Montcalm and Wolfe — Chapter 11, Part 1
Montcalm On the eighteenth of May, 1756, England, after a year of open hostility, at length declared war.
She had attacked France by land and sea, turned loose her ships to prey on French commerce, and brought some three hundred prizes into her ports.
It was the act of a weak Government, supplying by spasms of violence what it lacked in considerate resolution.
France, no match for her amphibious enemy in the game of marine depredation, cried out in horror; and to emphasize her complaints and signalize a pretended good faith which her acts had belied, ostentatiously released a British frigate captured by her cruisers.
She in her turn declared war on the ninth of June: and now began the most terrible conflict of the eighteenth century; one that convulsed Europe and shook America, India, the coasts of Africa, and the islands of the sea.
In Europe the ground was trembling already with the coming earthquake.
Such smothered discords, such animosities, ambitions, jealousies, possessed the rival governments; such entanglements of treaties and alliances, offensive or defensive, open or secret,--that a blow at one point shook the whole fabric.
Hanover, like the heel of Achilles, was the vulnerable part for which England was always trembling.
Therefore she made a defensive treaty with Prussia, by which each party bound itself to aid the other, should its territory be invaded.
England thus sought a guaranty against France, and Prussia against Russia.
She had need.
Her King, Frederic the Great, had drawn upon himself an avalanche.
Three women--two empresses and a concubine--controlled the forces of the three great nations, Austria, Russia, and France; and they all hated him: Elizabeth of Russia, by reason of a distrust fomented by secret intrigue and turned into gall by the biting tongue of Frederic himself, who had jibed at her amours, compared her to Messalina, and called her "_infâme catin du Nord_;" Maria Theresa of Austria, because she saw in him a rebellious vassal of the Holy Roman Empire, and, above all, because he had robbed her of Silesia; Madame de Pompadour, because when she sent him a message of compliment, he answered, "_Je ne la connais pas_," forbade his ambassador to visit her, and in his mocking wit spared neither her nor her royal lover.
Feminine pique, revenge, or vanity had then at their service the mightiest armaments of Europe.
The recovery of Silesia and the punishment of Frederic for his audacity in seizing it, possessed the mind of Maria Theresa with the force of a ruling passion.
To these ends she had joined herself in secret league with Russia; and now at the prompting of her minister Kaunitz she courted the alliance of France.
It was a reversal of the hereditary policy of Austria; joining hands with an old and deadly foe, and spurning England, of late her most trusty ally.
But France could give powerful aid against Frederic; and hence Maria Theresa, virtuous as she was high-born and proud, stooped to make advances to the all-powerful mistress of Louis XV.
, wrote her flattering letters, and addressed her, it is said, as "_Ma chère cousine_."
Pompadour was delighted, and could hardly do enough for her imperial friend.
She ruled the King, and could make and unmake ministers at will.
They hastened to do her pleasure, disguising their subserviency by dressing it out in specious reasons of state.
A conference at her summer-house, called Babiole, "Bawble," prepared the way for a treaty which involved the nation in the anti-Prussian war, and made it the instrument of Austria in the attempt to humble Frederic,--an attempt which if successful would give the hereditary enemy of France a predominance over Germany.
France engaged to aid the cause with twenty-four thousand men; but in the zeal of her rulers began with a hundred thousand.
Thus the three great Powers stood leagued against Prussia.
Sweden and Saxony joined them; and the Empire itself, of which Prussia was a part, took arms against its obnoxious member.
Never in Europe had power been more centralized, and never in France had the reins been held by persons so pitiful, impelled by motives so contemptible.
The levity, vanity, and spite of a concubine became a mighty engine to influence the destinies of nations.
Louis XV.
, enervated by pleasures and devoured by _ennui_, still had his emotions;
he shared Pompadour's detestation of Frederic, and he was tormented at times by a lively fear of damnation.
But how damn a king who had entered the lists as champion of the Church?
England was Protestant, and so was Prussia; Austria was supremely Catholic.
Was it not a merit in the eyes of God to join her in holy war against the powers of heresy?
The King of the Parc-aux-Cerfs would propitiate Heaven by a new crusade.
Henceforth France was to turn her strength against her European foes;
and the American war, the occasion of the universal outbreak, was to hold in her eyes a second place.
