Montcalm and Wolfe — Chapter 28, Part 1

Fall of Quebec "Never was rout more complete than that of our army," says a French official.

[783] It was the more so because Montcalm held no troops in reserve, but launched his whole force at once against the English.

Nevertheless there was some resistance to the pursuit.

It came chiefly from the Canadians, many of whom had not advanced with the regulars to the attack.

Those on the right wing, instead of doing so, threw themselves into an extensive tract of bushes that lay in front of the English left; and from this cover they opened a fire, too distant for much effect, till the victors advanced in their turn, when the shot of the hidden marksmen told severely upon them.

Two battalions, therefore, deployed before the bushes, fired volleys into them, and drove their occupants out.

[Footnote 783: _Daine au Ministre, 9 Oct.

1759_.

] Again, those of the Canadians who, before the main battle began, attacked the English left from the brink of the plateau towards the St. Charles, withdrew when the rout took place, and ran along the edge of the declivity till, at the part of it called Côte Ste.

-Geneviève, they came to a place where it was overgrown with thickets.

Into these they threw themselves;

and were no sooner under cover than they faced about to fire upon the Highlanders, who presently came up.

As many of these mountaineers, according to their old custom, threw down their muskets when they charged, and had no weapons but their broadswords, they tried in vain to dislodge the marksmen, and suffered greatly in the attempt.

Other troops came to their aid, cleared the thickets, after stout resistance, and drove their occupants across the meadow to the bridge of boats.

The conduct of the Canadians at the Côte Ste.

-Geneviève went far to atone for the short-comings of some of them on the battle-field.

A part of the fugitives escaped into the town by the gates of St. Louis and St. John, while the greater number fled along the front of the ramparts, rushed down the declivity to the suburb of St. Roch, and ran over the meadows to the bridge, protected by the cannon of the town and the two armed hulks in the river.

The rout had but just begun when Vaudreuil crossed the bridge from the camp of Beauport.

It was four hours since he first heard the alarm, and his quarters were not much more than two miles from the battle-field.

He does not explain why he did not come sooner; it is certain that his coming was well timed to throw the blame on Montcalm in case of defeat, or to claim some of the honor for himself in case of victory.

"Monsieur the Marquis of Montcalm," he says, "unfortunately made his attack before I had joined him."

[784] His joining him could have done no good; for though he had at last brought with him the rest of the militia from the Beauport camp, they had come no farther than the bridge over the St. Charles, having, as he alleges, been kept there by an unauthorized order from the chief of staff, Montreuil.

[785] He declares that the regulars were in such a fright that he could not stop them; but that the Canadians listened to his voice, and that it was he who rallied them at the Côte Ste.

-Geneviève.

Of this the evidence is his own word.

From other accounts it would appear that the Canadians rallied themselves.

Vaudreuil lost no time in recrossing the bridge and joining the militia in the redoubt at the farther end, where a crowd of fugitives soon poured in after him.

[Footnote 784: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 21 Sept.

1759_.

] [Footnote 785: _Ibid.

, 5 Oct.

1759_.

] The aide-de-camp Johnstone, mounted on horseback, had stopped for a moment in what is now the suburb of St. John to encourage some soldiers who were trying to save a cannon that had stuck fast in a marshy hollow; when, on spurring his horse to the higher ground, he saw within musket-shot a long line of British troops, who immediately fired upon him.

The bullets whistled about his ears, tore his clothes, and wounded his horse; which, however, carried him along the edge of the declivity to a windmill, near which was a roadway to a bakehouse on the meadow below.

He descended, crossed the meadow, reached the bridge, and rode over it to the great redoubt or hornwork that guarded its head.

The place was full of troops and Canadians in a wild panic.

"It is impossible," says Johnstone, "to imagine the disorder and confusion I found in the hornwork.

Consternation was general.

M.

de Vaudreuil listened to everybody, and was always of the opinion of him who spoke last.

On the appearance of the English troops on the plain by the bakehouse, Montguet and La Motte, two old captains in the regiment of Béarn, cried out with vehemence to M. de Vaudreuil 'that the hornwork would be taken in an instant by assault, sword in hand; that we all should be cut to pieces without quarter;

and that nothing would save us but an immediate and general capitulation of Canada, giving it up to the English.'

"[786] Yet the river was wide and deep, and the hornwork was protected on the water side by strong palisades, with cannon.

Nevertheless there rose a general cry to cut the bridge of boats.

