Part 20 (1/2)
1712-1756
Montcalm
On the eighteenth of May, 1756, England, after a year of open hostility, at length declared war. She had attacked France by land and sea, turned loose her s.h.i.+ps to prey on French commerce, and brought some three hundred prizes into her ports. It was the act of a weak Government, supplying by spasms of violence what it lacked in considerate resolution. France, no match for her amphibious enemy in the game of marine depredation, cried out in horror; and to emphasize her complaints and signalize a pretended good faith which her acts had belied, ostentatiously released a British frigate captured by her cruisers. She in her turn declared war on the ninth of June: and now began the most terrible conflict of the eighteenth century; one that convulsed Europe and shook America, India, the coasts of Africa, and the islands of the sea.
In Europe the ground was trembling already with the coming earthquake.
Such smothered discords, such animosities, ambitions, jealousies, possessed the rival governments; such entanglements of treaties and alliances, offensive or defensive, open or secret,--that a blow at one point shook the whole fabric. Hanover, like the heel of Achilles, was the vulnerable part for which England was always trembling. Therefore she made a defensive treaty with Prussia, by which each party bound itself to aid the other, should its territory be invaded. England thus sought a guaranty against France, and Prussia against Russia. She had need. Her King, Frederic the Great, had drawn upon himself an avalanche.
Three women--two empresses and a concubine--controlled the forces of the three great nations, Austria, Russia, and France; and they all hated him: Elizabeth of Russia, by reason of a distrust fomented by secret intrigue and turned into gall by the biting tongue of Frederic himself, who had jibed at her amours, compared her to Messalina, and called her ”_infame catin du Nord_;” Maria Theresa of Austria, because she saw in him a rebellious va.s.sal of the Holy Roman Empire, and, above all, because he had robbed her of Silesia; Madame de Pompadour, because when she sent him a message of compliment, he answered, ”_Je ne la connais pas_,” forbade his amba.s.sador to visit her, and in his mocking wit spared neither her nor her royal lover. Feminine pique, revenge, or vanity had then at their service the mightiest armaments of Europe.
The recovery of Silesia and the punishment of Frederic for his audacity in seizing it, possessed the mind of Maria Theresa with the force of a ruling pa.s.sion. To these ends she had joined herself in secret league with Russia; and now at the prompting of her minister Kaunitz she courted the alliance of France. It was a reversal of the hereditary policy of Austria; joining hands with an old and deadly foe, and spurning England, of late her most trusty ally. But France could give powerful aid against Frederic; and hence Maria Theresa, virtuous as she was high-born and proud, stooped to make advances to the all-powerful mistress of Louis XV., wrote her flattering letters, and addressed her, it is said, as ”_Ma chere cousine_.” Pompadour was delighted, and could hardly do enough for her imperial friend. She ruled the King, and could make and unmake ministers at will. They hastened to do her pleasure, disguising their subserviency by dressing it out in specious reasons of state. A conference at her summer-house, called Babiole, ”Bawble,”
prepared the way for a treaty which involved the nation in the anti-Prussian war, and made it the instrument of Austria in the attempt to humble Frederic,--an attempt which if successful would give the hereditary enemy of France a predominance over Germany. France engaged to aid the cause with twenty-four thousand men; but in the zeal of her rulers began with a hundred thousand. Thus the three great Powers stood leagued against Prussia. Sweden and Saxony joined them; and the Empire itself, of which Prussia was a part, took arms against its obnoxious member.
Never in Europe had power been more centralized, and never in France had the reins been held by persons so pitiful, impelled by motives so contemptible. The levity, vanity, and spite of a concubine became a mighty engine to influence the destinies of nations. Louis XV., enervated by pleasures and devoured by _ennui_, still had his emotions; he shared Pompadour's detestation of Frederic, and he was tormented at times by a lively fear of d.a.m.nation. But how d.a.m.n a king who had entered the lists as champion of the Church? England was Protestant, and so was Prussia; Austria was supremely Catholic. Was it not a merit in the eyes of G.o.d to join her in holy war against the powers of heresy? The King of the Parc-aux-Cerfs would propitiate Heaven by a new crusade.
