The capture of Louisburg was at once followed up by a descent upon the
French settlements on the Acadian coast by Sir Charles Hardy, with half
a dozen ships of the line and some frigates, carrying with them a small
land force under the command of Wolfe. This was intended partly as a
measure of retaliation and partly to draw away a portion of the enemy's
forces from the theatre of war on the lakes. Miramichi and the
villages along the Bay of Chaleurs and at Point Gaspé were partially or
wholly destroyed, and although no needless cruelty may have been added
to the inevitable horrors involved in such an expedition, the
sufferings of the peaceful inhabitants of the devoted districts cannot
but excite the deepest commiseration. Their dwellings were burnt, and
the stores of provisions laid up for the winter totally destroyed,
whilst the people themselves were either killed, taken prisoners, or
driven out into the woods, where many perished with cold and hunger.
Some of course managed to escape, and a few betook themselves to other
places on the St. Lawrence, or, like Isidore de Beaujardin, ultimately
joined the army under Montcalm.
It was in company with some of these fugitives, who had been organised
at Quebec, that Isidore and Boulanger at last reached Crown Point, on
Lake Champlain, where they found that no operations of any importance
had been undertaken since the great repulse of the English at
Ticonderoga. Skirmishes indeed occasionally took place along the
border, and one expedition under Major Rogers, on the shore of Lake
Champlain, kept the French on the alert. Whilst Montcalm was unable
for want of a sufficiently numerous army to undertake any great
offensive movement, Abercromby, disheartened by his late fruitless
attempt on Ticonderoga, lay almost inactive in the neighbourhood of
Lake George.
Such a state of things was distasteful enough to Isidore, who had hoped
in the excitement of a busy campaign to be able to forget his sorrows,
and who fretted continually over the mean and miserable position he was
now condemned to occupy. He had begun to think seriously of returning
to Quebec in the hope of meeting with his uncle the Baron de Valricour,
when an event occurred which put an end, at all events for a time, to
any such thoughts. As he was sitting one evening, disconsolately
enough, on the parapet of a small outwork, he heard footsteps
approaching him, and on looking up he recognised at once the small and
well-remembered figure of the Marquis de Montcalm. Almost mechanically
he rose and saluted. Montcalm, apparently struck by his appearance,
stopped and eyed him curiously; his singularly retentive memory never
failed him at such a moment.
"Truly," said he at last, "I could hardly have believed it possible.
Who would have thought of seeing you here, Colonel de Beaujardin--and
in such a disguise too!" he added, with a searching and somewhat
suspicious glance at Isidore's costume, which had little of the soldier
about it.
"I do not call myself Colonel de Beaujardin now," replied Isidore,
bitterly, "but Claude Breton, general, at your service."
"Breton--Breton!" exclaimed the marquis, considering for a moment. "It
was reported to me, I recollect, that a Canadian called Breton showed
great courage and coolness in a little affair of outposts a few days
since. Was it you?"
Isidore bowed slightly, but made no other answer.
Montcalm was silent for a minute or so, and fidgeted with his
sword-knot, though he kept his eyes intently fixed on his _quondam_
aide-de-camp.
"Monsieur de Beaujardin," said he at length, with his usual rapidity of
utterance, "I believe you know as well as any one that I have always
held that men seldom lose caste and come down in the world without some
fault of their own. I should be sorry indeed to think this is the case
with you, but you beyond all other men had at your command everything
that could ensure an honourable and even brilliant career. What can
have brought you to this?"
"No fault of mine, sir," replied Isidore, proudly. "I have been the
victim of circumstances which it was beyond my power to control."
"Beyond your power! What! with a father in the position of the marquis
to assist you?" rejoined Montcalm. "There is no man whom I would more
willingly believe, or more willingly assist, but----"
"General Montcalm will have the goodness to remember that I have
neither sought nor solicited his assistance," answered Isidore,
haughtily.
"I do not forget it, sir," was the reply, "indeed it is that which
justifies my doubts. I, at all events, am not changed, and if Monsieur
de Beaujardin has nothing to reproach himself with, he may without
scruple claim both sympathy and assistance from me."
Isidore was touched with the generous forbearance evinced by such a
gentle answer to his rather defiant speech.
"Sir," said he, "His Majesty has done me the honour to issue a _lettre
de cachet_ against me, and not for all the world would I place such a
friend as you have been in a false position, by asking at your hands
what, as the king's lieutenant here, you have scarcely a right to
accord to me."
"I accept the reason, and I honour you for it, de Beaujardin," said
Montcalm, grasping his hand. "I grieve to find you in such a position,
but I am happily not called upon to act on your information, of which,
indeed," he added with a smile, "I will choose to doubt the accuracy.
It is not for me to pry into your family affairs, but if you desire to
confide in me, I will assuredly counsel and help you to the best of my
power."
Isidore could not repel an offer of friendship so kindly and generously
made, and as briefly as possible he narrated the circumstances that had
led to his revisiting Canada. Montcalm listened to him attentively and
without interruption.
"You are certainly more sinned against than sinning," said he, when
Isidore had concluded, "and if you have in some respects acted hastily,
it has been from noble and generous impulses. I take a real interest
in the unfortunate young lady, whose father I well remember as a brave
and devoted soldier. To restore you to your former position, or even
to appoint you to a company, is plainly impossible at present, but I
can give you active employment of a kind which will keep you out of the
way of being recognised, and should an opportunity offer, I will not
forget you."