By doing so more than half the army, who had not yet crossed, would have been sacrificed.

The axemen were already at work, when they were stopped by some officers who had not lost their wits.

[Footnote 786: Confirmed by _Journal tenu à l'Armée,_ etc. "Divers officiers des troupes de terre n'hésitèrent point à dire, tout haut en présence du soldat, qu'il ne nous restoit d'autre ressource que celle de capituler promptement pour toute la colonie," etc. ] "M. de Vaudreuil," pursues Johnstone, "was closeted in a house in the inside of the hornwork with the Intendant and some other persons.

I suspected they were busy drafting the articles for a general capitulation, and I entered the house, where I had only time to see the Intendant, with a pen in his hand, writing upon a sheet of paper, when M. de Vaudreuil told me I had no business there.

Having answered him that what he had said was true, I retired immediately, in wrath to see them intent on giving up so scandalously a dependency for the preservation of which so much blood and treasure had been expended."

On going out he met Lieutenant-colonels Dalquier and Poulariez, whom he begged to prevent the apprehended disgrace; and, in fact, if Vaudreuil really meant to capitulate for the colony, he was presently dissuaded by firmer spirits than his own.

Johnstone, whose horse could carry him no farther, set out on foot for Beauport, and, in his own words, "continued sorrowfully jogging on, with a very heavy heart for the loss of my dear friend M. de Montcalm, sinking with weariness, and lost in reflection upon the changes which Providence had brought about in the space of three or four hours."

Great indeed were these changes.

Montcalm was dying;

his second in command, the Brigadier Senezergues, was mortally wounded; the army, routed and demoralized, was virtually without a head; and the colony, yesterday cheered as on the eve of deliverance, was plunged into sudden despair.

"Ah, what a cruel day!"

cries Bougainville; "how fatal to all that was dearest to us!

My heart is torn in its most tender parts.

We shall be fortunate if the approach of winter saves the country from total ruin."

[787] [Footnote 787: _Bougainville à Bourlamaque, 18 Sept.

1759_.

] The victors were fortifying themselves on the field of battle.

Like the French, they had lost two generals; for Monckton, second in rank, was disabled by a musket-shot, and the command had fallen upon Townshend at the moment when the enemy were in full flight.

He had recalled the pursuers, and formed them again in line of battle, knowing that another foe was at hand.

Bougainville, in fact, appeared at noon from Cap-Rouge with about two thousand men;

but withdrew on seeing double that force prepared to receive him.

He had not heard till eight o'clock that the English were on the Plains of Abraham; and the delay of his arrival was no doubt due to his endeavors to collect as many as possible of his detachments posted along the St. Lawrence for many miles towards Jacques-Cartier.

Before midnight the English had made good progress in their redoubts and intrenchments, had brought cannon up the heights to defend them, planted a battery on the Côte Ste.

-Geneviève, descended into the meadows of the St. Charles, and taken possession of the General Hospital, with its crowds of sick and wounded.

Their victory had cost them six hundred and sixty-four of all ranks, killed, wounded, and missing.

The French loss is placed by Vaudreuil at about six hundred and forty, and by the English official reports at about fifteen hundred.

Measured by the numbers engaged, the battle of Quebec was but a heavy skirmish; measured by results, it was one of the great battles of the world.

Vaudreuil went from the hornwork to his quarters on the Beauport road and called a council of war.

It was a tumultuous scene.

A letter was despatched to Quebec to ask for advice of Montcalm.

The dying General sent a brief message to the effect that there was a threefold choice,--to fight again, retreat to Jacques-Cartier, or give up the colony.

There was much in favor of fighting.

When Bougainville had gathered all his force from the river above, he would have three thousand men; and these, joined to the garrison of Quebec, the sailors at the batteries, and the militia and artillerymen of the Beauport camp, would form a body of fresh soldiers more than equal to the English then on the Plains of Abraham.

Add to these the defeated troops, and the victors would be greatly outnumbered.

[788] Bigot gave his voice for fighting.

Vaudreuil expressed himself to the same effect; but he says that all the officers were against him.

"In vain I remarked to these gentlemen that we were superior to the enemy, and should beat them if we managed well.

I could not at all change their opinion, and my love for the service and for the colony made me subscribe to the views of the council.

In fact, if I had attacked the English against the advice of all the principal officers, their ill-will would have exposed me to the risk of losing the battle and the colony also."

