Part 47 (1/2)
He had not heard till eight o'clock that the English were on the Plains of Abraham; and the delay of his arrival was no doubt due to his endeavors to collect as many as possible of his detachments posted along the St. Lawrence for many miles towards Jacques-Cartier.
Before midnight the English had made good progress in their redoubts and intrenchments, had brought cannon up the heights to defend them, planted a battery on the Cote Ste.-Genevieve, descended into the meadows of the St. Charles, and taken possession of the General Hospital, with its crowds of sick and wounded. Their victory had cost them six hundred and sixty-four of all ranks, killed, wounded, and missing. The French loss is placed by Vaudreuil at about six hundred and forty, and by the English official reports at about fifteen hundred.
Measured by the numbers engaged, the battle of Quebec was but a heavy skirmish; measured by results, it was one of the great battles of the world.
Vaudreuil went from the hornwork to his quarters on the Beauport road and called a council of war. It was a tumultuous scene. A letter was despatched to Quebec to ask for advice of Montcalm.
The dying General sent a brief message to the effect that there was a threefold choice,--to fight again, retreat to Jacques-Cartier, or give up the colony. There was much in favor of fighting. When Bougainville had gathered all his force from the river above, he would have three thousand men; and these, joined to the garrison of Quebec, the sailors at the batteries, and the militia and artillerymen of the Beauport camp, would form a body of fresh soldiers more than equal to the English then on the Plains of Abraham.
Add to these the defeated troops, and the victors would be greatly outnumbered.[788] Bigot gave his voice for fighting. Vaudreuil expressed himself to the same effect; but he says that all the officers were against him. ”In vain I remarked to these gentlemen that we were superior to the enemy, and should beat them if we managed well. I could not at all change their opinion, and my love for the service and for the colony made me subscribe to the views of the council. In fact, if I had attacked the English against the advice of all the princ.i.p.al officers, their ill-will would have exposed me to the risk of losing the battle and the colony also.”[789]
[Footnote 788: Bigot, as well as Vaudreuil, sets Bougainville's force at three thousand. ”En reunissant le corps M. de Bougainville, les bataillons de Montreal _[laisses au camp de Beauport]_ et la garrison de la ville, il nous restoit encore pres de 5,000 hommes de troupes fraiches.” _Journal tenu a l'Armee._ Vaudreuil says that there were fifteen hundred men in garrison at Quebec who did not take part in the battle. If this is correct, the number of fresh troops after it was not five thousand, but more than six thousand; to whom the defeated force is to be added, making, after deducting killed and wounded, some ten thousand in all.]
[Footnote 789: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct._ 1759.]
It was said at the time that the officers voted for retreat because they thought Vaudreuil unfit to command an army, and, still more, to fight a battle.[790] There was no need, however, to fight at once. The object of the English was to take Quebec, and that of Vaudreuil should have been to keep it.
By a march of a few miles he could have joined Bougainville; and by then intrenching himself at or near Ste.-Foy he would have placed a greatly superior force in the English rear, where his position might have been made impregnable. Here he might be easily furnished with provisions, and from hence he could readily throw men and supplies into Quebec, which the English were too few to invest. He could hara.s.s the besiegers, or attack them, should opportunity offer, and either raise the siege or so protract it that they would be forced by approaching winter to sail homeward, robbed of the fruit of their victory.
[Footnote 790: _Memoires sur le Canada,_ 1749-1760.]
At least he might have taken a night for reflection. He was safe behind the St. Charles. The English, spent by fighting, toil, and want of sleep, were in no condition to disturb him.
A part of his own men were in deadly need of rest; the night would have brought refreshment, and the morning might have brought wise counsel. Vaudreuil would not wait, and orders were given at once for retreat.[791] It began at nine o'clock that evening. Quebec was abandoned to its fate. The cannon were left in the lines of Beauport, the tents in the encampments, and provisions enough in the storehouses to supply the army for a week. ”The loss of the Marquis de Montcalm,” says a French officer then on the spot, ”robbed his successors of their senses, and they thought of nothing but flight; such was their fear that the enemy would attack the intrenchments the next day. The army abandoned the camp in such disorder that the like was never known.”[792] ”It was not a retreat,” says Johnstone, who himself a part of it, ”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, and scattered, dispersed, and running as hard as they could, as if the English army were at their heels.” They pa.s.sed Charlesbourg, Lorette, and St. Augustin, till, on the fifteenth, they found rest on the impregnable hill of Jacques-Cartier, by the brink of the St. Lawrence, thirty miles from danger.
[Footnote 791: _Livre d'Ordres, Ordre du 13 Sept_. 1759.]
[Footnote 792: Foligny, _Journal memoratif._]
In the night of humiliation when Vaudreuil abandoned Quebec, Montcalm was breathing his last within its walls.
When he was brought wounded from the field, he was placed in the house of the Surgeon Arnoux, who was then with Bourlamaque at Isle-aux-Noix, but whose younger brother, also a surgeon, examined the wound and p.r.o.nounced it mortal. ”I am glad of it,”
Montcalm said quietly; and then asked how long he had to live.
”Twelve hours, more or less,” was the reply. ”So much the better,”
he returned. ”I am happy that I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec.” He is reported to have said that since he had lost the battle it consoled him to have been defeated by so brave an enemy; and some of his last words were in praise of his successor, Levis, for whose talents and fitness for command he expressed high esteem. When Vaudreuil sent to ask his opinion, he gave it; but when Ramesay, commandant of the garrison, came to receive his orders, he replied: ”I will neither give orders nor interfere any further. I have much business that must be attended to, of greater moment than your ruined garrison and this wretched country. My time is very short; therefore pray leave me. I wish you all comfort, and to be happily extricated from your present perplexities.” Nevertheless he thought to the last of those who had been under his command, and sent the following note to Brigadier Townshend: ”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.”[793]
[Footnote 793: I am indebted to Abbe Bois for a copy of this note. The last words of Montcalm, as above, are reported partly by Johnstone, and partly by Knox.]
Bishop Pontbriand, himself fast sinking with mortal disease, attended his deathbed 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 sh.e.l.l, 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.”[794] In truth, the funeral of Montcalm was the funeral of New France.[795]
[Footnote 794: _Ursulines de Quebec,_ III. 10.]
[Footnote 795: See Appendix J.]
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.[796]
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 a.s.sault. As soon as provisions fail, he will raise the white flag.”