Part 39 (1/2)
[Footnote 682: _Vaudreuil au Ministre de la Marine, 4 Nov. 1758._]
[Footnote 683: _Vaudreuil au Ministre de la Guerre, 11 Oct. 1758._]
[Footnote 684: _Vaudreuil au Ministre de la Marine, 3 Nov. 1758._]
The two envoys had sailed for France. Winter was close at hand, and the harbor of Quebec was nearly empty. One s.h.i.+p still lingered, the last of the season, and by her Montcalm sent a letter to his mother: ”You will be glad to have me write to you up to the last moment to tell you for the hundredth time that, occupied as I am with the fate of New France, the preservation of the troops, the interest of the state, and my own glory, I think continually of you all. We did our best in 1756, 1757, and 1758; and so, G.o.d helping, we will do in 1759, unless you make peace in Europe.” Then, shut from the outer world for half a year by barriers of ice, he waited what returning spring might bright forth.
Both Bougainville and Doreil escaped the British cruisers and safely reached Versailles, where, in the slippery precincts of the Court, as new to him as they were treacherous, the young aide-de-camp justified all the confidence of his chief. He had interviews with the ministers, the King, and, more important than all, with Madame de Pompadour, whom he succeeded in propitiating, though not, it seems, without difficulty and delay. France, unfortunate by land and sea, with finances ruined and navy crippled, had gained one brilliant victory, and she owed it to Montcalm. She could pay for it in honors, if in nothing else. Montcalm was made lieutenant-general, Levis major-general, Bourlamaque brigadier, and Bougainville colonel and chevalier of St. Louis; while Vaudreuil was solaced with the grand cross of that order.[685] But when the two envoys asked substantial aid for the imperilled colony, the response was chilling. The Colonial Minister, Berryer, prepossessed against Bougainville by the secret warning of Vaudreuil, received him coldly, and replied to his appeal for help: ”Eh, Monsieur, when the house is on fire one cannot occupy one's self with the stable.” ”At least, Monsieur, n.o.body will say that you talk like a horse,” was the irreverent answer.
[Footnote 685: _Ordres du Roy et Depeches des Ministres, Janvier, Fevrier, 1759._]
Bougainville laid four memorials before the Court, in which he showed the desperate state of the colony and its dire need of help. Thus far, he said, Canada has been saved by the dissensions of the English colonies; but now, for the first time, they are united against her, and prepared to put forth their strength. And he begged for troops, arms, munitions, food, and a squadron to defend the mouth of the St.
Lawrence.[686] The reply, couched in a letter to Montcalm, was to the effect that it was necessary to concentrate all the strength of the kingdom for a decisive operation in Europe; that, therefore, the aid required could not be sent; and that the King trusted everything to his zeal and generals.h.i.+p, joined with the valor of the victors of Ticonderoga.[687] All that could be obtained was between three and four hundred recruits for the regulars, sixty engineers, sappers, and artillerymen, and gunpowder, arms, and provisions sufficient, along with the supplies brought over by the contractor, Cadet, to carry the colony through the next campaign.[688]
[Footnote 686: _Memoire remis au Ministre par M. de Bougainville, Decembre, 1758_.]
[Footnote 687: _Le Ministre a Montcalm, 3 Fev. 1759_.]
[Footnote 688: _Ordres du Roy et Depeches des Ministres, Fevrier, 1759_.]
Montcalm had intrusted Bougainville with another mission, widely different. This was no less than the negotiating of suitable marriages for the eldest son and daughter of his commander, with whom, in the confidence of friends.h.i.+p, he had had many conversations on the matter.
”He and I,” Montcalm wrote to his mother, Madame de Saint-Veran, ”have two ideas touching these marriages,--the first, romantic and chimerical; the second, good, practicable.”[689] Bougainville, invoking the aid of a lady of rank, a friend of the family, acquitted himself well of his delicate task. Before he embarked for Canada, in early spring, a treaty was on foot for the marriage of the young Comte de Montcalm to an heiress of sixteen; while Mademoiselle de Montcalm had already become Madame d'Espineuse. ”Her father will be delighted,” says the successful negotiator.[690]
[Footnote 689: _Montcalm a Madame de Saint-Veran, 24 Sept. 1758_.]
[Footnote 690: _Lettres de Bougainville a Madame de Saint-Veran, 1758, 1759_.]
