Part 14 (1/2)
MURRAY AND DE LeVIS
Within the beleaguered city the sights and sounds of battle caused sickening excitement. An enemy who had gained the heights by such determined valour was destined for victory; and the weary garrison and townsfolk, as they watched and waited anxiously on the ramparts, were more than half prepared for the view presently to meet their eyes. A fresh wind lifting the thick clouds of smoke from the battlefield revealed the scattered legions of France in flight before a conquering army, wildly das.h.i.+ng towards the city gates or the bridge of boats crossing the St. Charles. Montcalm sought in vain to rally his stricken battalions, and was borne backward in the confusion of their mad retreat, until suddenly, pierced by a bullet, he sank in the saddle. Bravely keeping his seat with support from a soldier on either side, he succeeded in entering the city by the St. Louis Gate. Here the excited crowd, which had gathered to hear the latest news from the field, raised a troubled cry at sight of their vanquished chief pale and streaming with blood. ”_Mon Dieu, O mon Dieu! le Marquis est tue!_” they wailed. ”It is nothing, it is nothing, do not distress yourselves for me, my good friends,” responded the broken hero.
His black charger slowly bore him down the _Grande Allee_ and along the Rue St. Louis, leading a sad procession to the house of Arnoux the surgeon. Being carried inside, he was told that his wound was mortal.
”How long have I to live?” he asked. ”Twelve hours perhaps,” responded the surgeon. ”So much the better,” said Montcalm; ”I am happy that I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec.” Then, turning to Commandant de Ramezay and the colonel of the Regiment of Royal Roussillon, who stood by, he said: ”Gentlemen, to your keeping I commend the honour of France. Endeavour to secure the retreat of my army to-night beyond Cap Rouge. As for myself, I shall pa.s.s the night with G.o.d, and prepare for death.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: _General Gage_ _1st Military Governor of Montreal_]
Yet ever mindful of the wretched people who hung upon him, he addressed this note to the commander of the English army--
”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.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: NEW KENT GATE]
By dawn the next morning his gallant soul had fled. And when another day had gone, and night came again, a silent funeral pa.s.sed, by the light of a flambeau, to the chapel of the Ursulines for the lonely obsequies. A bursting sh.e.l.l had ploughed a deep trench along the wall of the convent, and there they sadly laid him--fitting rest for one whose life had been spent amid the din and doom of war. In 1833 his skull was exhumed; and to-day it is reverently exposed in the almoners' room of the Ursuline convent--all that remains of as fine a figure, as n.o.ble a son of his race as the years have seen.
Here also an interesting tablet, erected by Lord Aylmer in 1835, bears the sympathetic inscription--
HONNEUR A MONTCALM LE DESTIN EN LUI DEROBANT LA VICTOIRE L'A ReCOMPENSe PAR UNE MORTE GLORIEUSE.
Besides Montcalm, the French army lost its second and third in command, De Senezergues having expired on one of the English s.h.i.+ps, while M. de Saint-Ours was killed in the same b.l.o.o.d.y charge in which Wolfe also met his death. The French losses in killed and wounded numbered almost fifteen hundred officers and men, the British record being fifty-eight killed, and five hundred and ninety-seven wounded.
When Wolfe was slain the chief command of the British army in Canada had pa.s.sed to Brigadier Townshend.[31] Expecting every moment to be attacked by Bougainville, Townshend called back his battalions from the charge, and drew them up anew, a movement scarcely accomplished before Bougainville's army was seen advancing from Cap Rouge.
Bougainville, however, soon perceived signs of Montcalm's defeat, and unwilling to risk an engagement with a wholly victorious enemy, he retreated without a blow.
[Footnote 31: Afterwards Marquis of Townshend.]
Meanwhile, Governor Vaudreuil had held a council of war in the hornwork which protected the St. Charles bridge. Roused now to intelligent action, he was for making an immediate junction with Bougainville and attacking Townshend before the English position could be strengthened. Bigot recommended the same course; but all the other officers were against it, and the brave but vacillating Vaudreuil was overborne by their counsel. A despairing note was despatched to the little garrison at Quebec; and an army that still outnumbered the British forces began a march thus described by one of the partic.i.p.ants: ”It was not a retreat, 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, scattered, dispersed, and running as hard as they could, as if the English army were at their heels.” Their tents were left standing at the Beauport camp, where in their inglorious haste they had even abandoned their heavy baggage.
Pa.s.sing through Charlesbourg, Lorette, and St. Augustin, by the evening of the 15th they had covered the thirty miles intervening between Quebec and the Jacques-Cartier river.
This desertion by the army was a cruel blow to those who still manned the ramparts of the city. For more than two months they had mended the breaches and fought the fires kindled by the guns of Point Levi; they had stood by their feeble batteries for weary weeks, toiling night and day on half-rations. And now ignominious abandonment was their reward! Of the total population within the walls, twenty-six hundred were women and children, ten hundred were invalids, while the able-bodied defenders, all told, numbered less than a thousand, and even these were worn out by privations.
