This accident had suggested to my father the precaution of having crampons made for himself and his men.
Mont Cenis was only assailable from three sides; the fourth was so well defended by Nature that the Piedmontese simply protected it by a stockade.
To get up from this side meant a climb from the very bottom of a precipice.
My father made a pretence of attacking the other three sides; then, on the 19th Floréal (8th of May), he set out at night with three hundred men.
He had to turn the mountain, climb the inaccessible rock-side, and give the signal for attack to the other corps by his own attack.
Before beginning the ascent my father showed his men the rock they had to climb.
"Understand beforehand," he said, "that any man who slips is a dead man, for nothing can save him if he falls from such a height. It will therefore be useless to call for help; his cry will not save him, and may imperil the enterprise by giving the alarm."
Three men fell; their bodies were heard bounding from rock to rock; but no cry, not a groan, not a murmur, escaped them.
The climbers reached the plateau. Although it was a dark night, the long line of soldiers, clothed in blue uniforms, could have been perceived outlined against the snow from the fort. But my father had foreseen this contingency; each man had a cotton cap and a shirt rolled up in his knapsack.
This was the ordinary dress my father adopted at night when he hunted chamois.