The Aosta, crowded into a narrow channel, rushed foaming over the
rocks, leaving barely room for a road along the side of the mountain.
Suddenly the march of the whole army was arrested by a fort, built
upon an inaccessible rock, which rose pyramidally from the bed of
the stream. Bristling cannon, skillfully arranged on well-constructed
bastions, swept the pass, and rendered further advance apparently
impossible. Rapidly the tidings of this unexpected obstruction
spread from the van to the rear. Napoleon immediately hastened
to the front ranks. Climbing the mountain opposite the fort, by a
goat path, he threw himself down upon the ground, when a few bushes
concealed his person from the shot of the enemy, and with his
telescope long and carefully examined the fort and the surrounding
crags. He perceived one elevated spot, far above the fort, where a
cannon might by possibility be drawn. From that position its shot
could be plunged upon the unprotected bastions below. Upon the
face of the opposite cliff, far beyond the reach of cannon-balls,
he discerned a narrow shelf in the rock by which he thought it
possible that a man could pass.
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