d impracticable for carriages. But
those five leagues tested the utmost powers of the army and of its
chiefs. Marmont, who commanded the artillery, had devised the
ingenious plan of taking the cannon from their carriages and placing
them in the hollowed-out trunks of pine, so that the trunnions fitting
into large notches kept them steady during the ascent over the snow
and the still more difficult descent.[140] The labour of dragging the
guns wore out the peasants; then the troops were invited--a hundred at
a time--to take a turn at the ropes, and were exhilarated by martial
airs played by the bands, or by bugles and drums sounding the charge
at the worst places of the ascent.

The track sometimes ran along narrow ledges where a false step meant
death, or where avalanches were to be feared. The elements, however,
were propitious, and the losses insignificant. This was due to many
causes: the ardour of the troops in an enterprise which appealed to
French imagination and roused all their activities; the friendliness
of the mountaineers; and the organizing powers of Bonaparte and of his
staff; all these may be cited as elements of success. They present a
striking contrast to the march of Hannibal's army over one of the
western passes of the Alps. His motley host struggled over a long
stretch of mountains in the short days of October over unknown paths,
in one part swept away by a fall of the cliff, and ever and anon beset
by clouds of treacherous Gauls. Seeing that the great Carthaginian's
difficulties began long before he reached the Alps, that he was
encumbered by elephants, and that his army was composed of diverse
races held together only by trust in the prowess of their chief, his
exploit was far more wonderful than that of Bonaparte, which, indeed,
more nearly resembles the crossing of the St. Bernard by Francis I. in
1515. The difference between the conditions of Hannibal's and
Bonaparte's enterprises may partly be measured by the time which they
occupied. Whereas Hannibal's march across the Alps lasted fifteen
days, three of which were spent in the miseries of a forced halt
amidst the snow, the First Consul's forces took but seven days.
Whereas the Carthaginian army was weakened by hunger, the French
carried their full rations of biscuit; and at the head of the pass the
monks of the Hospice of St. Bernard served out the rations of bread,
cheese, and wine which the First Consul had forwarded, and which their
own ge