THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM
September 13, 1759
September 3 looked like July 31 over again. One brigade
of redcoats came in boats from the Point of Levy and
rowed about in front of the left of Montcalm's
entrenchments. The two others marched down the hill to
the foot of the Falls of Montmorency. But here, instead
of fording the mouth and marching along the beach, they
entered boats and joined the first brigade, which was
hovering in front of the French lines. Meanwhile, the
main squadron of the fleet, under Saunders himself, was
closing in before these same lines, with decks cleared
for action. Montcalm thought that this was likely to be
Wolfe's last move, and he felt sure he could beat him
again. But no attack was made. As the ships closed in
towards the shore the densely crowded boats suddenly
turned and rowed off to the Point of Levy. Wolfe had
broken camp without the loss of a single man.
Now began for Montcalm ten terrible days and nights. From
the time Wolfe left Montmorency to the time he stood upon
the Plains of Abraham, Montcalm had no means whatever of
finding out where the bulk of the British army was or
what it intended to do. Even now, Vaudreuil had not sense
enough to hold his tongue, and the French plans and
movements were soon known to Wolfe, especially as the
Canadians were beginning to desert in large numbers.
Wolfe, on the other hand, kept his own counsel; the very
few deserters from the British side knew little or nothing,
and the fleet became a better screen than ever. For thirty
miles, from the Falls of Montmorency up to above Pointe
aux Trembles, the ships kept moving up and down, threatening
first one part of the north shore and then another, and
screening the south altogether. Sometimes there were
movements of men-of-war, sometimes of transports, sometimes
of boats, sometimes of any two of these, sometimes of
all three together; sometimes there were redcoats on
board one, or two, or all three kinds of craft, and
sometimes not. It was a dreadful puzzle for Montcalm, a
puzzle made ten times worse because all the news of the
British plans that could be found out was first told to
Vaudreuil.
Gradually it seemed as if Wolfe was aiming at a landing
somewhere on the stretch of thirteen miles of the north
shore between Cap Rouge, nine miles above Quebec, and
Pointe aux Trembles, twenty-two miles above. Camp gossip,
the reports from Bougainville, who was still watching
Holmes up the river, and whatever other news could be
gathered, all seemed to point the same way. But Saunders
was still opposite the Beauport entrenchments; and the
British camps at the island of Orleans, the Point of
Levy, and the Levis batteries still seemed to have a good
many redcoats. The use of redcoats, however, made the
puzzle harder than ever at this time, for Saunders had
over 2,000 marines, who were dressed in red and who at
a distance could not be told from Wolfe's own soldiers.
Perhaps Wolfe was only making a feint at Pointe aux
Trembles, and might, after all, come down against the
entrenchments if he saw that Montcalm had weakened them.
Perhaps, also, he might try to land, not at either end
of the French line, but somewhere in the middle, between
Cap Rouge and Quebec. Nothing could be found out definitely.
Certainly the British were looking for the weakest spot,
wherever it was. So Montcalm did the best he could to
defend nearly thirty miles of shoreline with the reduced
army of 13,000 men which he now had. Sickness, desertion,
losses in battle, and the reinforcements for Lake Champlain
had taken away a good 4,000. Again he reinforced
Bougainville, and told him to watch more carefully than
ever the menaced thirteen miles between Cap Rouge and
Pointe aux Trembles. He himself looked after the garrison
of Quebec. He made sure that the bulk of his army was
ready to defend the Beauport entrenchments as well as
before, and that it was also ready at a moment's notice
to march up the river. He sent a good battalion of French
regulars to guard the heights between Quebec and Cap
Rouge, heights so strong by nature that nobody else seemed
to think they needed defending at all.
This French battalion, that of La Guienne, marched up to
their new position on the 5th, and made the nine miles
between Quebec and Cap Rouge safe enough against any
British attack. There were already posts and batteries
to cover all the points where a body of men could get up
the cliffs, and the presence of a battalion reduced to
nothing the real dangers in this quarter. By the 7th
Vaudreuil had decided that these real dangers did not
exist, that Montcalm was all wrong, especially about the
Plains of Abraham, that there could be no landing of the
enemy between Quebec and Cap Rouge, that there was not
enough firewood there for both the Guienne battalion and
the men at the posts and batteries, and that, in short,
the French regulars must march back to the entrenchments.
So back they came.
