1758, 1759
The Brink of Ruin
"Never was general in a more critical position than I was: God has
delivered me; his be the praise! He gives me health, though I am worn
out with labor, fatigue, and miserable dissensions that have determined
me to ask for my recall. Heaven grant that I may get it!"
Thus wrote Montcalm to his mother after his triumph at Ticonderoga. That
great exploit had entailed a train of vexations, for it stirred the envy
of Vaudreuil, more especially as it was due to the troops of the line,
with no help from Indians, and very little from Canadians. The Governor
assured the Colonial Minister that the victory would have bad results,
though he gives no hint what these might be; that Montcalm had
mismanaged the whole affair; that he would have been beaten but for the
manifest interposition of Heaven;[670] and, finally, that he had failed
to follow his (Vaudreuil's) directions, and had therefore enabled the
English to escape. The real directions of the Governor, dictated,
perhaps, by dread lest his rival should reap laurels, were to avoid a
general engagement; and it was only by setting them at nought that
Abercromby had been routed. After the battle a sharp correspondence
passed between the two chiefs. The Governor, who had left Montcalm to
his own resources before the crisis, sent him Canadians and Indians in
abundance after it was over; while he cautiously refrained from
committing himself by positive orders, repeated again and again that if
these reinforcements were used to harass Abercromby's communications,
the whole English army would fall back to the Hudson, and leave baggage
and artillery a prey to the French. These preposterous assertions and
tardy succors were thought by Montcalm to be a device for giving color
to the charge that he had not only failed to deserve victory, but had
failed also to make use of it.[671] He did what was possible, and sent
strong detachments to act in the English rear; which, though they did
not, and could not, compel the enemy to fall back, caused no slight
annoyance, till Rogers checked them by the defeat of Marin. Nevertheless
Vaudreuil pretended on one hand that Montcalm had done nothing with the
Canadians and Indians sent him, and on the other that these same
Canadians and Indians had triumphed over the enemy by their mere
presence at Ticonderoga. "It was my activity in sending these succors to
Carillon [_Ticonderoga_] that forced the English to retreat. The Marquis
de Montcalm might have made their retreat difficult; but it was in vain
that I wrote to him, in vain that the colony troops, Canadians and
Indians, begged him to pursue the enemy."[672] The succors he speaks of
were sent in July and August, while the English did not fall back till
the first of November. Neither army left its position till the season
was over, and Abercromby did so only when he learned that the French
were setting the example. Vaudreuil grew more and more bitter. "As the
King has intrusted this colony to me, I cannot help warning you of the
unhappy consequences that would follow if the Marquis de Montcalm should
remain here. I shall keep him by me till I receive your orders. It is
essential that they reach me early." "I pass over in silence all the
infamous conduct and indecent talk he has held or countenanced; but I
should be wanting in my duty to the King if I did not beg you to ask for
his recall."[673]
[Footnote 670: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 8 Août, 1758_.]
[Footnote 671: Much of the voluminous correspondence on these matters
will be found in _N.Y. Col. Docs._, X.]
[Footnote 672: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 8 Avril, 1759._]
[Footnote 673: _Ibid._]
He does not say what is meant by infamous conduct and indecent talk; but
the allusion is probably to irreverent utterances touching the Governor
in which the officers from France were apt to indulge, not always
without the knowledge of their chief. Vaudreuil complained of this to
Montcalm, adding, "I am greatly above it, and I despise it."[674] To
which the General replied: "You are right to despise gossip, supposing
that there has been any. For my part, though I hear that I have been
torn to pieces without mercy in your presence, I do not believe
it."[675]
[Footnote 674: _Vaudreuil à Montcalm, 1 Août, 1758._]
[Footnote 675: _Montcalm à Vaudreuil, 6 Août, 1758._]
In these infelicities Bigot figures as peacemaker, though with no
perceptible success. Vaudreuil's cup of bitterness was full when letters
came from Versailles ordering him to defer to Montcalm on all questions
of war, or of civil administration bearing up war.[676] He had begged
hard for his rival's recall, and in reply his rival was set over his
head.
[Footnote 676: _Ordres du Roy et Dépêches des Ministres, 1758, 1759_.]
The two yokefellows were excellently fitted to exasperate each other:
Montcalm, with his southern vivacity of emotion and an impetuous,
impatient volubility that sometimes forgot prudence; and Vaudreuil,
always affable towards adherents, but full of suspicious egotism and
restless jealousy that bristled within him at the very thought of his
colleague. Some of the by-play of the quarrel may be seen in Montcalm's
familiar correspondence with Bourlamaque. One day the Governor, in his
own house, brought up the old complaint that Montcalm, after taking Fort
William Henry, did not take Fort Edward also. The General, for the
twentieth time, gave good reasons for not making the attempt. "I ended,"
he tells Bourlamaque, "by saying quietly that when I went to war I did
the best I could; and that when one is not pleased with one's
lieutenants, one had better take the field in person. He was very much
moved, and muttered between his teeth that perhaps he would; at which I
said that I should be delighted to serve under him. Madame de Vaudreuil
wanted to put in her word. I said: 'Madame, saving due respect, permit
me to have the honor to say that ladies ought not to talk war.' She kept
on. I said: 'Madame, saving due respect, permit me to have the honor to
say that if Madame de Montcalm were here, and heard me talking war with
Monsieur le Marquis de Vaudreuil, she would remain silent.' This scene
was in presence of eight officers, three of them belonging to the colony
troops; and a pretty story they will make of it."
