They reached the foot of the palisade without having roused a single challenge. The men began climbing the palisades as soon as they reached them; but thanks to my father's herculean strength he thought of a better and quieter way—namely, to take each man by the seat of his trousers and the collar of his coat and throw him over the palisades. The snow would break the fall, and also deaden the noise. Surprised out of their sleep, and seeing the French soldiers in their midst without knowing how they had come there, the Piedmontese hardly offered any resistance.
So just a month to the day, after it had been predicted, Mont Cenis became ours!
Whilst my father was taking Mont Cenis, another column of the Army of the Alps crossed the pass of Argentière, near Barcelonnette, seized the post at the Barricades, invaded the valley of la Hure, and thereby put the Army of the Alps in close connection with the Army of Italy, the extreme left arm of which had advanced as far as the little village of Isola, near San-Dalmatio-Salvatico.
My father had just reached the stage at which the commanding generals of the Army of the Alps were recalled to be guillotined.
He expected this reward, and he was not therefore surprised to receive this communication:—
6th Messidor, Year II.
"CITIZEN GENERAL,—You are commanded to leave the Army of the Alps instantly and to present yourself in Paris, to answer the accusations which are being made against you."
"COLLOT D'HERBOIS."
The accusations, or rather the accusation, which my father had to answer was this:
My father had entered the little village of St. Maurice in mid-winter.
The first thing he saw in the open square of the village was a guillotine ready prepared for an execution.