[789] [Footnote 788: Bigot, as well as Vaudreuil, sets Bougainville's force at three thousand.

"En réunissant le corps M. de Bougainville, les bataillons de Montréal _[laissés au camp de Beauport]_ et la garrison de la ville, il nous restoit encore près de 5,000 hommes de troupes fraîches."

_Journal tenu à l'Armée. _ Vaudreuil says that there were fifteen hundred men in garrison at Quebec who did not take part in the battle.

If this is correct, the number of fresh troops after it was not five thousand, but more than six thousand; to whom the defeated force is to be added, making, after deducting killed and wounded, some ten thousand in all.

] [Footnote 789: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct.

_ 1759. ] It was said at the time that the officers voted for retreat because they thought Vaudreuil unfit to command an army, and, still more, to fight a battle.

[790] There was no need, however, to fight at once.

The object of the English was to take Quebec, and that of Vaudreuil should have been to keep it.

By a march of a few miles he could have joined Bougainville;

and by then intrenching himself at or near Ste.

-Foy he would have placed a greatly superior force in the English rear, where his position might have been made impregnable.

Here he might be easily furnished with provisions, and from hence he could readily throw men and supplies into Quebec, which the English were too few to invest.

He could harass the besiegers, or attack them, should opportunity offer, and either raise the siege or so protract it that they would be forced by approaching winter to sail homeward, robbed of the fruit of their victory.

[Footnote 790: _Memoires sur le Canada,_ 1749-1760. ] At least he might have taken a night for reflection.

He was safe behind the St. Charles.

The English, spent by fighting, toil, and want of sleep, were in no condition to disturb him.

A part of his own men were in deadly need of rest; the night would have brought refreshment, and the morning might have brought wise counsel.

Vaudreuil would not wait, and orders were given at once for retreat.

[791] It began at nine o'clock that evening.

Quebec was abandoned to its fate.

The cannon were left in the lines of Beauport, the tents in the encampments, and provisions enough in the storehouses to supply the army for a week.

"The loss of the Marquis de Montcalm," says a French officer then on the spot, "robbed his successors of their senses, and they thought of nothing but flight;

such was their fear that the enemy would attack the intrenchments the next day.

The army abandoned the camp in such disorder that the like was never known."

[792] "It was not a retreat," says Johnstone, who himself a part of it, "but an abominable flight, with such disorder and confusion that, had the English known it, three hundred men sent after us would have been sufficient to cut all our army to pieces.

The soldiers were all mixed, and scattered, dispersed, and running as hard as they could, as if the English army were at their heels."

They passed Charlesbourg, Lorette, and St. Augustin, till, on the fifteenth, they found rest on the impregnable hill of Jacques-Cartier, by the brink of the St. Lawrence, thirty miles from danger.

[Footnote 791: _Livre d'Ordres, Ordre du 13 Sept_.

1759. ] [Footnote 792: Foligny, _Journal mémoratif.

_] In the night of humiliation when Vaudreuil abandoned Quebec, Montcalm was breathing his last within its walls.

When he was brought wounded from the field, he was placed in the house of the Surgeon Arnoux, who was then with Bourlamaque at Isle-aux-Noix, but whose younger brother, also a surgeon, examined the wound and pronounced it mortal.

"I am glad of it," Montcalm said quietly; and then asked how long he had to live.

"Twelve hours, more or less," was the reply.

"So much the better," he returned.

"I am happy that I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec."

He is reported to have said that since he had lost the battle it consoled him to have been defeated by so brave an enemy;

and some of his last words were in praise of his successor, Lévis, for whose talents and fitness for command he expressed high esteem.

When Vaudreuil sent to ask his opinion, he gave it; but when Ramesay, commandant of the garrison, came to receive his orders, he replied: "I will neither give orders nor interfere any further.

I have much business that must be attended to, of greater moment than your ruined garrison and this wretched country.

My time is very short; therefore pray leave me.

I wish you all comfort, and to be happily extricated from your present perplexities."

Nevertheless he thought to the last of those who had been under his command, and sent the following note to Brigadier Townshend: "Monsieur, the humanity of the English sets my mind at peace concerning the fate of the French prisoners and the Canadians.

Feel towards them as they have caused me to feel.

Do not let them perceive that they have changed masters.

Be their protector as I have been their father."

[793] [Footnote 793: I am indebted to Abbé Bois for a copy of this note.

