drag them up the slippery ascent. The mules soon began to fail, and
then the men, with hearty good-will, brought their own shoulders into
the harness--a hundred men to a single gun. 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 more powerful impulse. With shouts
of encouragement they toiled at the cables, successive bands of
a hundred men relieving each other every half hour. High on those
craggy steeps, gleaming through the midst, the glittering bands of
armed men, like phantoms appeared. The eagle wheeled and screamed
beneath their feet. The mountain goat, affrighted 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 trumpets
sounded the charge, which re-echoed, with sublime reverberations,
from pinnacle to pinnacle of rock and ice. Animated by these bugle
notes the soldiers strained every nerve as if rushing upon the
foe. Napoleon offered to these bands the same reward which he had
promised to the peasants. But to a man, they refused the gold.
They had imbibed the spirit of their chief, his enthusiasm, and
his proud superiority to all mercenary motives. "We are not toiling
for money," said they, "but for your approval, and to share your
glory."

Napoleon with his wonderful tact had introduced a slight change
into the artillery service, which was productive of immense moral
results. The gun carriages had heretofore been driven by mere