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THE SUMMER TOURIST.—SCENERY OF THE FRANCONIA MOUNTAINS, N.H.

BY WILLIAM M'LEOD.

The approach of summer will turn the thoughts and steps of thousands toward those sections of our wide country whose picturesque beauty makes them ample amends for comparative sterility of soil and poverty of population. New Hampshire, with due allowance for the exaggerations of patriotism, may well be styled the Switzerland of America; and, although they are inferior in magnificent sublimity to the regal Alps, few tourists through the Northern States would leave the White Mountains unvisited.

Though it forms part of this great chain, the inhabitants of the Franconia range, jealously claim for their hills a separate name, character, and interest, having no connection with the more eminent firm of Washington, Adams, and Co. Like the latter, the Franconians boast a chief to their clan—Mount Lafayette, a "Notch," and other important features of a distinct and complete establishment, which combine to make it no mean rival to the great Patriot Group. We propose, with pen and pencil, to make a brief excursion through these picturesque localities.

These remarkable scenes are chiefly comprised within the extraordinary defile, or "notch," formed by the Franconia Mountains for a distance of five miles. The northern and southern approaches to this singular pass, have their peculiar advantages. Coming from the south, the tourist, from a very great distance, sees the outlines of its grander features rising far above the beautiful valley he follows; but, perhaps, this long and constantly visible approach, interesting as it is, begets a familiarity that weakens the impression of their sublimity when he finally confronts their more palpable magnificence. Not so with the approach from the north, where the views being more abrupt, shifting, and at times wholly concealed, their effect is the more startling upon the traveler, brought suddenly before them. Thus, in approaching the Franconia Notch from Bethlehem, we shall find the slow ascent of the dull steep hill eastward of that village, to be an excellent preparative for the superb prospect that bursts upon our vision, on reaching its top. Across the Franconia Valley lying beneath us, we see the lofty summits, forming the "Notch," "swell from the vale," and receding in peaks of picturesque irregularity—

There is no general view in the White Mountains equal to this distant prospect of the Franconia Notch, in respect to picturesque majesty of outline and massive breadth. Descending into the valley, our road suddenly turns eastward, and as we begin the opposite slow ascent to the Notch, the view before us assumes a finely-grouped concentrated character—losing that diffuseness so destructive of picturesqueness and point in the American landscape generally. This scene is attempted in the accompanying sketch, showing Mount Lafayette filling the centre of the view, the irregular peaks of the Notch on the right, while below, the eye is cheered with the snug farm-house by the road-side, and other rural accessories charmingly arranged for the artist's purpose.

Keeping the grander points of this fine prospect before us as we continue our ascent, every step reveals more distinctly the volcano-like crest and seamed bosom of Lafayette, than which not Washington himself, though five hundred feet taller, presents a form of more august character. Lafayette is not only distinguished over his fellows by his height, but also by the rocky bareness of his peaked summit, that descends with converging rows of ravines and hemlock-topped cliffs into an immense verdant basin presented toward us. In fine weather, the dry rocks of these ravines shine like bars of silver, and after heavy rains they glisten with the torrents disappearing into the vast shadowy basin below.

No tourist that has made this ascent to the Notch during the dog-days, can forget the grateful change of the hot, treeless road, for the shady coolness of the wooded avenue he enters at the top, and through whose green twilight his now recruited steeds drag him merrily for two miles to the Lafayette House at the entrance of the Notch. Just before reaching the hotel, we see through the fine birchen groves, skirting our avenue, Echo Lake, a small sheet of water of great depth and transparency, the mountainous sides of which clothed with an unbroken forest of dreary hemlock, deprive it of all beauty of setting, or of interest aside from its marvelously distinct echoes.