Isidore was about to express a warm acknowledgment of this kindly
assurance, but Montcalm interrupted him: "Wait until I have really done
something for you," said he. "And now listen to me. The campaign here
is virtually over. With the force at my command, I can do no more than
hold Abercromby in check, and prevent him from detaching any
considerable force beyond that sent away by him some time since under
Bradstreet for the reduction of Fort Frontenac, which has been only too
successfully accomplished. I have just heard that the place is taken
and the shipping on Lake Ontario captured or destroyed. What could de
Noyan do with a hundred and twenty men? The defence of the fort was
hopeless in the absence of reinforcements, the absolute necessity for
which de Longueuil seems to have neglected to report, unless indeed the
Marquis de Vaudreuil purposely withheld them. I suspect as much, and
if so, poor de Noyan will be sacrificed, for the king is not likely to
hear the true state of the case."
"A disaster indeed," observed Isidore, who in the interest he felt in
Montcalm's communication seemed to fancy himself once more the
aide-de-camp and personal friend of his old chief. "We have lost,
then, the command of the lake, and what is perhaps worse, our hold on
the many tribes of Indians who used to make Frontenac their great place
of assembly for concluding their contracts and alliances."
"You are right," was the reply. "Beaujardin, or Breton, I see you have
not lost your head in spite of your misfortunes. Well, all that is
past helping now, and what is almost as bad, we shall lose our hold in
the West. General Forbes has long since left Philadelphia with some
one thousand five hundred British regulars, chiefly Highlanders, and at
least five thousand of those New England militia, for an attack on Fort
Duquesne. Forbes is not the man to let himself be decoyed into such a
snare as Braddock fell into, but he has to cross the Alleghanies and a
tract of a hundred leagues or more through a strange and difficulty
country, and that is not done in a week, or a month either. This
brings me to what I have to say to you. I wish de Lignières, who is in
command at Duquesne to know that I consider the place cannot resist
such a force as will be brought against it; he cannot be reinforced,
and he will do wisely to dismantle and abandon it, falling back on such
points as circumstances may leave him to think best capable of defence.
Will you take this message? and if so, how soon can you set out?"
"I am ready, and will start in ten minutes," was the prompt reply.
Montcalm smiled. "You are indeed worthy of a better fate than that
which has unhappily befallen you. As for a guide----"
"I have with me the Canadian woodsman Boulanger, who took me from
Oswego to Quebec two years ago."
"Boulanger! I recollect the man well; a better guide or a more trusty
fellow you could not have." Saying this, Montcalm wrote a few lines in
pencil on a leaf of his pocket-book and handed it to Isidore. "Now,
adieu," said he; "when we meet again I trust I may be able to welcome
you, not as Claude Breton, but as my old friend and aide-de-camp
Colonel de Beaujardin."
"Farewell, sir," answered Isidore; "it will indeed be a proud and happy
day for me should I ever again find myself on the staff of a general
whom our country will surely one day hail as the saviour of New France."
"No," rejoined Montcalm gravely, "that is no longer possible. It is
now only too evident that, backed by a brave and energetic people, with
almost unlimited resources, and assisted by their colonies in America,
Pitt will not rest till our beautiful New France has become a British
colony. But the great changes that lie before us will not end there.
Mark me, de Beaujardin, those mad New Englanders with their foolish
notions of independence will not long brook being ruled by a government
three thousand miles off. The time will come, perhaps, when instead of
fighting against France they may welcome her as an ally who will help
them to shake off the allegiance they owe to their king, and France,
unhappy France, will some day follow their example! I shall not live
to see it, but you may. Once more, adieu!"
Boulanger, who was soon found, evinced no small delight at the news
which Isidore at once imparted to him, and within the ten minutes which
Isidore had named they were already on the way towards Fort Duquesne.
The journey was a long one, a matter of some hundred and fifty leagues
indeed; but it was diversified by many a little episode incidental to
life in the woods and wilds, and Isidore scarcely knew whether he was
most glad or sorry when it came to an end, and he had delivered to M.
de Lignières the message entrusted to him. They had come just in time.
General Forbes, warned by Braddock's disaster in 1755, had halted at
Raystown, nearly a hundred miles from the fort, in order to advance
upon it by a new route, and thus avoid the gorge which had been the
scene of the former catastrophe. The Highlanders, however, pushed on,
and desirous perhaps of achieving the capture of the place before the
main body could come up, had posted themselves at a short distance from
the fort and challenged a combat in the open ground. This challenge de
Lignières had accepted and had signally defeated them, unsupported as
they were. But he knew that the magnitude of the force which was
shortly to be brought against him would make resistance unavailing, and
after dismantling the defences and destroying whatever could not be
carried away, he evacuated the place, leaving the famous Fort Duquesne
to fall into the hands of the British, and to be known henceforward by
the name of Pittsburg.
It had been Isidore's intention after this event to make his way back
to Quebec, and he and Boulanger set out again together for this
purpose. Their route, however, lay in a different direction from that
taken by de Lignières and the retreating garrison. They had just lain
down to rest on the first evening of their march, when the Canadian's
sharp ears detected the approach of footsteps, and before he could
arouse his companion, they were surrounded by a small detachment of New
England men sent out to scour the woods. Resistance would have been
mere folly, and they were at once captured. At first they were in
hopes that they might pass unnoticed as common Canadian woodsmen, but,
unfortunately for them, they were searched, and the testimonial from
General Drucour, which Isidore had carried about with him ever since
the taking of Louisburg, settled their fate. They were, without
further question, carried off to head-quarters, to be dealt with
possibly as spies, but at the best as prisoners of war.
[Illustration: Tailpiece to Chapter III]
[Illustration: Headpiece to Chapter IV]