Henceforth France was to turn her strength against her European foes; and the American war, the occasion of the universal outbreak, was to hold in her eyes a second place. The reasons were several: the vanity of Pompadour, infatuated by the advances of the Empress-Queen, and eager to secure her good graces; the superst.i.tion of the King; the anger of both against Frederic; the desire of D'Argenson, minister of war, that the army, and not the navy, should play the foremost part; and the pa.s.sion of courtiers and n.o.bles, ignorant of the naval service, to win laurels in a continental war,--all conspired to one end. It was the interest of France to turn her strength against her only dangerous rival; to continue as she had begun, in building up a naval power that could face England on the seas and sustain her own rising colonies in America, India, and the West Indies: for she too might have multiplied herself, planted her language and her race over all the globe, and grown with the growth of her children, had she not been at the mercy of an effeminate profligate, a mistress turned procuress, and the favorites to whom they delegated power.
Still, something must be done for the American war; at least there must be a new general to replace Dieskau. None of the Court favorites wanted a command in the backwoods, and the minister of war was free to choose whom he would. His choice fell on Louis Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm-Gozon de Saint-Veran.
Montcalm was born in the south of France, at the Chateau of Candiac, near Nimes, on the twenty-ninth of February, 1712. At the age of six he was placed in the charge of one Dumas, a natural son of his grandfather.
This man, a conscientious pedant, with many theories of education, ruled his pupil stiffly; and, before the age of fifteen, gave him a good knowledge of Latin, Greek, and history. Young Montcalm had a taste for books, continued his reading in such intervals of leisure as camps and garrisons afforded, and cherished to the end of his life the ambition of becoming a member of the Academy. Yet, with all his liking for study, he sometimes revolted against the sway of the pedagogue who wrote letters of complaint to his father protesting against the ”judgments of the vulgar, who, contrary to the experience of ages, say that if children are well reproved they will correct their faults.” Dumas, however, was not without sense, as is shown by another letter to the elder Montcalm, in which he says that the boy had better be ignorant of Latin and Greek ”than know them as he does without knowing how to read, write, and speak French well.” The main difficulty was to make him write a good hand,--a point in which he signally failed to the day of his death. So refractory was he at times, that his master despaired. ”M. de Montcalm,” Dumas informs the father, ”has great need of docility, industry, and willingness to take advice. What will become of him?” The pupil, aware of these aspersions, met them by writing to his father his own ideas of what his aims should be. ”First, to be an honorable man, of good morals, brave, and a Christian. Secondly, to read in moderation; to know as much Greek and Latin as most men of the world; also the four rules of arithmetic, and something of history, geography, and French and Latin _belles-lettres_, as well as to have a taste for the arts and sciences.
Thirdly, and above all, to be obedient, docile, and very submissive to your orders and those of my dear mother; and also to defer to the advice of M. Dumas. Fourthly, to fence and ride as well as my small abilities will permit.”[361]
[Footnote 361: This pa.s.sage is given by Somervogel from the original letter.]
If Louis de Montcalm failed to satisfy his preceptor, he had a brother who made ample amends. Of this infant prodigy it is related that at six years he knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and had some acquaintance with arithmetic, French history, geography, and heraldry. He was destined for the Church, but died at the age of seven; his precocious brain having been urged to fatal activity by the exertions of Dumas.
Other destinies and a more wholesome growth were the lot of young Louis.
At fifteen he joined the army as ensign in the regiment of Hainaut. Two years after, his father bought him a captaincy, and he was first under fire at the siege of Philipsbourg. His father died in 1735, and left him heir to a considerable landed estate, much embarra.s.sed by debt. The Marquis de la Fare, a friend of the family, soon after sought for him an advantageous marriage to strengthen his position and increase his prospects of promotion; and he accordingly espoused Mademoiselle Angelique Louise Talon du Boulay,--a union which brought him influential alliances and some property. Madame de Montcalm bore him ten children, of whom only two sons and four daughters were living in 1752. ”May G.o.d preserve them all,” he writes in his autobiography, ”and make them prosper for this world and the next! Perhaps it will be thought that the number is large for so moderate a fortune, especially as four of them are girls; but does G.o.d ever abandon his children in their need?”
”'Aux pet.i.ts des oiseaux il donne la pature, Et sa bonte s'etend sur toute la nature.'”
He was pious in his soldierly way, and ardently loyal to Church and King.
