprise was apparently ierandest coh he resolved to take the , 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 , like an apparition from the clouds, in the rear of the Austrian ar off all coht 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 ato assemble at the point of rendezvous, and with a rush to enter the defile Iazines 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 histhethe path, well supplied with skillful artisans, to repair all daes and the baggage-wagons into fraght be transported, on the backs of ed way For the ammunition a vast number of small boxes were prepared, which could easily be packed upon the es, had been provided to cross the mountain with the first division, and rear their shops upon the plain on the other side, to es, and remount the pieces On each side of the mountain a hospital was established and supplied with every coht 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 suenerous slice of bread and cheese with a refreshi+ng cup of wine, presented to hied, while at the saeticthe whole structure of society in France If toil pays for greatness, Napoleon purchased the renohich 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, et 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 ere on the spot at the designated hour Napoleon immediately appointed a very careful inspection Every foot soldier and every horseed, or a jacket torn, or a loords inspired the troops with the ardor which was burning in his own bosohty host Each man exerted himself to the ut voice roused the arineers had been sent to explore the path, and to do what could be done in the re 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 lietic response

Each man was required to carry, besides his ares As the sinuosities of the precipitous path could only be trod in single file, the heavy wheels were taken fro upon a pole, was borne by two men The task for the foot soldiers was far less than for the horse their horses after theoon, in the steep and narrow path, was compelled to walk before his horse At the least stu 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 le file, were attached to the ponderousthean to fail, and then the ht their own shoulders into the harness--a hundred un 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 ement they toiled at the cables, successive bands of a hundred y steeps, glea bands of arle wheeled and screahted 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 true, which re-echoed, with sublime reverberations, frole notes the soldiers strained every nerve as if rushi+ng upon the foe Napoleon offered to these bands the same rehich he had proold

They had imbibed the spirit of their chief, his enthusiasm, and his proud superiority to allfor lory”

Napoleon with his wonderful tact had introduced a slight change into the artillery service, which was productive of ies had heretofore been driven byconsidered not as soldiers, but as servants, and sharing not in the glory of victory, were uninfluenced by any sentier, they were ready to cut their traces and gallop fro their cannon in the hands of the enes his piece into action, performs as valuable a service as the cannoneer orks it He runs the saer, and requires the same moral stimulus, which is the sense of honor” He therefore converted the artillery drivers into soldiers, and clothed theiments They constituted twelve thousand horse their pieces into action, and in bringing the, directing, and discharging thelory of these uns They loved, tenderly, the merciless monsters They lavished caresses and ter brass The heart of raded it needs so to love These blood-stained soldiers, brutalized by vice, aly fondled theto the appeal ”call un was the stern cannoneer's lady love He kissed it with unwashed, h devotion he was ready to die rather than abandon the only object of his idolatrous ho monster with blood Affectionately he naht cah drifts of snow, toiling at their gun They would not leave the gun alone in the cold storuarding a sister, they threw theht, upon the bleak and frozen snow, by its side It was the genius of Napoleon which thus penetrated these mysterious depths of the huies ”It is nothing but iination!”

he rejoined ”Iination rules the world”

When they arrived at the summit each soldier found, to his surprise and joy, the abundant comforts which Napoleon's kind care had provided One would have anticipated there a scene of terrible confusion To feed an ar Yet every thing was so carefully arranged, and the influence of Napoleon so boundless, that not a soldier left the ranks Each man received his slice of bread and cheese, and quaffed his cup of wine, and passed on It was a point of honor for no one to stop Whatever obstructions were in the ere to be at all hazards sur nearly twenty ht not be thrown into confusion The descent was more perilous than the ascent But fortune seehtful, and in four days the whole army was reassembled on the plains of Italy

Napoleon had sent Bertlier forward to receive the division, and to superintend all necessary repairs, while he hihty host He was the lastpeasant for his guide, slowly and thoughtfully he ascended those silent solitudes He was dressed in the gray great coat which he alore Art pictured hier

But truth presents him in an attitudepeasant who acted as his guide was entirely unconscious of the distinguished rank of the plain traveler whose steps he was conducting Much of the way Napoleon was silent, abstracted in thoughts And yet he found tiuide the secrets of his heart The young peasant was sincere and virtuous He loved a fair reat desire to have her for his own He was poor and had neither house nor land to support a faainst coland and Austria, and with all the cares of an army, on thehis mind, with pensive sympathy won the confidence of his companion and elicited this artless recital of love and desire As Napoleon disuide, with an ample reward, he drew from his pocket a pencil and upon a loose piece of paper wrote a few lines, which he requested the young ive, on his return, to the Aduide returned, and presented the note, he found, to his unbounded surprise and delight, that he had conducted Napoleon over the iven him a field and a house He was thus enabled to be married, and to realize all the dreams of his modest ambition Generous impulses must have been instinctive in a heart, which in an hour so fraught with hty events, could turn from the toils of e with a peasant's love This youngpassed his quiet life in the enjoyiven him by the ruler of the world

The ar the banks of the Aosta They were threading a beautiful valley, rich in verdure and blooes, vineyards, and orchards, in full bloom, embellished their path, while upon each side of them rose, in majestic swell, the fir-clad sides of the ainst the frontiers of France, had no conception of the storathered, and which ith resistless sweep, approaching their rear The French soldiers, elated with the Herculean achievement they had accoayly on But the valley before therow more and more narrow

The y

The Aosta, crowded into a narrow channel, rushed foa the side of the mountain