De Ramezay, the commandant, called a council of war which fourteen officers attended, and all of these but one were in favour of capitulation. The citizens a.s.sembled at the house of M. Daine the Mayor, and drew up a pet.i.tion praying that De Ramezay would not expose the city and its inhabitants to the further horrors of a.s.sault. The citizens' memorial recited the tribulations they had already undergone, and pointed out that neither a bombardment continued for sixty-three days, nor ceaseless fatigue and anxiety had sufficed to kill their spirit; that though exhausted by famine, yet in the constant hope of final victory they had forgotten the gnawings of their hunger. But now, deserted by the army, they were not justified in making further sacrifices. Even with the most careful distribution, only eight days' rations remained in the city. Moreover, a conquering army was encamped between Quebec and its source of supply. While there was yet time, they pleaded, honourable terms of capitulation should be demanded.
All this time the _milice de la ville_, naturally brave, but unwisely led, were fleeing to their neglected homesteads. Some even crossed over to the enemy's camp; and a sergeant actually deserted with the keys of the city gates in his pockets. Meantime Townshend, fully aware of the danger of his position, determined to force the city without delay if the enemy should show a resolute face. In a few weeks at the most, the approach of winter would compel the fleet to leave the river, and should the English army then find itself outside the walls, the fruits of the Battle of the Plains would be entirely lost.
Accordingly, he was ready to grant almost any terms of capitulation.
The English trenches drew closer and closer to the walls, and on the evening of the 17th the fleet made a movement as if to bombard the Lower Town, while a column of troops threatened Palace Gate. The drums of the garrison beat the alarm; but the citizens failed to rally, and in despair De Ramezay at last resolved to surrender. A white flag showed upon the ramparts, and as the stars came out, an envoy appeared in the English camp to ask for terms. At eight o'clock the next morning, September 18th, the articles of capitulation had been signed by De Ramezay, Townshend, and Admiral Saunders. Their provisions were, in brief: That the garrison should be accorded the honours of war, and march out bearing their arms and baggage, with flying colours and beating drums; that the troops should be conveyed to France; that the inhabitants, on laying down their arms, should retain their houses, property, and privileges, at least until the treaty of peace should be signed by the sovereigns of England and France. Artillery and military stores were to be surrendered; the sick were to be cared for, and guards were to be posted to protect the convents and churches against possible outrage.
The general orders for the 18th of September describe, prospectively, the formal cession of the fortress town--
”The gates to be taken possession of by Colonel Murray and three companies of Grenadiers, after which the hour will be appointed when the army should march in. Fifty of the Royal Artillery, officers in proportion, one field-piece with a lighted match following them, will march to the Grand Parade, followed by the Commanding Officer and his party, sent to take possession of the town, to whom all the keys of the forts will be delivered, from which party officers' guards will immediately be sent to take possession of all ports and outlets from the town....During this time the Commanding Officer of Artillery will hoist the Union flag of Great Britain at the most conspicuous place of the garrison; the flag-gun will be left on the Grand Parade, fronting the main guard.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Hon. Robert Monckton Major General_ _Sometime Governor of New York under Wolfe at Quebec 1759_.]
Thus pa.s.sed Quebec into British hands. And the surrender was made none too soon; for even as the garrison yielded, hors.e.m.e.n dashed up to the city gates to announce the return of the French army. M. de Levis, hurrying from Montreal, when the danger of Amherst's advance no longer threatened, had come upon the retreating army of Vaudreuil soon after its arrival at Jacques-Cartier. Notwithstanding their appalling want of discipline, he soon made his presence felt among the fugitives, and despatching courtiers to De Ramezay to admonish him against surrender, this worthy successor of Montcalm marched on to the relief of Quebec. But it was now too late; for when, having made a junction with Bougainville at Cap Rouge, De Levis drew near the city, he saw the red flag of Britain floating from the bastion of Cape Diamond.
On the 19th of September, the day after the capitulation, a fast frigate left for England, bearing the news of victory, together with the embalmed body of the gallant general to whom it was due. Though the event was celebrated there with bonfires and shouts of triumph, yet the nation's tears could not be restrained. ”The incidents of dramatic fiction,” writes Walpole in his _Memoirs of George II._, ”could not be conducted with more address to lead an audience from despondency to sudden exultation, than accident prepared to excite the pa.s.sions of a whole people. They despaired, they triumphed, and they wept; for Wolfe had fallen in the hour of conquest. Joy, curiosity, astonishment was painted on every countenance. The more they inquired, the more their admiration rose. Not an incident but was heroic and affecting.” Wolfe's body was laid beside that of his father in Greenwich church; and Parliament erected a monument to his honour in Westminster Abbey. On the Plains of Abraham, also, a large stone was set up to mark the spot where he had fallen; but in 1835 this primitive memorial was superseded by a beautiful pillar, upon which Lord Aylmer, then Governor-General, caused to be inscribed the simple legend--
”HERE DIED WOLFE VICTORIOUS.”