The Franconia Notch hardly deserves more than the name of a pass—even for its narrowest point near the Lafayette House, where it is about a quarter of a mile in width. It has no such jaws—projecting tusks, and other palpable signs of violent disrupture, as make the expressive title of "Notch" so fitly applied to its great rival in the White Mountains. Still its features are distinctive, and grandly unique, and though not so sublimely rugged as those of its rival, they are infinitely more picturesque, and this peculiar difference of character extends to all the scenery lying within the two rival regions. But the wonder and pride of the Franconia Notch is the "Old Man" of the Profile Mountain, that forms its western wall, and which, ascending on the north side with a gradual wooded slope, to a height of two thousand feet, abruptly terminates in a perpendicular rocky precipice, five hundred feet high, which in a bare "granite front" extends along the eastern face of the mountain for two miles. An exquisite sheet of water, in size and purity similar to Echo Lake, lies between the mountain and our road, from which through a clearing, we have an admirable view of the mountain, rising wave-like from its lake—its rich rolling groves, overtopped by a pinnacle of rock, like the comb of a breaking billow, and in the fantastic outlines of that granite crest, juts out as perfect an outline of an old man's head, as human hand itself could execute!

Every tourist through the White Mountains knows the propensity of the natives to increase the interest of their region, by pointing out all sorts of fancied zoological likenesses in their rocks and mountains—so that before he sees the "Old Man," he will be apt to rank him, in advance, with the facial pretensions he has already seen. But, no! this time the artist has made a hit, and the likeness is admirable. There is nothing vague, imperfect, or disproportioned about him. You are not forced to imagine a brow to the nose, or go in search of a chin to support the mouth. They are all there!—a bent, heavy brow, not stern, but earnest—a straight, sharp nose—lips thin and with the very weakness of extreme senility in their pinched-up lines—and a chin, long and massive, thrown forward with a certain air of obstinacy, that completes the character of the likeness!

The mass of rock forming this extraordinary profile is said to be eighty feet in height; is fifteen hundred feet above the lake, and about half a mile from a spectator in the road—from which point it appears to be at the top of the mountain though it is really five hundred feet below the summit. The "Old Man" does not change his countenance under the closest scrutiny of the spy-glass, constantly leveled at him by the starers "beneath his notice." Under such inspection the likeness loses none of its human character, though the cheeks of the veteran appear woefully cut-up and scarred. But it seems rude to peer thus impertinently into the wrinkles and "crow's-feet" of his grim visage that has faced, perhaps, centuries of sun and tempest. Nor is it advisable to take your first look at him when the sun lights up the chasms of his granite cheek, and the cavernous mystery of his bent brow. Go to him when in the solemn light of evening the mountain heaves up from the darkening lake its vast wave of luxuriant foliage—sit on one of those rocks by the road-side, and look, if you can, without awe, at the Granite Face hung against the luminous sky—human in its lineaments—supernatural in size and position—weird-like in its shadowy mystery, but its sharp outline wearing an expression of mortal sadness that gives it the most fascinating interest! If this singular profile has existed long enough, it must have been an object of veneration to the aborigines. Mr. Oakes, in his White Mountain Scenery, says it was first publicly made known to the whites only as far back as forty years ago. It is curious to observe the odd changes of the profile, as we advance or recede along the road. Now it resembles an old woman—now it flattens like a negro's face, and now its nose presents an "eagle-beak," like the Duke of Wellington's! A peculiar feature of beauty in the Profile Mountain is the rare luxuriance of its forest of birch and beech, with an occasional hemlock rising spire-like from its groves. The "Old Man" has a remarkable echo, with which (after a becoming deliberate pause) he will retort every appeal, grave, quizzical, and sentimental that may be shouted up to him by the gay idlers on the lake side.

On the opposite side of the Notch, and immediately overhanging the hotel, a tremendous cliff is separated from the crest of the mountain by a huge chasm, and with its numerous jagged and splintered rocks, seems every moment about to topple down. This is the famous Eagle Cliff—so called from a pair of eagles having made their habitation a few seasons since on its topmost crag; and a prouder eyry for that majestic bird can not be imagined. It is this noble cliff, with its adjacent craggy peaks, that furnishes that picturesque irregularity of outline we have already described as peculiar to the Franconia Notch, and which is visible for such a great distance to the traveler coming either from the north or south. The latter approach, however, furnishes the finest view of Eagle Cliff. When within a mile of it, its stupendous crags fill up the centre of the view above the road before us, and the luxuriant birches on either side form a graceful framework, whose light airy boughs contrast finely with the massive riven cliff they inclose. In the evening, when the sun's rays are withdrawn from the valley below, and the rosy light falls alone on its rocky crags, vividly relieved by the broad shadows of its chasm, Eagle Cliff forms indeed a worthy pendant to the "Old Man" over the way. The accompanying sketch is taken from this point in the road, to the left of which is seen a portion of the exquisite lake "sweetly slumbering" between these magnificent mountains.