The reasons were several: the vanity of Pompadour, infatuated by the advances of the Empress-Queen, and eager to secure her good graces; the superstition of the King; the anger of both against Frederic; the desire of D'Argenson, minister of war, that the army, and not the navy, should play the foremost part; and the passion of courtiers and nobles, ignorant of the naval service, to win laurels in a continental war,--all conspired to one end.
It was the interest of France to turn her strength against her only dangerous rival; to continue as she had begun, in building up a naval power that could face England on the seas and sustain her own rising colonies in America, India, and the West Indies: for she too might have multiplied herself, planted her language and her race over all the globe, and grown with the growth of her children, had she not been at the mercy of an effeminate profligate, a mistress turned procuress, and the favorites to whom they delegated power.
Still, something must be done for the American war; at least there must be a new general to replace Dieskau.
None of the Court favorites wanted a command in the backwoods, and the minister of war was free to choose whom he would.
His choice fell on Louis Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm-Gozon de Saint-Véran.
Montcalm was born in the south of France, at the Château of Candiac, near Nimes, on the twenty-ninth of February, 1712. At the age of six he was placed in the charge of one Dumas, a natural son of his grandfather.
This man, a conscientious pedant, with many theories of education, ruled his pupil stiffly; and, before the age of fifteen, gave him a good knowledge of Latin, Greek, and history.
Young Montcalm had a taste for books, continued his reading in such intervals of leisure as camps and garrisons afforded, and cherished to the end of his life the ambition of becoming a member of the Academy.
Yet, with all his liking for study, he sometimes revolted against the sway of the pedagogue who wrote letters of complaint to his father protesting against the "judgments of the vulgar, who, contrary to the experience of ages, say that if children are well reproved they will correct their faults."
Dumas, however, was not without sense, as is shown by another letter to the elder Montcalm, in which he says that the boy had better be ignorant of Latin and Greek "than know them as he does without knowing how to read, write, and speak French well."
The main difficulty was to make him write a good hand,--a point in which he signally failed to the day of his death.
So refractory was he at times, that his master despaired.
"M. de Montcalm," Dumas informs the father, "has great need of docility, industry, and willingness to take advice.
What will become of him?"
The pupil, aware of these aspersions, met them by writing to his father his own ideas of what his aims should be.
"First, to be an honorable man, of good morals, brave, and a Christian.
Secondly, to read in moderation; to know as much Greek and Latin as most men of the world; also the four rules of arithmetic, and something of history, geography, and French and Latin _belles-lettres_, as well as to have a taste for the arts and sciences.
Thirdly, and above all, to be obedient, docile, and very submissive to your orders and those of my dear mother; and also to defer to the advice of M. Dumas.
Fourthly, to fence and ride as well as my small abilities will permit."
[361] [Footnote 361: This passage is given by Somervogel from the original letter.
] If Louis de Montcalm failed to satisfy his preceptor, he had a brother who made ample amends.
Of this infant prodigy it is related that at six years he knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and had some acquaintance with arithmetic, French history, geography, and heraldry.
He was destined for the Church, but died at the age of seven; his precocious brain having been urged to fatal activity by the exertions of Dumas.
Other destinies and a more wholesome growth were the lot of young Louis.
At fifteen he joined the army as ensign in the regiment of Hainaut.
Two years after, his father bought him a captaincy, and he was first under fire at the siege of Philipsbourg.
His father died in 1735, and left him heir to a considerable landed estate, much embarrassed by debt.
The Marquis de la Fare, a friend of the family, soon after sought for him an advantageous marriage to strengthen his position and increase his prospects of promotion; and he accordingly espoused Mademoiselle Angélique Louise Talon du Boulay,--a union which brought him influential alliances and some property.
Madame de Montcalm bore him ten children, of whom only two sons and four daughters were living in 1752. "May God preserve them all," he writes in his autobiography, "and make them prosper for this world and the next!
Perhaps it will be thought that the number is large for so moderate a fortune, especially as four of them are girls; but does God ever abandon his children in their need?"
"'Aux petits des oiseaux il donne la pâture, Et sa bonté s'étend sur toute la nature.'
" He was pious in his soldierly way, and ardently loyal to Church and King.
His family seat was Candiac; where, in the intervals of campaigning, he found repose with his wife, his children, and his mother, who was a woman of remarkable force of character and who held great influence over her son.
He had a strong attachment to this home of his childhood; and in after years, out of the midst of the American wilderness, his thoughts turned longingly towards it.
