Montcalm and Wolfe: The Riveting Story of the Heroes of the French & Indian War (78 page)

Bishop Pontbriand, himself fast sinking with mortal disease, attended his death-bed 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.”
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In truth, the funeral of Montcalm was the funeral of New France.
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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.
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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.
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“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.
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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 thousand 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.

“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, Fiedmont, captain of artillery, was for reducing the rations still more, and holding out to the last. All the others gave their voices for capitulation.
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Ramesay might have yielded without dishonor; but he still held out till an event fraught with new hope took place at Jacques-Cartier.

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.
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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.”

He spoke his mind freely; loudly blamed the retreat, and urged Vaudreuil to march back with all speed to whence he came.
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The Governor, stiff at ordinary times, but pliant at a crisis, welcomed the firmer mind that decided for him, consented that the troops should return, and wrote afterwards in his despatch to the Minister: “I was much charmed to find M. de Lévis disposed to march with the army towards Quebec.”
⁵

Lévis, on his part, wrote: “The condition in which I found the army, bereft of everything, did not discourage me, because M. de Vaudreuil told me that Quebec was not taken, and that he had left there a sufficiently numerous garrison; I therefore resolved, in order to repair the fault that had been committed, to engage M. de Vaudreuil to march the army back to the relief of the place. I represented to him that this was the only way to prevent the complete defection of the Canadians and Indians; that our knowledge of the country would enable us to approach very near the enemy, whom we knew to be intrenching themselves on the heights of Quebec and constructing batteries to breach the walls; that if we found their army ill posted, we could attack them, or, at any rate, could prolong the siege by throwing men and supplies into the town; and that if we could not save it, we could evacuate and burn it, so that the enemy could not possibly winter there.”
¹

Lévis quickly made his presence felt in the military chaos about him. Bigot bestirred himself with his usual vigor to collect provisions; and before the next morning all was ready.
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Bougainville had taken no part in the retreat, but sturdily held his ground at Cap-Rouge while the fugitive mob swept by him. A hundred of the mounted Canadians who formed part of his command were now sent to Quebec, each with a bag of biscuit across his saddle. They were to circle round to the Beauport side, where there was no enemy, and whence they could cross the St. Charles in canoes to the town. Bougainville followed close with a larger supply. Vaudreuil sent Ramesay a message, revoking his order to surrender if threatened with assault, telling him to hold out to the last, and assuring him that the whole army was coming to his relief. Lévis hastened to be gone; but first he found time to write a few lines to Bourlamaque. “We have had a very great loss, for we have lost M. de Montcalm. I regret him as my general and my friend. I found our army here. It is now on the march to retrieve our fortunes. I can trust you to hold your position; as I have not M. de Montcalm’s talents, I look to you to second me and advise me. Put a good face on it. Hide this business as long as you can. I am mounting my horse this moment. Write me all the news.”
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The army marched that morning, the eighteenth. In the evening it reached St. Augustin; and here it was stopped by the chilling news that Quebec had surrendered.

Utter confusion had reigned in the disheartened garrison. Men deserted hourly, some to the country, and some to the English camp; while Townshend pushed his trenches nearer and nearer to the walls, in spite of the cannonade with which Fiedmont and his artillerymen tried to check them. On the evening of the seventeenth, the English ships of war moved towards the Lower Town, and a column of troops was seen approaching over the meadows of the St. Charles, as if to storm the Palace Gate. The drums beat the alarm; but the militia refused to fight. Their officers came to Ramesay in a body; declared that they had no mind to sustain an assault; that they knew he had orders against it; that they would carry their guns back to the arsenal; that they were no longer soldiers, but citizens; that if the army had not abandoned them they would fight with as much spirit as ever; but that they would not get themselves killed to no purpose. The town-major, Joannès, in a rage, beat two of them with the flat of his sword.

The white flag was raised; Joannès pulled it down, thinking, or pretending to think, that it was raised without authority; but Ramesay presently ordered him to go to the English camp and get what terms he could. He went, through driving rain, to the quarters of Townshend, and, in hope of the promised succor, spun out the negotiation to the utmost, pretended that he had no power to yield certain points demanded, and was at last sent back to confer with Ramesay, under a promise from the English commander that, if Quebec were not given up before eleven o’clock, he would take it by storm. On this Ramesay signed the articles, and Joannès carried them back within the time prescribed. Scarcely had he left the town, when the Canadian horsemen appeared with their sacks of biscuit and a renewed assurance that help was near; but it was too late. Ramesay had surrendered, and would not break his word. He dreaded an assault, which he knew he could not withstand, and he but half believed in the promised succor. “How could I trust it?” he asks. “The army had not dared to face the enemy before he had fortified himself; and could I hope that it would come to attack him in an intrenched camp, defended by a formidable artillery?” Whatever may be thought of his conduct, it was to Vaudreuil, and not to him, that the loss of Quebec was due.