These letters to Bourlamaque, in their detestable handwriting, small,
cramped, confused, without stops, and sometimes almost indecipherable,
betray the writer's state of mind. "I should like as well as anybody to
be Marshal of France; but to buy the honor with the life I am leading
here would be too much." He recounts the last news from Fort Duquesne,
just before its fall. "Mutiny among the Canadians, who want to come
home; the officers busy with making money, and stealing like mandarins.
Their commander sets the example, and will come back with three or four
hundred thousand francs; the pettiest ensign, who does not gamble, will
have ten, twelve, or fifteen thousand. The Indians don't like Ligneris,
who is drunk every day. Forgive the confusion of this letter; I have not
slept all night with thinking of the robberies and mismanagement and
folly. _Pauvre Roi, pauvre France, cara patria!_" "Oh, when shall we get
out of this country! I think I would give half that I have to go home.
Pardon this digression to a melancholy man. It is not that I have not
still some remnants of gayety; but what would seem such in anybody else
is melancholy for a Languedocian. Burn my letter, and never doubt my
attachment." "I shall always say, Happy he who is free from the proud
yoke to which I am bound. When shall I see my château of Candiac, my
plantations, my chestnut grove, my oil-mill, my mulberry-trees? _O bon
Dieu! Bon soir; brûlez ma lettre."_[677]
[Footnote 677: The above extracts are from letters of 5 and 27 Nov. and
9 Dec. 1758, and 18 and 23 March, 1759.]
Never was dispute more untimely than that between these ill-matched
colleagues. The position of the colony was desperate. Thus far the
Canadians had never lost heart, but had obeyed with admirable alacrity
the Governor's call to arms, borne with patience the burdens and
privations of the war, and submitted without revolt to the exactions and
oppressions of Cadet and his crew; loyal to their native soil, loyal to
their Church, loyal to the wretched government that crushed and
belittled them. When the able-bodied were ordered to the war, where four
fifths of them were employed in the hard and tedious work of
transportation, the women, boys and old men tilled the fields and raised
a scanty harvest, which always might be, and sometimes was, taken from
them in the name of the King. Yet the least destitute among them were
forced every winter to lodge soldiers in their houses, for each of whom
they were paid fifteen france a month, in return for substance devoured
and wives and daughters debauched.[678]
[Footnote 678: _Mémoire sur le moyen d'entretenir 10,000 Hommes de
Troupes dans les Colonies, 1759._]
No pains had been spared to keep up the courage of the people and feed
them with flattering illusions. When the partisan officer Boishébert was
tried for peculation, his counsel met the charge by extolling the manner
in which he had fulfilled the arduous duty of encouraging the Acadians,
"putting on an air of triumph even in defeat; using threats, caresses,
stratagems; painting our victories in vivid colors; hiding the strength
and successes of the enemy; promising succors that did not and could not
come; inventing plausible reasons why they did not come, and making new
promises to set off the failure of the old; persuading a starved people
to forget their misery; taking from some to give to others; and doing
all this continually in the face of a superior enemy, that this country
might be snatched from England and saved to France."[679] What
Boishébert was doing in Acadia, Vaudreuil was doing on a larger scale in
Canada. By indefatigable lying, by exaggerating every success and
covering over every reverse, he deceived the people and in some measure
himself. He had in abundance the Canadian gift of gasconade, and boasted
to the Colonial Minister that one of his countrymen was a match for from
three to ten Englishmen. It is possible that he almost believed it; for
the midnight surprise of defenceless families and the spreading of
panics among scattered border settlements were inseparable from his idea
of war. Hence the high value he set on Indians, who in such work outdid
the Canadians themselves. Sustained by the intoxication of flattering
falsehoods, and not doubting that the blunders and weakness of the first
years of the war gave the measure of English efficiency, the colonists
had never suspected that they could be subdued.
