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Montcalm and Wolfe by Francis Parkman

F >> Francis Parkman >> Montcalm and Wolfe




The whole French force now advanced as if to storm the works, and the
garrison prepared to receive them. Nothing came of it but a fusillade,
to which the British made no reply. At night the French were heard
advancing again, and each man nerved himself for the crisis. The real
attack, however, was not against the fort, but against the buildings
outside, which consisted of several storehouses, a hospital, a saw-mill,
and the huts of the rangers, besides a sloop on the stocks and piles of
planks and cord-wood. Covered by the night, the assailants crept up with
fagots of resinous sticks, placed them against the farther side of the
buildings, kindled them, and escaped before the flame rose; while the
garrison, straining their ears in the thick darkness, fired wherever
they heard a sound. Before morning all around them was in a blaze, and
they had much ado to save the fort barracks from the shower of burning
cinders. At ten o'clock the fires had subsided, and a thick fall of snow
began, filling the air with a restless chaos of large moist flakes. This
lasted all day and all the next night, till the ground and the ice were
covered to a depth of three feet and more. The French lay close in their
camps till a little before dawn on Tuesday morning, when twenty
volunteers from the regulars made a bold attempt to burn the sloop on
the stocks, with several storehouses and other structures, and several
hundred scows and whaleboats which had thus far escaped. They were only
in part successful; but they fired the sloop and some buildings near it,
and stood far out on the ice watching the flaming vessel, a superb
bonfire amid the wilderness of snow. The spectacle cost the volunteers a
fourth of their number killed and wounded.

On Wednesday morning the sun rose bright on a scene of wintry splendor,
and the frozen lake was dotted with Rigaud's retreating followers
toiling towards Canada on snow-shoes. Before they reached it many of
them were blinded for a while by the insufferable glare, and their
comrades led them homewards by the hand.[471]

[Footnote 471: _Eyre to Loudon, 24 March, 1757. Ibid., 25 March_,
enclosed in Loudon's despatch of 25 April, 1757. _Message of Rigaud to
Major Eyre, 20 March, 1757. Letter from Fort William Henry, 26 March,
1757_, in _Boston Gazette_, No. 106, and _Boston Evening Post_, No.
1,128. _Abstract of Letters from Albany_, in _Boston News Letter_, No.
2,860. Caleb Stark, _Memoir and Correspondence of John Stark_, 22, a
curious mixture of truth and error. _Relation de la Campagne sur le Lac
St. Sacrement pendant l'Hiver, 1757._ Bougainville, _Journal_. Malartic,
_Journal. Montcalm au Ministre, 24 Avril, 1757. Montreuil au Ministre,
23 Avril, 1757. Montcalm a sa Mere, 1 Avril, 1757. Memoires sur le
Canada, 1749-1760._

The French loss in killed and wounded is set by Montcalm at eleven. That
of the English was seven, slightly wounded, chiefly in sorties. They
took three prisoners. Stark was touched by a bullet, for the only time
in his adventurous life.]




Chapter 14

1757

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 Chateau 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
Levis, 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
Levis 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, devotes_. 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 Levis 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-Veran: "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 Liberte.' 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 Levis 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 (_a
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.
Helene, 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.
Pean 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 Levis 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 a
Madame de Saint-Veran, sa Mere, et a Madame de Montcalm, sa Femme_,
1756, 1757 (_Papiers de Famille_); and _Lettres de Montcalm a
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 _Aout_, 1756.]

[Footnote 474: _Vaudreuil au Ministre de la Marine_, 1 _Sept._ 1756.]

The pronouns "I" and "my" recur with monotonous frequency in his
correspondence. "I have laid waste all the British provinces." "By
promptly uniting my forces at Carillon, I have kept General Loudon in
check, though he had at his disposal an army of about twenty thousand
men;"[475] and so without end, in all varieties of repetition. It is no
less characteristic that he here assigns to his enemies double their
actual force.

[Footnote 475: _Ibid._, 6 _Nov._ 1756.]