But the glories of the Notch are not fully seen, unless the tourist visit it when that unrivaled colorist, Jack Frost, has lavished upon its foliage the hues of his gorgeous pallet—their tempered brilliancy glowing through the voluptuous haze of autumn! What a singular contrast the opposite sides of the Notch then present! Eagle Cliff allows no motley-dressed dandies to vegetate upon his stern crags—exclusively a mass of granite and sombre evergreens; and the hemlock-covered eastern wall into which he extends, has its funereal vestments only here and there slashed with stripes of bright yellow birches that mark the mountain torrents and land-slides. But Frost, the artist, has a fairer field for his brush on the opposite side, where the rich rolling groves of the Profile Mountain present a bravely variegated mantle descending from the very neck of the "Old Man," who, with grim visage, unmoved by so rare "a coat of many colors," seems as indisposed as ever to bend down that obstinate chin and take a look at himself and his finery in the lake lying like a mirror at his feet! And even after the glory of the leaf has passed, it is well worth a trip to see these peaks in their cloudy costume, when the wind howls through the defile with a force shaking the hemlock "moored in the rifted rock," but not silencing the muffled roar of the unseen mountain torrents. Nor as one of the attractions of a late season must be omitted the chance of seeing Lafayette peering with whitened head over his clansmen's shoulders, while perhaps the defile reposes in groves of bright and brilliant foliage. But in spite of splendid foliage, and fresh, bracing weather, but few tourists visit the Franconia Notch when in its heightened glory. The artist, the wood-cutter, and the partridge have it chiefly to themselves, and so "mine host" of the Lafayette House shuts up his best rooms, brings from one lake his oars, from the other his swivel, and that other echo-waking instrument—the long tin horn, now "hangs silent on the wall," until the hot weather of next summer brings the crowds of travelers who know not when to travel. This scant attendance of tourists during the finest season of the year may be attributed to a false impression that because this Notch is confessedly one of the coldest spots in America in winter, it must be disagreeably cold during the early autumn. This is a mistake; the weather there being quite as mild till the close of October as it is in the open lower country.

Proceeding southwardly through the Notch, we find its precipitous walls gradually recede and break up into gently-sloping summits, which, at the distance of five miles, terminate the defile, and debouch into a wide valley, whose great descent proves the great elevation of the defile we are now threading. For two miles we keep in view the Profile Mountain, whose eastern front resembles the Hudson River Palisades on a gigantic scale. Nothing can be more imposing than the front it presents—half of it a sheer precipice of bare granite, seamed, ribbed, and riven in every fantastic shape, resting on a sloping mass of broken rock, amid which flourish sturdy rows of evergreens, in spite of the showers of granite from the crumbling crags above—and which foretell the destruction that will inevitably overtake the lineaments of the "Old Man" long before "mighty oceans cease to roar." The annexed sketch will convey some idea of this stupendous front of the Profile Mountain, and also of the best general view of the Notch. which last, unfortunately, does not from any point present its features in sufficient concentration to do justice to their magnitude in detail.