The conditions granted were favorable, for Townshend knew the danger of his position, and was glad to have Quebec on any terms. The troops and sailors of the garrison were to march out of the place with the honors of war, and to be carried to France. The inhabitants were to have protection in person and property, and free exercise of religion.
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In the afternoon a company of artillerymen with a field-piece entered the town, and marched to the place of arms, followed by a body of infantry. Detachments took post at all the gates. The British flag was raised on the heights near the top of Mountain Street, and the capital of New France passed into the hands of its hereditary foes. The question remained, should they keep, or destroy it? It was resolved to keep it at every risk. The marines, the grenadiers from Louisbourg, and some of the rangers were to reimbark in the fleet; while the ten battalions, with the artillery and one company of rangers, were to remain behind, bide the Canadian winter, and defend the ruins of Quebec against the efforts of Lévis. Monckton, the oldest brigadier, was disabled by his wound, and could not stay; while Townshend returned home, to parade his laurels and claim more than his share of the honors of victory.
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The command, therefore, rested with Murray.

The troops were not idle. Levelling their own field-works, repairing the defences of the town, storing provisions sent ashore from the fleet, making fascines, and cutting firewood, busied them through the autumn days bright with sunshine, or dark and chill with premonition of the bitter months to come. Admiral Saunders put off his departure longer than he had once thought possible; and it was past the middle of October when he fired a parting salute, and sailed down the river with his fleet. In it was the ship “Royal William,” carrying the embalmed remains of Wolfe.

Montcalm lay in his soldier’s grave before the humble altar of the Ursulines, never more to see the home for which he yearned, the wife, mother, and children whom he loved, the olive-trees and chestnut-groves of his beloved Candiac. He slept in peace among triumphant enemies, who respected his memory, though they hardly knew his resting-place. It was left for a fellow-countryman—a colleague and a brother-in-arms—to belittle his achievements and blacken his name. The jealous spite of Vaudreuil pursued him even in death. Leaving Lévis to command at Jacques-Cartier, whither the army had again withdrawn, the Governor retired to Montreal, whence he wrote a series of despatches to justify himself at the expense of others, and above all of the slain general, against whom his accusations were never so bitter as now, when the lips were cold that could have answered them. First, he threw on Ramesay all the blame of the surrender of Quebec. Then he addressed himself to his chief task, the defamation of his unconscious rival. “The letter that you wrote in cipher, on the tenth of February, to Monsieur the Marquis of Montcalm and me, in common,
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flattered his self-love to such a degree that, far from seeking conciliation, he did nothing but try to persuade the public that his authority surpassed mine. From the moment of Monsieur de Montcalm’s arrival in this colony, down to that of his death, he did not cease to sacrifice everything to his boundless ambition. He sowed dissension among the troops, tolerated the most indecent talk against the government, attached to himself the most disreputable persons, used means to corrupt the most virtuous, and, when he could not succeed, became their cruel enemy. He wanted to be Governor-General. He privately flattered with favors and promises of patronage every officer of the colony troops who adopted his ideas. He spared no pains to gain over the people of whatever calling, and persuade them of his attachment; while, either by himself or by means of the troops of the line, he made them bear the most frightful yoke [
le joug le plus affreux
]. He defamed honest people, encouraged insubordination, and closed his eyes to the rapine of his soldiers.”

This letter was written to Vaudreuil’s official superior and confidant, the Minister of the Marine and Colonies. In another letter, written about the same time to the Minister of War, who held similar relations to his rival, he declares that he “greatly regretted Monsieur de Montcalm.”
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His charges are strange ones from a man who was by turns the patron, advocate, and tool of the official villains who cheated the King and plundered the people. Bigot, Cadet, and the rest of the harpies that preyed on Canada looked to Vaudreuil for support, and found it. It was but three or four weeks since he had written to the Court in high eulogy of Bigot and effusive praise of Cadet, coupled with the request that a patent of nobility should be given to that notorious public thief.
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The corruptions which disgraced his government were rife, not only in the civil administration, but also among the officers of the colony troops, over whom he had complete control. They did not, as has been seen already, extend to the officers of the line, who were outside the circle of peculation. It was these who were the habitual associates of Montcalm; and when Vaudreuil charges him with “attaching to himself the most disreputable persons, and using means to corrupt the most virtuous,” the true interpretation of his words is that the former were disreputable because they disliked him (the Governor), and the latter virtuous because they were his partisans.