Montcalm and Wolfe — Chapter 14, Part 1

Montcalm and Vaudreuil Spring came at last, and the Dutch burghers of Albany heard, faint from the far height, the clamor of the wild-fowl, streaming in long files northward to their summer home.

As the aerial travellers winged their way, the seat of war lay spread beneath them like a map.

First the blue Hudson, slumbering among its forests, with the forts along its banks, Half-Moon, Stillwater, Saratoga, and the geometric lines and earthen mounds of Fort Edward.

Then a broad belt of dingy evergreen; and beyond, released from wintry fetters, the glistening breast of Lake George, with Fort William Henry at its side, amid charred ruins and a desolation of prostrate forests.

Hence the lake stretched northward, like some broad river, trenched between mountain ranges still leafless and gray.

Then they looked down on Ticonderoga, with the flag of the Bourbons, like a flickering white speck, waving on its ramparts; and next on Crown Point with its tower of stone.

Lake Champlain now spread before them, widening as they flew: on the left, the mountain wilderness of the Adirondacks, like a stormy sea congealed; on the right, the long procession of the Green Mountains; and, far beyond, on the dim verge of the eastern sky, the White Mountains throned in savage solitude.

They passed over the bastioned square of Fort St. John, Fort Chambly guarding the rapids of the Richelieu, and the broad belt of the St. Lawrence, with Montreal seated on its bank.

Here we leave them, to build their nests and hatch their brood among the fens of the lonely North.

Montreal, the military heart of Canada, was in the past winter its social centre also, where were gathered conspicuous representatives both of Old France and of New; not men only, but women.

It was a sparkling fragment of the reign of Louis XV.

dropped into the American wilderness.

Montcalm was here with his staff and his chief officers, now pondering schemes of war, and now turning in thought to his beloved Château of Candiac, his mother, children, and wife, to whom he sent letters with every opportunity.

To his wife he writes: "Think of me affectionately;

give love to my girls.

I hope next year I may be with you all.

I love you tenderly, dearest."

He says that he has sent her a packet of marten-skins for a muff, "and another time I shall send some to our daughter; but I should like better to bring them myself."

Of this eldest daughter he writes in reply to a letter of domestic news from Madame de Montcalm: "The new gown with blonde trimmings must be becoming, for she is pretty."

Again, "There is not an hour in the day when I do not think of you, my mother and my children."

He had the tastes of a country gentleman, and was eager to know all that was passing on his estate.

Before leaving home he had set up a mill to grind olives for oil, and was well pleased to hear of its prosperity.

"It seems to be a good thing, which pleases me very much.

Bougainville and I talk a great deal about the oil-mill."

Some time after, when the King sent him the coveted decoration of the _cordon rouge_, he informed Madame de Montcalm of the honor done him, and added: "But I think I am better pleased with what you tell me of the success of my oil-mill."

To his mother he writes of his absorbing occupations, and says: "You can tell my dearest that I have no time to occupy myself with the ladies, even if I wished to."

Nevertheless he now and then found leisure for some little solace in his banishment; for he writes to Bourlamaque, whom he had left at Quebec, after a visit which he had himself made there early in the winter: "I am glad you sometimes speak of me to the three ladies in the Rue du Parloir; and I am flattered by their remembrance, especially by that of one of them, in whom I find at certain moments too much wit and too many charms for my tranquillity."

These ladies of the Rue du Parloir are several times mentioned in his familiar correspondence with Bourlamaque.

His station obliged him to maintain a high standard of living, to his great financial detriment, for Canadian prices were inordinate.

"I must live creditably, and so I do; sixteen persons at table every day.

Once a fortnight I dine with the Governor-General and with the Chevalier de Lévis, who lives well too.

He has given three grand balls.

As for me, up to Lent I gave, besides dinners, great suppers, with ladies, three times a week.

They lasted till two in the morning; and then there was dancing, to which company came uninvited, but sure of a welcome from those who had been at supper.

It is very expensive, not very amusing, and often tedious.

At Quebec, where we spent a month, I gave receptions or parties, often at the Intendant's house.

I like my gallant Chevalier de Lévis very much.

Bourlamaque was a good choice; he is steady and cool, with good parts.

Bougainville has talent, a warm head, and warm heart;

he will ripen in time.

Write to Madame Cornier that I like her husband;

he is perfectly well, and as impatient for peace as I am.

Love to my daughters, and all affection and respect to my mother.

I live only in the hope of joining you all again.

Nevertheless, Montreal is as good a place as Alais even in time of peace, and better now, because the Government is here; for the Marquis de Vaudreuil, like me, spent only a month at Quebec.

As for Quebec, it is as good as the best cities of France, except ten or so.

Clear sky, bright sun; neither spring nor autumn, only summer and winter.

July, August, and September, hot as in Languedoc: winter insupportable; one must keep always indoors.

The ladies _spirituelles, galantes, dévotes_.

Gambling at Quebec, dancing and conversation at Montreal.

My friends the Indians, who are often unbearable, and whom I treat with perfect tranquillity and patience, are fond of me.

If I were not a sort of general, though very subordinate to the Governor, I could gossip about the plans of the campaign, which it is likely will begin on the tenth or fifteenth of May.

I worked at the plan of the last affair [_Rigaud's expedition to Fort William Henry_], which might have turned out better, though good as it was.

I wanted only eight hundred men.

If I had had my way, Monsieur de Lévis or Monsieur de Bougainville would have had charge of it.

However, the thing was all right, and in good hands.

The Governor, who is extremely civil to me, gave it to his brother; he thought him more used to winter marches.

Adieu, my heart; I adore and love you!"

