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 plains 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