"_Quand reverrai-je mon cher Candiac_!"
In 1741 Montcalm took part in the Bohemian campaign.
He was made colonel of the regiment of Auxerrois two years later, and passed unharmed through the severe campaign of 1744. In the next year he fought in Italy under Maréchal de Maillebois.
In 1746, at the disastrous action under the walls of Piacenza, where he twice rallied his regiment, he received five sabre-cuts,--two of which were in the head,--and was made prisoner.
Returning to France on parole, he was promoted in the year following to the rank of brigadier; and being soon after exchanged, rejoined the army, and was again wounded by a musket-shot.
The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle now gave him a period of rest.
[362] At length, being on a visit to Paris late in the autumn of 1755, the minister, D'Argenson, hinted to him that he might be appointed to command the troops in America.
He heard no more of the matter till, after his return home, he received from D'Argenson a letter dated at Versailles the twenty-fifth of January, at midnight.
"Perhaps, Monsieur," it began, "you did not expect to hear from me again on the subject of the conversation I had with you the day you came to bid me farewell at Paris.
Nevertheless I have not forgotten for a moment the suggestion I then made you; and it is with the greatest pleasure that I announce to you that my views have prevailed.
The King has chosen you to command his troops in North America, and will honor you on your departure with the rank of major-general."
[Footnote 362: The account of Montcalm up to this time is chiefly from his unpublished autobiography, preserved by his descendants, and entitled _Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de ma Vie_.
Somervogel, _Comme on servait autrefois_; Bonnechose, _Montcalm et le Canada;_ Martin, _Le Marquis de Montcalm; Éloge de Montcalm; Autre Éloge de Montcalm; Mémoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1760, and other writings in print and manuscript have also been consulted.
] The Chevalier de Lévis, afterwards Marshal of France, was named as his second in command, with the rank of brigadier, and the Chevalier de Bourlamaque as his third, with the rank of colonel; but what especially pleased him was the appointment of his eldest son to command a regiment in France.
He set out from Candiac for the Court, and occupied himself on the way with reading Charlevoix.
"I take great pleasure in it," he writes from Lyons to his mother; "he gives a pleasant account of Quebec.
But be comforted; I shall always be glad to come home."
At Paris he writes again: "Don't expect any long letter from me before the first of March; all my business will be done by that time, and I shall begin to breathe again.
I have not yet seen the Chevalier de Montcalm [_his son_].
Last night I came from Versailles, and am going back to-morrow.
The King gives me twenty-five thousand francs a year, as he did to M. Dieskau, besides twelve thousand for my equipment, which will cost me above a thousand crowns more; but I cannot stop for that.
I embrace my dearest and all the family."
A few days later his son joined him.
"He is as thin and delicate as ever, but grows prodigiously tall."
On the second of March he informs his mother, "My affairs begin to get on.
A good part of the baggage went off the day before yesterday in the King's wagons; an assistant-cook and two liverymen yesterday.
I have got a good cook.
Estève, my secretary, will go on the eighth; Joseph and Déjean will follow me.
To-morrow evening I go to Versailles till Sunday, and will write from there to Madame de Montcalm [_his wife_].
I have three aides-de-camp; one of them, Bougainville, a man of parts, pleasant company.
Madame Mazade was happily delivered on Wednesday; in extremity on Friday with a malignant fever; Saturday and yesterday, reports favorable.
I go there twice a day, and am just going now.
She has a girl.
I embrace you all."
Again, on the fifteenth: "In a few hours I set out for Brest.
Yesterday I presented my son, with whom I am well pleased, to all the royal family.
I shall have a secretary at Brest, and will write more at length."
On the eighteenth he writes from Rennes to his wife: "I arrived, dearest, this morning, and stay here all day.
I
shall be at Brest on the twenty-first.
Everything will be on board on the twenty-sixth.
My son has been here since yesterday for me to coach him and get him a uniform made, in which he will give thanks for his regiment at the same time that I take leave in my embroidered coat.
Perhaps I shall leave debts behind.
I wait impatiently for the bills.
You have my will; I wish you would get it copied, and send it to me before I sail."
Reaching Brest, the place of embarkation, he writes to his mother: "I have business on hand still.
My health is good, and the passage will be a time of rest.
I embrace you, and my dearest, and my daughters.
Love to all the family.
I shall write up to the last moment."