We are now separated from the Profile Mountain by the Pemigewasset—a beautiful brook flowing from the lake at the feet of the "Old Man," whose tripping Indian name, though of unknown meaning, in sound, well describes its course of cascades, with which it follows us through the whole length of the defile—now dancing along our path, and now plunging again into the "listening woods," where it "singeth a quiet tune." Four miles from the Notch, it suddenly rushes out to the very edge of our road, and after foaming over several rocky ledges, collects its torn waters, and in a solid jet piercing a narrow fissure of granite, flings itself over into a deep pool, whose extraordinary shape and structure have constituted it the most charming curiosity of these mountains, under the name of The Basin. This singular pool is about twenty feet wide, and is inclosed in a circular basin of granite, one half of which rising to a height of fifteen feet, projects over the imprisoned waters. Undoubtedly the way in which the solid jet of the cascade strikes the side of the basin, giving a strong whirling motion to the pool, has gradually excavated the rock in its present regular, mason-like shape. Graceful birches bend over and embower this exquisite pool, that never fails to elicit bursts of delight from visitors first gazing upon its transparent water of the most brilliant emerald, shading off into an intense blue-black, where the cascade strikes its surface. Its greatest depth is about fifteen feet ordinarily, but nearly all the bed of the pool is distinctly visible through its indescribable emerald purity, although its surface is constantly agitated with tiny wavelets. Nature never fashioned such a darling nook as this exquisite Basin, in which Diana might have bathed, and issued purer from its transparent tide! The water escapes from the pool by another narrow fissure in the lower part of its granite rim, a projecting mass of which is said, by the ingenious Mr. Oakes, to resemble the half-immersed "leg of some Hydropathic Titan!" There are not wanting those who carry the fancied resemblance still further. At present the delicate beauty and graceful contour of the Basin are impaired and obscured somewhat by a clumsy foot-bridge flung across its curved margin, which, it is to be hoped, the next freshet will sweep away; and in anticipation of such wished-for fate to the unsightly and unnecessary structure, it is omitted in the annexed sketch.

A mile below the Basin, and five miles from the Notch, we come to the termination of the defile of the Franconia Mountains. At this point the Flume House, kept by Mr. Taft, offers the most admirable accommodations to those who wish to linger in this noble region. From the hotel the tourist can enjoy a magnificent review of the majestic summits he has just passed—the Profile Mountain filling the left of the view with one broad rounded mass, while the right is broken up with a series of pointed peaks, whereof Mount Lafayette and Eagle Cliff are duly prominent. This view of the Notch often assumes strange characteristics. Frequently in stormy weather, when the clouds elsewhere are, flying swiftly, "like cars for gods to travel by," the masses of vapor caught in the "Notch" seem too entangled to escape—nay, seem to lose their very motion between those peaks, while their brethren overhead are scudding past. And often, when the Notch is completely enshrouded in motionless cloudy gloom, we may see the landscape and the heavens north and south of the Notch, reposing in cloudless calm—the "bridal of the earth and sky!" By stepping to the south piazza of Mr. Taft's hotel, the tourist meets a prospect wholly unlike the stern grandeur he has left. He looks down upon the valley into which the defile debouches, and sees its gently sloping hills and glimmering meadows receding in airy perspective, and melting in a strip of tenderest azure at a distance of forty miles. The effect of this beautiful vista upon eyes long fatigued with frowning crags and shadowy ravines is inexpressibly cheering.

Within easy distance of the Flume House we find the three remaining curiosities of the Franconia Mountains. These are the Pool, the Cascade, and the Flume. The first of these is formed by another and heavier cascade on the Pemigewasset, and is but an enlarged idea of the Basin, with considerable grandeur, but with none of the fantastic picturesque loveliness of the latter. The Pool is very wonderful, but it does not win our affection as does the Basin, whose exquisite beauties sink with peculiar interest into the traveler's heart that will, long after his return to the grave duties of town, be haunted with the music of its cascade, be illumined with the emerald flash of its crystal waters, and be linked with the memory of the pleasant chance-acquaintances made within the influence of its bewitching loveliness. Will those whose eyes have been gladdened by this choice work of nature, deem our eulogy aught but well-merited enthusiasm?

Crossing the Pemigewasset, and following up one of its little mountain tributaries, we come to the foot of a steep slope some two hundred feet in height, the smooth granite face of which has been washed bare to a width of forty feet by the violent freshets of spring. At ordinary times, merely a thin rivulet slides noiselessly over the slope, here and there leaving little pools whirling round in the shallow basins scooped out of the smooth granite. This is the Cascade—only deserving the name when a freshet occurs, and then its heavy volume of water is said to be fearfully sublime, bringing down ice and gigantic trees which, catching in the margin of the smooth bed, are often flung up on end by the force of the current, and momentarily standing erect, then plunge headlong and broken down the terrible declivity. When the stream is low nothing can be gentler than this singular granite slope, fringed with trees. Those ascending to the Flume, will be glad to rest awhile on a rustic bench near the top of the slope, and refresh themselves with a draught from the cool stream sliding noiselessly past.