His family seat was Candiac; where, in the intervals of campaigning, he found repose with his wife, his children, and his mother, who was a woman of remarkable force of character and who held great influence over her son. He had a strong attachment to this home of his childhood; and in after years, out of the midst of the American wilderness, his thoughts turned longingly towards it. ”_Quand reverrai-je mon cher Candiac_!”
In 1741 Montcalm took part in the Bohemian campaign. He was made colonel of the regiment of Auxerrois two years later, and pa.s.sed unharmed through the severe campaign of 1744. In the next year he fought in Italy under Marechal de Maillebois. In 1746, at the disastrous action under the walls of Piacenza, where he twice rallied his regiment, he received five sabre-cuts,--two of which were in the head,--and was made prisoner.
Returning to France on parole, he was promoted in the year following to the rank of brigadier; and being soon after exchanged, rejoined the army, and was again wounded by a musket-shot. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle now gave him a period of rest.[362] At length, being on a visit to Paris late in the autumn of 1755, the minister, D'Argenson, hinted to him that he might be appointed to command the troops in America. He heard no more of the matter till, after his return home, he received from D'Argenson a letter dated at Versailles the twenty-fifth of January, at midnight. ”Perhaps, Monsieur,” it began, ”you did not expect to hear from me again on the subject of the conversation I had with you the day you came to bid me farewell at Paris. Nevertheless I have not forgotten for a moment the suggestion I then made you; and it is with the greatest pleasure that I announce to you that my views have prevailed. The King has chosen you to command his troops in North America, and will honor you on your departure with the rank of major-general.”
[Footnote 362: The account of Montcalm up to this time is chiefly from his unpublished autobiography, preserved by his descendants, and ent.i.tled _Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de ma Vie_. Somervogel, _Comme on servait autrefois_; Bonnechose, _Montcalm et le Canada;_ Martin, _Le Marquis de Montcalm; eloge de Montcalm; Autre eloge de Montcalm; Memoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1760, and other writings in print and ma.n.u.script have also been consulted.]
The Chevalier de Levis, afterwards Marshal of France, was named as his second in command, with the rank of brigadier, and the Chevalier de Bourlamaque as his third, with the rank of colonel; but what especially pleased him was the appointment of his eldest son to command a regiment in France. He set out from Candiac for the Court, and occupied himself on the way with reading Charlevoix. ”I take great pleasure in it,” he writes from Lyons to his mother; ”he gives a pleasant account of Quebec.
But be comforted; I shall always be glad to come home.” At Paris he writes again: ”Don't expect any long letter from me before the first of March; all my business will be done by that time, and I shall begin to breathe again. I have not yet seen the Chevalier de Montcalm [_his son_]. Last night I came from Versailles, and am going back to-morrow.
The King gives me twenty-five thousand francs a year, as he did to M.
Dieskau, besides twelve thousand for my equipment, which will cost me above a thousand crowns more; but I cannot stop for that. I embrace my dearest and all the family.” A few days later his son joined him. ”He is as thin and delicate as ever, but grows prodigiously tall.”
On the second of March he informs his mother, ”My affairs begin to get on. A good part of the baggage went off the day before yesterday in the King's wagons; an a.s.sistant-cook and two liverymen yesterday. I have got a good cook. Esteve, my secretary, will go on the eighth; Joseph and Dejean will follow me. To-morrow evening I go to Versailles till Sunday, and will write from there to Madame de Montcalm [_his wife_]. I have three aides-de-camp; one of them, Bougainville, a man of parts, pleasant company. Madame Mazade was happily delivered on Wednesday; in extremity on Friday with a malignant fever; Sat.u.r.day and yesterday, reports favorable. I go there twice a day, and am just going now. She has a girl. I embrace you all.” Again, on the fifteenth: ”In a few hours I set out for Brest. Yesterday I presented my son, with whom I am well pleased, to all the royal family. I shall have a secretary at Brest, and will write more at length.” On the eighteenth he writes from Rennes to his wife: ”I arrived, dearest, this morning, and stay here all day. I shall be at Brest on the twenty-first. Everything will be on board on the twenty-sixth. My son has been here since yesterday for me to coach him and get him a uniform made, in which he will give thanks for his regiment at the same time that I take leave in my embroidered coat.
Perhaps I shall leave debts behind. I wait impatiently for the bills.
You have my will; I wish you would get it copied, and send it to me before I sail.”