Again he crossed the Atlantic and sailed up the St. Lawrence as the portentous spring of 1759 was lowering over the dissolving snows of Canada. With him came a squadron bearing the supplies and the petty reinforcement which the Court had vouchsafed. ”A little is precious to those who have nothing,” said Montcalm on receiving them. Despatches from the ministers gave warning of a great armament fitted out in English ports for the attack of Quebec, while a letter to the General from the Marechal de Belleisle, minister of war, told what was expected of him, and why he and the colony were abandoned to their fate. ”If we sent a large reinforcement of troops,” said Belleisle, ”there would be great fear that the English would intercept them on the way; and as the King could never send you forces equal to those which the English are prepared to oppose to you, the attempt would have no other effect than to excite the Cabinet of London to increased efforts for preserving its superiority on the American continent.”
”As we must expect the English to turn all their force against Canada, and attack you on several sides at once, it is necessary that you limit your plans of defence to the most essential points and those most closely connected, so that, being concentrated within a smaller s.p.a.ce, each part may be within reach of support and succor from the rest. How small soever may be the s.p.a.ce you are able to hold, it is indispensable to keep a footing in North America; for if we once lose the country entirely, its recovery will be almost impossible. The King counts on your zeal, courage, and persistency to accomplish this object, and relies on you to spare no pains and no exertions. Impart this resolution to your chief officers, and join with them to inspire your soldiers with it. I have answered for you to the King; I am confident that you will not disappoint me, and that for the glory of the nation, the good of the state, and your own preservation, you will go to the utmost extremity rather than submit to conditions as shameful as those imposed at Louisbourg, the memory of which you will wipe out.”[691] ”We will save this unhappy colony, or perish,” was the answer of Montcalm.
[Footnote 691: _Belleisle a Montcalm, 19 Fev_. 1759.]
It was believed that Canada would be attacked with at least fifty thousand men. Vaudreuil had caused a census to be made of the governments of Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec. It showed a little more than thirteen thousand effective men.[692] To these were to be added thirty-five hundred troops of the line, including the late reinforcement, fifteen hundred colony troops, a body of irregulars in Acadia, and the militia and _coureurs-de-bois_ of Detroit and the other upper posts, along with from one to two thousand Indians who could still be counted on. Great as was the disparity of numbers, there was good hope that the centre of the colony could be defended; for the only avenues by which an enemy could approach were barred by the rock of Quebec, the rapids of the St. Lawrence, and the strong position of Isle-aux-Noix, at the outlet of Lake Champlain. Montcalm had long inclined to the plan of concentration enjoined on him by the Minister of War. Vaudreuil was of another mind; he insisted on still occupying Acadia and the forts of the upper country: matters on which he and the General exchanged a correspondence that widened the breach between them.
[Footnote 692: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 8 Avril_, 1759. The _Memoires sur le Canada,_ 1749-1760, says 15,229 effective men.]
Should every effort of resistance fail, and the invaders force their way into the heart of Canada, Montcalm proposed the desperate resort of abandoning the valley of the St. Lawrence, descending the Mississippi with his troops and as many as possible of the inhabitants, and making a last stand for France among the swamps of Louisiana.[693]
[Footnote 693: Memoire sur le Canada remis au Ministre, 27 Dec. 1758._]
In April, before Bougainville's return, he wrote to his wife: ”Can we hope for another miracle to save us? I trust in G.o.d; he fought for us on the eighth of July. Come what may, his will be done! I wait the news from France with impatience and dread. We have had none for eight months; and who knows if much can reach us at all this year? How dearly I have to pay for the dismal privilege of figuring two or three times in the gazettes!” A month later, after Bougainvile had come: ”Our daughter is well married. I think I would renounce every honor to join you again; but the King must be obeyed. The moment when I see you once more will be the brightest of my life. Adieu, my heart! I believe that I love you more than ever.”
Bougainville had brought sad news. He had heard before sailing from France that one of Montcalm's daughters was dead, but could not learn which of them. ”I think,” says the father, ”that it must be poor Mirete, who was like me, and whom I loved very much.” He was never to know if this conjecture was true.
To Vaudreuil came a repet.i.tion of the detested order that he should defer to Montcalm on all questions of war; and moreover that he should not take command in person except when the whole body of the militia was called out; nor, even then, without consulting his rival.[694] His ire and vexation produced an access of jealous self-a.s.sertion, and drove him into something like revolt against the ministerial command. ”If the English attack Quebec, I shall always hold myself free to go thither myself with most of the troops and all the militia and Indians I can a.s.semble. On arriving I shall give battle to the enemy; and I shall do so again and again, till I have forced him to retire, or till he has entirely crushed me by excessive superiority of numbers. My obstinacy in opposing his landing will be the more _a propos_, as I have not the means of sustaining a siege. If I succeed as I wish, I shall next march to Carillon to arrest him there. You see, Monseigneur, that the slightest change in my arrangements would have the most unfortunate consequences.”[695]
[Footnote 694: _Ordres du Roy et Depeches des Ministres, Lettre a Vaudreuil, 3 Fev. 1759._]