Above the Cascade, the stream is almost hidden among vast rocks and fallen trees of a ravine, becoming deeper, larger, and damper with every step. Crossing and recrossing its numerous little waterfalls by means of rustic bridges, decayed logs, and rocks dripping and hung with the richest moss, we suddenly emerge from the dense wood, and stand in front of a stupendous narrow ravine which, from its fancied resemblance to the flume of a mill, has acquired its well-known name.

The Flume is about two hundred yards in extent, its greatest height is sixty or seventy feet, and has a general width of about twenty feet. Its smooth sides have been excavated with the most singular evenness, and its bed is littered up with rocky rubbish, over which brawls the mountain brook that leaps into sight at the further end of this remarkable corridor. At that end we find the most wonderful feature of the Flume, for there it suddenly contracts to a width of not more than ten feet, and in its jaws holds suspended over the cascade a huge rock twelve feet in height, and which, being undoubtedly a boulder, has rolled from above into the chasm, and there been held by its slight excess of breadth—not more than two inches at the utmost.

There being neither trees, nor shrubs, nor herbage of any sort, save the luxuriant mosses nourished by the eternal moisture, to break the long vista of the Flume, it presents a very novel appearance to the visitor issuing from the dense wood below, and catching a sudden and complete view of its steep, dripping walls, and rocky bed, terminating with the suspended boulder and the Cascade flashing underneath; while the tall hemlocks above the cliffs, shut out all save a small patch of blue sky. Ordinarily the stream is very low, and visitors can not only pick their way over rocks and logs to the foot of the Cascade, but can clamber over the granite ledges and pass under the suspended boulder that looks as if at any moment it might slip through upon them. This feat of passing under the rock is always a very damp one, though during the season, troops of damsels may be seen bravely accomplishing it, scornful of the rock above and the wet below—and doing it too without the confident freedom of the Bloomer dress! As the Flume is little penetrated by the sun's rays, the eternal moisture of its depths makes it advisable for those disposed to linger in them, to take abundant extra clothing; fur during the warmest summer-day, when an artist issues from its damp walls after a long siege of its curiosities with canvas and colors, he looks as if he were rehearsing the favorite circus-feat of throwing off multitudinous jackets and vests! By following up the ravine beyond the suspended rock, the visitor can ascend the cliffs overhanging the Flume; and if he or she have nerve enough, a large hemlock fallen across the chasm affords spacious footing whence a fine bird's-eye view of the ravine may be enjoyed. In winter and in spring the Flume is said to present a scene of fearful interest—now bearded with icicles, and anon, from melting snows, filled with a torrent of ice and fallen timber crashing in thunder through its jaws, to be launched more freely over the broad slope of the Cascade below. Until very recently this extraordinary ravine was wholly unknown, and it is to be regretted that we have no authentic chronicle of the gradual cutting of the Flume by the action of its stream; and also when and by what changes the suspended boulder has been caught in its present singular position.

We can not recross the Pemigewasset, on our return from the last great lion of the Franconia Mountains, without another notice of that exquisite mountain-stream. Though from its being so over-fished, it now holds out few inducements to enthusiasts in trouting, yet the prospect of having even "a glorious nibble," should tempt the angler to explore its beauties—its picturesque cascades, and deep, slumbrous pools above and below the bridge leading to the Flume. The accompanying sketch shows one of these numerous fairy nooks, overlooked by Mount Liberty—the fine peak directly opposite the Flume House.

This sketch of the attractions of the great Franconia Notch must not be closed without mention of the view from Mount Lafayette, considered by many far more interesting than that from Mount Washington; for, though less extensive than the latter, it embraces a far more picturesque and beautiful region lying distinctly under the eye. Hitherto this noble panorama has not been generally enjoyed, owing to the difficulty of its only mode of ascent—on foot. The coming season, however, will supply tourists with two bridle-roads, from the Lafayette House and the Flume House, at both of which well-kept hotels, every convenience in the way of horses and vehicles can always be had for the purpose of visiting the various curiosities scattered along this romantic defile. Throughout the five miles of the Franconia pass, there is not, excepting these two hotels at either end, a single human dwelling. The growing season is too short here to allow any thing to be raised on the patches of easy soil dotting the defile, that would, therefore, present, were it not for the public houses and the passing stage-coaches loaded with tourists, a scene of primeval nature and solitude. Would that its stupendous scenery were linked with mighty incident, and that its rare loveliness were clothed with the sacred vestment of traditionary lore! But alas! its magnificent grandeur and picturesque beauty, so fitted to figure in Indian romance or the settler's legend is sadly deficient in the hallowing charm of historic or poetic association!