The last words of Montcalm, as above, are reported partly by Johnstone, and partly by Knox.

] Bishop Pontbriand, himself fast sinking with mortal disease, attended his deathbed and administered the last sacraments.

He died peacefully at four o'clock on the morning of the fourteenth.

He was in his forty-eighth year.

In the confusion of the time no workman could be found to make a coffin, and an old servant of the Ursulines, known as Bonhomme Michel, gathered a few boards and nailed them together so as to form a rough box.

In it was laid the body of the dead soldier; and late in the evening of the same day he was carried to his rest.

There was no tolling of bells or firing of cannon.

The officers of the garrison followed the bier, and some of the populace, including women and children, joined the procession as it moved in dreary silence along the dusky street, shattered with cannon-ball and bomb, to the chapel of the Ursuline convent.

Here a shell, bursting under the floor, had made a cavity which had been hollowed into a grave.

Three priests of the Cathedral, several nuns, Ramesay with his officers, and a throng of townspeople were present at the rite.

After the service and the chant, the body was lowered into the grave by the light of torches; and then, says the chronicle, "the tears and sobs burst forth.

It seemed as if the last hope of the colony were buried with the remains of the General."

[794] In truth, the funeral of Montcalm was the funeral of New France.

[795] [Footnote 794: _Ursulines de Québec,_ III.

10. ] [Footnote 795: See Appendix J. ] It was no time for grief.

The demands of the hour were too exigent and stern.

When, on the morning after the battle, the people of Quebec saw the tents standing in the camp of Beauport, they thought the army still there to defend them.

[796] Ramesay knew that the hope was vain.

On the evening before, Vaudreuil had sent two hasty notes to tell him of his flight.

"The position of the enemy," wrote the Governor, "becomes stronger every instant; and this, with other reasons, obliges me to retreat."

"I have received all your letters.

As I set out this moment, I pray you not to write again.

You shall hear from me to-morrow.

I wish you good evening."

With these notes came the following order: "M. de Ramesay is not to wait till the enemy carries the town by assault.

As soon as provisions fail, he will raise the white flag."

This order was accompanied by a memorandum of terms which Ramesay was to ask of the victors.

[797] [Footnote 796: _Mémoire du Sieur de Ramesay.

_] [Footnote 797: _Mémoire pour servir d'Instruction à M. de Ramesay, 13 Sept.

_ 1759. Appended, with the foregoing notes, to the _Mémoire de Ramesay.

_] "What a blow for me," says the unfortunate commandant, "to find myself abandoned so soon by the army, which alone could defend the town!"

His garrison consisted of between one and two hundred troops of the line, some four or five hundred colony troops, a considerable number of sailors, and the local militia.

[798] These last were in a state of despair.

The inhabitants who, during the siege, had sought refuge in the suburb of St. Roch, had returned after the battle, and there were now twenty-six hundred women and children, with about a housand invalids and other non-combatants to be supported, though the provisions in the town, even at half rations, would hardly last a week.

Ramesay had not been informed that a good supply was left in the camps of Beauport; and when he heard at last that it was there, and sent out parties to get it, they found that the Indians and the famished country people had carried it off.

[Footnote 798: The English returns give a total of 615 French regulars in the place besides sailors and militia.

] "Despondency," he says again, "was complete; discouragement extreme and universal.

Murmurs and complaints against the army that had abandoned us rose to a general outcry.

I could not prevent the merchants, all of whom were officers of the town militia, from meeting at the house of M. Daine, the mayor.

There they declared for capitulating, and presented me a petition to that effect, signed by M. Daine and all the principal citizens."

Ramesay called a council of war.

One officer alone, Piedmont, captain of artillery, was for reducing the rations still more, and holding out to the last.

All the others gave their voices for capitulation.

[799] Ramesay might have yielded without dishonor; but he still held out till an event fraught with new hope took place at Jacques-Cartier.

[Footnote 799: _Copie du Conseil de Guerre term par M. de Ramesay à Québec, 15 Sept_.

1759. ] This event was the arrival of Lévis.

On the afternoon of the battle Vaudreuil took one rational step; he sent a courier to Montreal to summon that able officer to his aid.

[800] Lévis set out at once, reached Jacques-Cartier, and found his worst fears realized.

"The great number of fugitives that I began to meet at Three Rivers prepared me for the disorder in which I found the army.

I never in my life knew the like of it.

They left everything behind in the camp at Beauport; tents, baggage, and kettles."