Modern students, who sit in snug libraries and rectify the arduous campaigns of the past, have discovered that Napoleon’s passage of the Alps was no great thing after all. They say that his troops had plenty to eat, drink, and wear; thousands of mules and peasants to aid in the heavy work of the march; no foes to fight on the way; and that his march was little more than a military parade. Indeed, it was one of those things which looked a deal easier after it had been done than before. And yet it must have been a notable feat to have scaled those mighty barriers on which lay the snow, to have threaded those paths up in the air over which the avalanche hung, and below which the precipice yawned--all this having been done with such speed that the French were in Italy before the Austrians knew they had left France. Much of the route was along narrow ledges where the shepherd walked warily. To take a fully equipped army over these rocky shelves,--horse, foot, artillery, ammunition, supplies,--seems even at this admire-nothing day to have been a triumph of organization, skill, foresight, and hardihood. Only a few months previously a Russian army, led by Suwarow, had ventured to cross the Alps--and had crossed; but only half of them got out alive. In less than a week the French made good the daring attempt, and were in the valleys of Italy marching upon the Austrian rear. They had brought cavalry and infantry almost without loss. Cannon had been laid in hollowed logs and pulled up by ropes. The little fort of Bard, stuck right in the road out of the mountains, had, for a moment, threatened the whole enterprise with ruin. Napoleon had known of the fortress, but had underrated its importance. For some hours a panic seemed imminent in the vanguard, but a goat-path was found which led past the fort on rocks higher up. The cannon were slipped by at night, over the road covered with litter. Remaining on the French side to despatch the troops forward as rapidly as possible, Napoleon was one of the last to enter the mountains. He rode a sure-footed mule, and by his side walked his guide, a young peasant who unbosomed himself as they went forward. This peasant, also, had his eyes on the future, and wished to rise in the world. His heart yearned for a farm in the Alps, where he might pasture a small flock, grow a few necessaries, marry a girl he loved, and live happily ever afterward. The traveller on the mule seemed much absorbed in thought; but, nevertheless, he heard all the mountaineer was saying. He gave to the young peasant the funds wherewith to buy house and land; and when Napoleon’s empire had fallen to pieces, the family of his old-time guide yet dwelt contentedly in the home the First Consul had given.