Pierre Nicholas Dorsaz was an inhabitant of the village of Bourg-Saint-Pierre

Bourg-Saint-Pierre

Bourg-Saint-Pierre is a municipality in the district of Entremont in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.-Geography:...

 who acted as Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...

's guide when he crossed the Alps

Alps

The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

 in 1800, by way of the Great St Bernard Pass, as part of his plan to make an unexpected arrival in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, and surprise the Austrian

Austrian Empire

The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...

 army.

There is some difficulty in ascertaining Dorsaz's forenames. Napoleon's official correspondence refers to him as "Pierre Nicholas", but other accounts call him Jean Pierre Dorsaz and in Émile Bégin's 1853 Histoire de Napoleon he is named as Jean Baptiste Dorsaz. Bégin states Dorsaz was a relative of Jean Nicholas Dorsaz, the secretary of the commune, who related the story to Bégin in 1851.

The journey itself took place after Napoleon returned from his military campaign in Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 at the turn of the 19th century, to find that the Austrians had been able to reconquer Italy. Napoleon's plan was to cross to Italy with his army of over forty thousand men to launch a surprise assault on the Austrian army (thirty five thousand light artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

 and infantry

Infantry

Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...

, five thousand cavalry

Cavalry

Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...

, not including heavy field artillery such as large cannon

Cannon

A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...

s and baggage trains).

The journey through the Great St Bernard Pass (which was, after thorough consideration, decided to be the best possible route through the harsh Alps), commenced on the 15 May 1800 and took five days.

Initially Napoleon and Dorsaz did not converse, but shortly after they started their ascent into the mountains the mule carrying Napoleon slipped on the icy ground and almost fell over a precipice. Dorsaz, walking between the mule and the edge of the track was able to prevent Napoleon and his mount tumbling over the side and though Napoleon showed no emotion at his lucky escape, he entered into conversation with his guide. It appears that the First Consul was determined to reward his guide for his actions as he questioned Dorsaz about his life in the village and the normal recompense for the guides. Dorsaz told Napoleon that the normal fee for the guides was three francs

French franc

The franc was a currency of France. Along with the Spanish peseta, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra . Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money...

. Bégin recounts that Dorsaz said that his dream was to have a small farm, a field and cow. Napoleon asked him how much that would cost and when Dorsaz replied it would be 60 Louis he was given the money directly, but Napoleon's correspondence shows that he ordered 1200 francs to be paid to Dorsaz on 21 October 1800 for his "zeal and devotion to his task" during the crossing of the Alps, and other sources say this money was used to purchase a house for Dorsaz in Bourg-Saint-Pierre. Local legend also credits the money with securing Dorsaz a wife, as without a house he was unable to marry the girl he was in love with.