No translation can give an idea of the rapid, abrupt, elliptical style of this familiar correspondence, where the meaning is sometimes suggested by a single word, unintelligible to any but those for whom it is written.
At the end of March Montcalm, with all his following, was ready to embark; and three ships of the line, the "Léopard," the "Héros," and the "Illustre," fitted out as transports, were ready to receive the troops;
while the General, with Lévis and Bourlamaque, were to take passage in the frigates "Licorne," "Sauvage," and "Sirène."
"I like the Chevalier de Lévis," says Montcalm, "and I think he likes me."
His first aide-de-camp, Bougainville, pleased him, if possible, still more.
This young man, son of a notary, had begun life as an advocate in the Parliament of Paris, where his abilities and learning had already made him conspicuous, when he resigned the gown for the sword, and became a captain of dragoons.
He was destined in later life to win laurels in another career, and to become one of the most illustrious of French navigators.
Montcalm, himself a scholar, prized his varied talents and accomplishments, and soon learned to feel for him a strong personal regard.
The troops destined for Canada were only two battalions, one belonging to the regiment of La Sarre, and the other to that of Royal Roussillon.
Louis XV.
and Pompadour sent a hundred thousand men to fight the battles of Austria, and could spare but twelve hundred to reinforce New France.
These troops marched into Brest at early morning, breakfasted in the town, and went at once on board the transports, "with an incredible gayety," says Bougainville.
"What a nation is ours!
Happy he who commands it, and commands it worthily!"
[363] Montcalm and he embarked in the "Licorne," and sailed on the third of April, leaving Lévis and Bourlamaque to follow a few days after.
[364] [Footnote 363: _Journal de Bougainville_.
This is a fragment; his Journal proper begins a few weeks later.
] [Footnote 364: _Lévis à----, 5 Avril_, 1756. ] The voyage was a rough one.
"I have been fortunate," writes Montcalm to his wife, "in not being ill nor at all incommoded by the heavy gale we had in Holy Week.
It was not so with those who were with me, especially M.
Estève, my secretary, and Joseph, who suffered cruelly,--seventeen days without being able to take anything but water.
The season was very early for such a hard voyage, and it was fortunate that the winter has been so mild.
We had very favorable weather till Monday the twelfth; but since then till Saturday evening we had rough weather, with a gale that lasted ninety hours, and put us in real danger.
The forecastle was always under water, and the waves broke twice over the quarter-deck.
From the twenty-seventh of April to the evening of the fourth of May we had fogs, great cold, and an amazing quantity of icebergs.
On the thirtieth, when luckily the fog lifted for a time, we counted sixteen of them.
The day before, one drifted under the bowsprit, grazed it, and might have crushed us if the deck-officer had not called out quickly, _Luff_.
After speaking of our troubles and sufferings, I must tell you of our pleasures, which were fishing for cod and eating it.
The taste is exquisite.
The head, tongue, and liver are morsels worthy of an epicure.
Still, I would not advise anybody to make the voyage for their sake.
My health is as good as it has been for a long time.
I found it a good plan to eat little and take no supper; a little tea now and then, and plenty of lemonade.
Nevertheless I have taken very little liking for the sea, and think that when I shall be so happy as to rejoin you I shall end my voyages there.
I don't know when this letter will go.
I shall send it by the first ship that returns to France, and keep on writing till then.
It is pleasant, I know, to hear particulars about the people one loves, and I thought that my mother and you, my dearest and most beloved, would be glad to read all these dull details.
We heard Mass on Easter Day.
All the week before, it was impossible, because the ship rolled so that I could hardly keep my legs.
If I had dared, I think I should have had myself lashed fast.
I shall not soon forget that Holy Week."
This letter was written on the eleventh of May, in the St. Lawrence, where the ship lay at anchor, ten leagues below Quebec, stopped by ice from proceeding farther.
Montcalm made his way to the town by land, and soon after learned with great satisfaction that the other ships were safe in the river below.
"I see," he writes again, "that I shall have plenty of work.
Our campaign will soon begin.
Everything is in motion.
Don't expect details about our operations; generals never speak of movements till they are over.
I can only tell you that the winter has been quiet enough, though the savages have made great havoc in Pennsylvania and Virginia, and carried off, according to their custom, men, women, and children.
I beg you will have High Mass said at Montpellier or Vauvert to thank God for our safe arrival and ask for good success in future."
[365]