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NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.[1]

BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.

MARENGO.

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 came rolling in upon his ear from all the frontiers of France. The hostile fleets of England swept the channel, utterly annihilating the commerce of the Republic, landing regiments of armed emigrants upon her coasts, furnishing 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, came thundering down, through the Black Forest, to the banks of the Rhine, with a mighty host of 150,000 men, like locust legions, to pour into all the northern provinces of France. Artillery of the heaviest calibre and a magnificent 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 rushing 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 his military genius. He had, in behalf of bleeding humanity, implored peace in vain. He now, with alacrity and with joy, roused himself to inflict blows that should be felt upon his multitudinous enemies. With such tremendous energy did he do this, that he received from his antagonists 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 proclamation rang like a trumpet charge over the hills and valleys of France. "Frenchmen! You have been anxious for peace. Your government has desired it with still greater ardor. Its first efforts, its most constant wishes, have been for its attainment. The English ministry has exposed the secret of its iniquitous policy. It wishes to dismember France, to destroy its commerce, and either to erase it from the map of Europe, or to degrade it to a secondary power. England is willing to embroil all the nations of the Continent in hostility with each other, that she may enrich herself with their spoils, and gain possession of the trade of the world. For the attainment of this object she scatters her gold, becomes prodigal of her promises, and multiplies her intrigues."

At this call all the martial spirit of France rushed to arms. Napoleon, supremely devoted to the welfare of the State, seemed to forget even his own glory in the intensity of his desire to make France victorious over her foes. With the most magnanimous superiority to all feelings of jealousy, he raised an army of 150,000 men, the very élite 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 campaign, in accordance with his own energy, boldness, and genius. Its accomplishment would have added surpassing 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 impression upon the imaginations of men. "Your plan," said one, a friend of Moreau, to the First Consul, "is grander, more decisive, even more sure. But it is not adapted to the slow and cautious genius of the man who is to execute it. You have your method of making war, which 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 will wound his self-love, and disconcert him."

Napoleon, profoundly versed in the knowledge of the human heart, promptly replied. "You are right, 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 accomplish on the Alps. The day may come when he will regret the glory which he yields to me." These were proud and prophetic words. Moreau was moderately victorious upon the Rhine, driving back 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 more lofty generosity than this surrender of the noblest army of the Republic to one, who considered himself, and who was deemed by others, a rival—and thus to throw open to him the theatre of war where apparently the richest laurels were to be won. And we know not where to look for a deed more proudly expressive of self-confidence. "I will give Moreau," said he by this act, "one hundred and fifty thousand of the most brave and highly disciplined soldiers of France, the victors of a hundred battles. I myself will take sixty thousand men, new recruits and the fragments of regiments 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 tremendous energy and self-confidence upon the frontiers of France. Napoleon, instead of marching with his inexperienced troops, two-thirds of whom had never seen a shot fired in earnest, to meet the heads of the triumphant columns of Melas, resolved to climb the rugged and apparently inaccessible fastnesses of the Alps, and, descending from the clouds over pathless precipices, to fall with the sweep of the avalanche, upon their rear. It was necessary to assemble this army at some favorable point;—to gather in vast magazines its munitions of war. It was necessary that this should be done in secret, lest the Austrians, climbing to the summits of the Alps, and defending the gorges through which the troops of Napoleon would be compelled to wind their difficult and tortuous way, might render the passage utterly impossible. English 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 completely deceived his foes by ostentatiously announcing the very plan he intended to carry into operation. Of course, the allies thought that this was a foolish attempt to draw their attention from the real point of attack. The more they ridiculed the imaginary army at Dijon, the more loudly did Napoleon reiterate his commands for battalions and magazines 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 army of the First Consul of Dijon. The English especially made themselves very merry with Napoleon's grand army to scale the Alps. It was believed that the energies of the Republic were utterly exhausted in raising the force which was given to Moreau. One of the caricatures represented the army as consisting of a boy, dressed in his father's clothes, shouldering a musket, which he could with difficulty lift, and eating a piece of gingerbread, and an old man with one arm and a wooden leg. The 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 meadows and vine-clad fields and hill sides, the majestic ranges of the Alps, piercing the clouds and soaring with glittering pinnacles, into the region of perpetual ice and snow. Vast spurs of the mountains extend on each side, opening gloomy gorges and frightful defiles, through which foaming torrents rush impetuously, walled in by almost precipitous cliffs, whose summits, crowned with melancholy firs, are inaccessible to the foot of man. The principal pass over this enormous ridge was that of the Great St. Bernard. The traveler, accompanied by a guide, and mounted on a mule, slowly and painfully ascended a steep and rugged path, now crossing a narrow bridge, spanning a fathomless abyss, again creeping along the edge 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 times was so narrow, that it seemed that the mountain goat 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 mangled corpse, a thousand feet upon the fragments of granite in the gulf beneath. As higher and higher he climbed these wild and rugged 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 who was 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 storms of wind and snow often swept through those bleak altitudes, blinding and smothering 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 consumed their winding sheet. Having toiled two days through such scenes of desolation and peril, the adventurous traveler stands upon the summit of the pass, eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, two thousand feet higher than the crest of Mount Washington, our own mountain monarch. This summit, over which the path winds, consists of a small level plain, surrounded by mountains of snow of still higher elevation.

