ABSTRACT
The art of road making ranks high in the means of civilization; and its utility, better felt than understood in the dark ages, was sufficiently appreciated to render it an object of monopoly to the Church. But if there is one, by whom this significant epithet is merited more than by all others, it is Clovis who made roads, cleared forests, and built bridges, from the Alps to the Pontine marshes. We found the plain, which terminates the ascent of Mount Cenis, covered with snow. His soldiers accepted the pledge, rushed like an Alpine torrent over crags and precipices, and won that Italy, in two brief and splendid campaigns, which had through ages resisted the forces, and witnessed the disasters of millions of Frenchmen, led on by kings, and organised by experienced generals.