[Footnote 679: _Procès de Bigot, Cadet, et autres, Mémoire pour le Sieur
de Boishébert._]
But now there was a change. The reverses of the last campaign, hunger,
weariness, and possibly some incipient sense of atrocious misgovernment,
began to produce their effect; and some, especially in the towns, were
heard to murmur that further resistance was useless. The Canadians,
though brave and patient, needed, like Frenchmen, the stimulus of
success. "The people are alarmed," said the modest Governor, "and would
lose courage if my firmness did not rekindle their zeal to serve the
King."[680]
[Footnote 680: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 10 Avril, 1759._]
"Rapacity, folly, intrigue, falsehood, will soon ruin this colony which
has cost the King so dear," wrote Doreil to the Minister of War. "We
must not flatter ourselves with vain hope; Canada is lost if we do not
have peace this winter." "It has been saved by miracle in these past
three years; nothing but peace can save it now, in spite of all the
efforts and the talents of M. de Montcalm."[681] Vaudreuil himself
became thoroughly alarmed, and told the Court in the autumn of 1758 that
food, arms, munitions, and everything else were fast failing, and that
without immediate peace or heavy reinforcements all was lost.
[Footnote 681: _Doreil au Ministre, 31 Juillet, 1758. Ibid. 12 Août,
1758. Ibid. 31 Août, 1758. Ibid. 1 Sept. 1758._]
The condition of Canada was indeed deplorable. The St. Lawrence was
watched by British ships; the harvest was meagre; a barrel of flour cost
two hundred francs; most of the cattle and many of the horses had been
killed for food. The people lived chiefly on a pittance of salt cod or
on rations furnished by the King; all prices were inordinate; the
officers from France were starving on their pay; while a legion of
indigenous and imported scoundrels fattened on the general distress.
"What a country!" exclaims Montcalm. "Here all the knaves grow rich, and
the honest men are ruined." Yet he was resolved to stand by it to the
last, and wrote to the Minister of War that he would bury himself under
its ruins. "I asked for my recall after the glorious affair of the
eighth of July; but since the state of the colony is so bad, I must do
what I can to help it and retard its fall." The only hope was in a
strong appeal to the Court; and he thought himself fortunate in
persuading Vaudreuil to consent that Bougainville should be commissioned
to make it, seconded by Doreil. They were to sail in different ships, in
order that at least one of them might arrive safe.
Vaudreuil gave Bougainville a letter introducing him to the Colonial
Minister in high terms of praise: "He is in all respects better fitted
than anybody else to inform you of the state of the colony. I have given
him my instructions, and you can trust entirely in what he tells
you."[682] Concerning Doreil he wrote to the Minister of War: "I have
full confidence in him, and he may be entirely trusted. Everybody here
likes him."[683] While thus extolling the friends of his rival, the
Governor took care to provide against the effects of his politic
commendations, and wrote thus to his patron, the Colonial Minister: "In
order to condescend to the wishes of M. de Montcalm, and leave no means
untried to keep in harmony with him, I have given letters to MM. Doreil
and Bougainville; but I have the honor to inform you, Monseigneur, that
they do not understand the colony, and to warn you that they are
creatures of M. de Montcalm."[684]
[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 ship 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, God 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, Lévis 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,
nobody will say that you talk like a horse," was the irreverent answer.
[Footnote 685: _Ordres du Roy et Dépêches des Ministres, Janvier,
Février, 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 generalship, 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: _Mémoire remis au Ministre par M. de Bougainville,
Décembre, 1758_.]
[Footnote 687: _Le Ministre à Montcalm, 3 Fév. 1759_.]
[Footnote 688: _Ordres du Roy et Dépêches des Ministres, Février,
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 friendship, he had had many conversations on the matter.
"He and I," Montcalm wrote to his mother, Madame de Saint-Véran, "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 à Madame de Saint-Véran, 24 Sept. 1758_.]
[Footnote 690: _Lettres de Bougainville à Madame de Saint-Véran, 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 Maréchal 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 space,
each part may be within reach of support and succor from the rest. How
small soever may be the space 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 à Montcalm, 19 Fév_. 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 _Mémoires 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: Mémoire sur le Canada remis au Ministre, 27 Déc. 1758._]
In April, before Bougainville's return, he wrote to his wife: "Can we
hope for another miracle to save us? I trust in God; 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 Mirète,
who was like me, and whom I loved very much." He was never to know if
this conjecture was true.
To Vaudreuil came a repetition 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-assertion, 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
assemble. 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 _à 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 Dépêches des Ministres, Lettre à
Vaudreuil, 3 Fév. 1759._]
[Footnote 695: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 8 Avril, 1759._]
Whether he made good this valorous declaration will presently be seen.
* * * * *
NOTE. The Archives de la Guerre and the Archives de la Marine contain a
mass of letters and documents on the subjects treated in the above
chapter; these I have carefully read and collated. The other principal
authorities are the correspondence of Montcalm with Bourlamaque and with
his own family; the letters of Vaudreuil preserved in the Archives
Nationales; and the letters of Bougainville and Doreil to Montcalm and
Madame de Saint-Véran while on their mission to France. For copies of
these last I am indebted to the present Marquis de Montcalm.