The scene here presented is inexpressibly gloomy and appalling. Nature in these wild regions assumes her most severe and sombre aspect. As one emerges from the precipitous and craggy 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 monks, who, in that frigid retreat of granite and ice, endeavor to serve their Maker, by rescuing bewildered travelers from the destruction with which they are ever threatened to be overwhelmed by the storms, which battle against them. In the middle of this ice-bound valley, lies a lake, clear, dark, and cold, whose depths, even in midsummer, reflect the eternal glaciers which soar sublimely around. The descent to the plains of Italy is even more precipitous and dangerous than the ascent from the green pastures of France. No vegetation adorns these dismal and storm-swept cliffs of granite and of ice. Even the pinion of the eagle fails in its rarified air, and the chamois ventures not to climb its steep and slippery crags. No human beings are ever to be seen on these bleak summits, except the few shivering travelers, who tarry for an hour to receive the hospitality of the convent, and the hooded monks, wrapped in thick and coarse garments, with their staves and their dogs, groping through the storms of sleet and snow. Even the wood which burns with frugal faintness on their hearths, is borne, in painful burdens, up the mountain sides, upon the shoulders of the monks.

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 wine, presented to him by the monks. All these minute details Napoleon arranged, while at the same time he was doing the work of a dozen energetic men, in re-organizing the whole structure of society in France. If toil pays for greatness, Napoleon purchased the renown which 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, my dear Josephine! I must go to Italy. I shall not forget 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 war were on the spot at the designated hour. Napoleon immediately appointed a very careful inspection. Every foot soldier and every horseman passed before his scrutinizing eye. If a shoe was ragged, or a jacket torn, or a musket injured, the defect was immediately repaired. His glowing words inspired the troops with the ardor which was burning in his own bosom. The genius of the First Consul was infused into the mighty host. Each man exerted himself to the utmost. The eye of their chief was every where, and his cheering voice roused the army to almost superhuman exertions. Two skillful engineers had been sent to explore the path, and to do what could be done in the removal of obstructions. They returned with an appalling recital 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 limits of possibility." "Forward, then," was the energetic response. Each man was required to carry, besides his arms, food for several days and a large quantity of cartridges. As the sinuosities of the precipitous path could only be trod in single file, the heavy wheels were taken from the carriages, and each, slung upon a pole, was borne by two men. The task for the foot soldiers was far less than for the horsemen. The latter clambered up on foot, dragging their horses after them. The descent was very dangerous. The dragoon, in the steep and narrow path, was compelled to walk before his horse. At the least stumble he was exposed to being plunged headlong 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 sunk into the grooves. A long string of mules, in single file, were attached to the ponderous machines of war, to 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 transportation 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 mist, 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.