On occasions like this Napoleon rarely failed to vindicate the prestige of his reputation.  After hastily surveying the localities, he climbed the height of the Albaredo, which rises on the one side above the fort, and satisfied himself that, though the path had hitherto been trodden only by solitary huntsmen, the army who had crossed the St. Bernard might, by similar efforts, find or make their way here also.  A single cannon being, with the last difficulty, hoisted to the summit, he planted it so as to play full on the chief bastion of St. Bard.  The moment this was arranged the troops began their painful march; and they accomplished it without considerable loss; for the Consul’s gun was so excellently placed that the main battery of the subjacent castle, was, ere long, silenced.  The men crept along the brow of the Albaredo in single file, each pausing (says an eye-witness) to gaze for a moment on Napoleon, who, overcome with his exertions, had lain down and fallen fast asleep upon the summit of the rock.  Thus passed the main body, slowly, but surely.  Meantime Colonel Dufour had been ordered to scale the wall of the town at nightfall; and his regiment (the 58th) performed this service so impetuously, that the Austrian troops took refuge in the castle, and the French made good their lodgment in the houses below.  For some hours the garrison poured down grape-shot at half-musket distance upon the French, but at last out of compassion for the inhabitants, the fire slackened, and ere day broke Buonaparte had effected his main purpose.  The streets of the town having been strewn with litter to deafen sound, the guns, covered with straw and branches of trees, were dragged through it under the very guns of St. Bard, and without exciting the least suspicion in its garrison.  Next morning the Austrian sent on a messenger to Melas, with tidings that a large division of the French had indeed passed by the goat-tracks of Albaredo, but that most certainly not one great gun was with them.  Buonaparte, meantime, was hurrying forwards with horse, foot, and artillery too, upon Ivrea.

The march of the Consul received no new check until he reached the town of Ivrea, where, after two days’ hard fighting, Lannes at length forced an entrance, and the garrison, with severe loss, withdrew.  Buonaparte then took the road to Turin, and the vanguard had another severe piece of service at the bridge of Chiusilla, where 10,000 Austrians had been very strongly posted.  Lannes broke them, and pursuing as far as Orca, cut them off from their magazines at Chevagno, and seized a vast quantity of stores which had been embarked on the Po.  The advance was now within one march of Turin, while Murat occupied Vercelli, and the other divisions (those of Moncey, Chabran, and Thureau), having accomplished their several Alpine journeys, were pouring down upon the low country, and gradually converging towards the appointed rendezvous on the Ticino.  Buonaparte had thus overcome the great difficulties of his preparation, and was ready with his whole army to open the campaign in good earnest against Melas.