He has the faintest of praise for the troops from France. "They are
generally good, but thus far they have not absolutely distinguished
themselves. I do justice to the firmness they showed at Oswego; but it
was only the colony troops, Canadians, and Indians who attacked the
forts. Our artillery was directed by the Chevalier Le Mercier and M.
Fremont [_colony officers_], and was served by our colony troops and our
militia. The officers from France are more inclined to defence than
attack. Far from spending the least thing here, they lay by their pay.
They saved the money allowed them for refreshments, and had it in pocket
at the end of the campaign. They get a profit, too, out of their
provisions, by having certificates made under borrowed names, so that
they can draw cash for them on their return. It is the same with the
soldiers, who also sell their provisions to the King and get paid for
them. In conjunction with M. Bigot, I labor to remedy all these abuses;
and the rules we have established have saved the King a considerable
expense. M. de Montcalm has complained very much of these rules." The
Intendant Bigot, who here appears as a reformer, was the centre of a
monstrous system of public fraud and robbery; while the charges against
the French officers are unsupported. Vaudreuil, who never loses an
opportunity of disparaging them, proceeds thus:--

"The troops from France are not on very good terms with our Canadians.
What can the soldiers think of them when they see their officers
threaten them with sticks or swords? The Canadians are obliged to carry
these gentry on their shoulders, through the cold water, over rocks that
cut their feet; and if they make a false step they are abused. Can
anything be harder? Finally, Monsieur de Montcalm is so quick-tempered
that he goes to the length of striking the Canadians. How can he
restrain his officers when he cannot restrain himself? Could any example
be more contagious? This is the way our Canadians are treated. They
deserve something better." He then enlarges on their zeal, hardihood,
and bravery, and adds that nothing but their blind submission to his
commands prevents many of them from showing resentment at the usage they
had to endure. The Indians, he goes on to say, are not so gentle and
yielding; and but for his brother Rigaud and himself, might have gone
off in a rage. "After the campaign of Oswego they did not hesitate to
tell me that they would go wherever I sent them, provided I did not put
them under the orders of M. de Montcalm. They told me positively that
they could not bear his quick temper. I shall always maintain the most
perfect union and understanding with M. le Marquis de Montcalm, but I
shall be forced to take measures which will assure to our Canadians and
Indians treatment such as their zeal and services merit."[476]

[Footnote 476: _Vaudreuil au Ministre de la Marine, 23 Oct. 1756_. The
above extracts are somewhat condensed in the translation. See the letter
in Dussieux, 279.]

To the subject of his complaints Vaudreuil used a different language;
for Montcalm says, after mentioning that he had had occasion to punish
some of the Canadians at Oswego: "I must do Monsieur de Vaudreuil the
justice to say that he approved my proceedings." He treated the General
with the blandest politeness. "He is a good-natured man," continues
Montcalm, "mild, with no character of his own, surrounded by people who
try to destroy all his confidence in the general of the troops from
France. I am praised excessively, in order to make him jealous, excite
his Canadian prejudices, and prevent him from dealing with me frankly,
or adopting my views when he can help it."[477] He elsewhere complains
that Vaudreuil gave to both him and Levis orders couched in such
equivocal terms that he could throw the blame on them in case of
reverse.[478] Montcalm liked the militia no better than the Governor
liked the regulars. "I have used them with good effect, though not in
places exposed to the enemy's fire. They know neither discipline nor
subordination, and think themselves in all respects the first nation on
earth." He is sure, however, that they like him: "I have gained the
utmost confidence of the Canadians and Indians; and in the eyes of the
former, when I travel or visit their camps, I have the air of a tribune
of the people."[479] "The affection of the Indians for me is so strong
that there are moments when it astonishes the Governor."[480] "The
Indians are delighted with me," he says in another letter; "the
Canadians are pleased with me; their officers esteem and fear me, and
would be glad if the French troops and their general could be dispensed
with; and so should I."[481] And he writes to his mother: "The part I
have to play is unique: I am a general-in-chief subordinated; sometimes
with everything to do, and sometimes nothing; I am esteemed, respected,
beloved, envied, hated; I pass for proud, supple, stiff, yielding,
polite, devout, gallant, etc.; and I long for peace."[482]