To meet his manifold social needs, he sends to his wife orders for prunes, olives, anchovies, muscat wine, capers, sausages, confectionery, cloth for liveries, and many other such items; also for scent-bags of two kinds, and perfumed pomatum for presents; closing in postscript with an injunction not to forget a dozen pint-bottles of English lavender.

Some months after, he writes to Madame de Saint-Véran: "I have got everything that was sent me from Montpellier except the sausages.

I have lost a third of what was sent from Bordeaux.

The English captured it on board the ship called 'La Superbe;' and I have reason to fear that everything sent from Paris is lost on board 'La Liberté.'

I am running into debt here.

Pshaw!

I must live.

I do not worry myself.

Best love to you, my mother."

When Rigaud was about to march with his detachment against Fort William Henry, Montcalm went over to La Prairie to see them.

"I reviewed them," he writes to Bourlamaque, "and gave the officers a dinner, which, if anybody else had given it, I should have said was a grand affair.

There were two tables, for thirty-six persons in all.

On Wednesday there was an Assembly at Madame Varin's; on Friday the Chevalier de Lévis gave a ball.

He invited sixty-five ladies, and got only thirty, with a great crowd of men.

Rooms well lighted, excellent order, excellent service, plenty of refreshments of every sort all through the night; and the company stayed till seven in the morning.

As for me, I went to bed early.

I had had that day eight ladies at a supper given to Madame Varin.

To-morrow I shall have half-a-dozen at another supper, given to I don't know whom, but incline to think it will be La Roche Beaucour.

The gallant Chevalier is to give us still another ball."

Lent put a check on these festivities.

"To-morrow," he tells Bourlamaque, "I shall throw myself into devotion with might and main (_à corps perdu_).

It will be easier for me to detach myself from the world and turn heavenward here at Montreal than it would be at Quebec."

And, some time after, "Bougainville spent Monday delightfully at Isle Ste.

Hélène, and Tuesday devoutly with the Sulpitian Fathers at the Mountain.

I was there myself at four o'clock, and did them the civility to sup in their refectory at a quarter before six."

In May there was a complete revival of social pleasures, and Montcalm wrote to Bourlamaque: "Madame de Beaubassin's supper was very gay.

There were toasts to the Rue du Parloir and to the General.

To-day I must give a dinner to Madame de Saint-Ours, which will be a little more serious.

Péan is gone to establish himself at La Chine, and will come back with La Barolon, who goes thither with a husband of hers, bound to the Ohio with Villejoin and Louvigny.

The Chevalier de Lévis amuses himself very much here.

He and his friends spend all their time with Madame de Lenisse."

Under these gayeties and gallantries there were bitter heart-burnings.

Montcalm hints at some of them in a letter to Bourlamaque, written at the time of the expedition to Fort William Henry, which, in the words of Montcalm, who would have preferred another commander, the Governor had ordered to march "under the banners of brother Rigaud."

"After he got my letter on Sunday evening," says the disappointed General, "Monsieur de Vaudreuil sent me his secretary with the instructions he had given his brother," which he had hitherto withheld.

"This gave rise after dinner to a long conversation with him; and I hope for the good of the service that his future conduct will prove the truth of his words.

I spoke to him with frankness and firmness of the necessity I was under of communicating to him my reflections; but I did not name any of the persons who, to gain his good graces, busy themselves with destroying his confidence in me.

I told him that he would always find me disposed to aid in measures tending to our success, even should his views, which always ought to prevail, be different from mine; but that I dared flatter myself that he would henceforward communicate his plans to me sooner; for, though his knowledge of the country gave greater weight to his opinions, he might rest satisfied that I should second him in methods and details.

This explanation passed off becomingly enough, and ended with a proposal to dine on a moose's nose [_an estimed morsel_] the day after to-morrow.

I burn your letters, Monsieur, and I beg you to do the same with mine, after making a note of anything you may want to keep."

But Bourlamaque kept all the letters, and bound them in a volume, which still exists.

[472] [Footnote 472: The preceding extracts are from _Lettres de Montcalm à Madame de Saint-Véran, sa Mère, et à Madame de Montcalm, sa Femme_, 1756, 1757 (_Papiers de Famille_); and _Lettres de Montcalm à Bourlamaque_, 1757. See Appendix E. ] Montcalm was not at this time fully aware of the feeling of Vaudreuil towards him.

The touchy egotism of the Governor and his jealous attachment to the colony led him to claim for himself and the Canadians the merit of every achievement and to deny it to the French troops and their general.

Before the capture of Oswego was known, he wrote to the naval minister that Montcalm would never have dared attack that place if he had not encouraged him and answered his timid objections.

[473] "I am confident that I shall reduce it," he adds; "my expedition is sure to succeed if Monsieur de Montcalm follows the directions I have given him."

When the good news came he immediately wrote again, declaring that the victory was due to his brother Rigaud and the Canadians, who, he says, had been ill-used by the General, and not allowed either to enter the fort or share the plunder, any more than the Indians, who were so angry at the treatment they had met that he had great difficulty in appeasing them.

He hints that the success was generally ascribed to him.

"There has been a great deal of talk here; but I will not do myself the honor of repeating it to you, especially as it relates to myself.

I know how to do violence to my self-love.

The measures I took assured our victory, in spite of opposition.

If I had been less vigilant and firm, Oswego would still be in the hands of the English.

I cannot sufficiently congratulate myself on the zeal which my brother and the Canadians and Indians showed on this occasion; for without them my orders would have been given in vain.

The hopes of His Britannic Majesty have vanished, and will hardly revive again; for I shall take care to crush them in the bud."

[474] [Footnote 473: _Vaudreuil au Ministre de la Marine_, 13 _Août_, 1756. ]