[Footnote 477: _Montcalm au Ministre de la Guerre, 11 Juillet, 1757._]

[Footnote 478: _Montcalm au Ministre de la Guerre, 1 Nov. 1756._]

[Footnote 479: _Ibid., 18 Sept. 1757._]

[Footnote 480: _Ibid., 4 Nov. 1757._]

[Footnote 481: _Ibid., 28 Aout, 1756._]

[Footnote 482: _Montcalm a Madame de Saint-Veran, 23 Sept. 1757._]

The letters of the Governor and those of the General, it will be seen,
contradict each other flatly at several points. Montcalm is sustained by
his friend Bougainville, who says that the Indians had a great liking
for him, and that he "knew how to manage them as well as if he had been
born in their wigwams."[483] And while Vaudreuil complains that the
Canadians are ill-used by Montcalm, Bougainville declares that the
regulars are ill-used by Vaudreuil. "One must be blind not to see that
we are treated as the Spartans treated the Helots." Then he comments on
the jealous reticence of the Governor. "The Marquis de Montcalm has not
the honor of being consulted; and it is generally through public rumor
that he first hears of Monsieur de Vaudreuil's military plans." He calls
the Governor "a timid man, who can neither make a resolution nor keep
one;" and he gives another trait of him, illustrating it, after his
usual way, by a parallel from the classics: "When V. produces an idea he
falls in love with it, as Pygmalion did with his statue. I can forgive
Pygmalion, for what he produced was a masterpiece."[484]

[Footnote 483: _Bougainville a Saint-Laurens, 19 Aout, 1757._]

[Footnote 484: Bougainville, _Journal_.]

The exceeding touchiness of the Governor was sorely tried by certain
indiscretions on the part of the General, who in his rapid and vehement
utterances sometimes forgot the rules of prudence. His anger, though not
deep, was extremely impetuous; and it is said that his irritation
against Vaudreuil sometimes found escape in the presence of servants and
soldiers.[485] There was no lack of reporters, and the Governor was told
everything. The breach widened apace, and Canada divided itself into two
camps: that of Vaudreuil with the colony officers, civil and military,
and that of Montcalm with the officers from France. The principal
exception was the Chevalier de Levis. This brave and able commander had
an easy and adaptable nature, which made him a sort of connecting link
between the two parties. "One should be on good terms with everybody,"
was a maxim which he sometimes expressed, and on which he shaped his
conduct with notable success. The Intendant Bigot also, an adroit and
accomplished person, had the skill to avoid breaking with either side.

[Footnote 485: _Evenements de la Guerre en Canada, 1759, 1760._]

But now the season of action was near, and domestic strife must give
place to efforts against the common foe. "God or devil!" Montcalm wrote
to Bourlamaque, "we must do something and risk a fight. If we succeed,
we can, all three of us [_you, Levis, and I_], ask for promotion. Burn
this letter." The prospects, on the whole, were hopeful. The victory at
Oswego had wrought marvels among the Indians, inspired the faithful,
confirmed the wavering, and daunted the ill-disposed. The whole West was
astir, ready to pour itself again in blood and fire against the English
border; and even the Cherokees and Choctaws, old friends of the British
colonies, seemed on the point of turning against them.[486] The Five
Nations were half won for France. In November a large deputation of them
came to renew the chain of friendship at Montreal. "I have laid Oswego
in ashes," said Vaudreuil; "the English quail before me. Why do you
nourish serpents in your bosom? They mean only to enslave you." The
deputies trampled under foot the medals the English had given them, and
promised the "Devourer of Villages," for so they styled the Governor,
that they would never more lift the hatchet against his children. The
chief difficulty was to get rid of them; for, being clothed and fed at
the expense of the King, they were in no haste to take leave; and
learning that New Year's Day was a time of visits, gifts, and
health-drinking, they declared that they would stay to share its
pleasures; which they did, to their own satisfaction and the annoyance
of those who were forced to entertain them and their squaws.[487] An
active siding with France was to be expected only from the western bands
of the Confederacy. Neutrality alone could be hoped for from the others,
who were too near the English safely to declare against them; while from
one of the tribes, the Mohawks, even neutrality was doubtful.

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