On the 8th and 9th the British vessels swarmed round
Pointe aux Trembles. How many soldiers there were on
board was more than Bougainville could tell. He knew only
that a great many had been seen first from Cap Rouge,
that later a great many had been seen from Pointe aux
Trembles, and that every day bodies of soldiers had been
landed and taken on board again at St Nicholas, on the
south shore, between the two positions of Cap Rouge and
Pointe aux Trembles. The British plan seemed to be to
wear out their enemy. Daily the odds against the French
grew; for shiploads of redcoats would move up and down
with the strong tide and keep Bougainville's wretched,
half-starved men tramping and scrambling along the rough
ground of the heights in order to follow and forestall
this puzzling and persistent enemy.
On the 10th a French officer near the Foulon, one of the
posts on the heights between Quebec and Cap Rouge, saw,
through his telescope, that six British officers on the
south shore were carefully surveying the heights all
about him. When he reported this at once, Montcalm tried
again to reinforce this point. He also tried to send a
good officer to command the Foulon post. The officer
stationed there was Vergor, one of the Bigot gang and a
great friend of Vaudreuil's. Vergor had disgraced himself
by giving up Fort Beausejour in Acadia without a fight.
He was now disgracing himself again by allowing fifty of
the hundred men at the post to go and work at their farms
in the valley of the St Charles, provided that they put
in an equal amount of work on his own farm there. It was
a bad feature of the case that his utter worthlessness
was as well known to Wolfe as it was to Montcalm.
On the 11th and 12th the movements of the fleet became
more puzzling than before. They still seemed, however,
to point to a landing somewhere along those much threatened
thirteen miles between Cap Rouge and Pointe aux Trembles,
but, more especially, at Pointe aux Trembles itself. By
this time Bougainville's 2,000 men were fairly worn out
with constant marching to and fro; and on the evening of
the 12th they were for the most part too tired to cook
their suppers. Bougainville kept the bulk of them for
the night near St Augustin, five miles below Pointe aux
Trembles and eight miles above Cap Rouge, so that he
could go to either end of his line when he made his
inspection in the morning. He knew that at sunset some
British vessels were still off Pointe aux Trembles. He
knew also that most of the British vessels had gone down
for the night to St Nicholas, on the south shore, only
four miles nearer Quebec than he was at St Augustin.
Bougainville and everybody else on both sides--except
Wolfe and Montcalm themselves--thought the real attack
was going to be made close to Pointe aux Trembles, for
news had leaked out that this was the plan formed by the
British brigadiers with Wolfe's own approval.
Down the river, below Quebec, in his six miles of
entrenchments at Beauport, Montcalm was getting more and
more uneasy on the fatal 12th. Where was Wolfe's army?
The bulk of it, two brigades, was said to be at St
Nicholas, thirteen miles above Quebec, facing the same
thirteen miles that Bougainville's worn-out men had been
so long defending. But where was Wolfe's third brigade?
Saunders remained opposite Beauport, as usual. His boats
seemed very busy laying buoys, as if to mark out good
landing-places for another attack. He had redcoats with
him, too. Which were they? Marines? Soldiers? Nobody
could see. There were more redcoats at the island of
Orleans, more at the Point of Levy, more still near the
Levis batteries. Were these all soldiers or were some of
them marines? Why was Saunders beginning to bombard the
entrenchments at Beauport and to send boats along the
shore there after dark? Was this a feint or not? Why were
the Levis batteries thundering so furiously against
Quebec? Was it to cover Wolfe's crowded boats coming down
to join Saunders at Beauport?
Montcalm was up all night, keeping his men ready for
anything. That night Bougainville reported much the same
news as for several days past. He expected to see Holmes
and Wolfe back at Pointe aux Trembles in the morning. If
occasion arose, he was, however, ready to march down to
Cap Rouge as fast as his tired-out men could go. His
thirteen miles were being well watched.
What, however, about the nine miles of shore under his
guard between Cap Rouge and Quebec? About them Vaudreuil
was as stubborn as ever. They were a line of high cliffs,
seemingly impregnable, and Vergor who defended them was
his friend. Surely this was enough! But Montcalm saw what
a chance the position offered to a man of such daring
skill as Wolfe. Again he tried to have Vergor recalled,
but in vain. Then, in the afternoon of the 12th, he took
the bold but the only safe course of ordering the Guienne
battalion, four hundred strong, to go up at once and camp
for the night at the top of the Foulon, near Vergor. The
men were all ready to march off when Vaudreuil found out
what they were going to do. It was no order of his! It
would belittle him to let Montcalm take his place! And,
anyhow, it was all nonsense! Raising his voice so that
the staff could hear him, he then said: 'The English
haven't wings! Let La Guienne stay where it is! I'll see
about that Foulon myself to-morrow morning!'
'To-morrow morning' began early, long before Vergor and
Vaudreuil were out of bed. Of the two Vergor was up
first; up first, and with a shock, to find redcoats
running at his tent with fixed bayonets. He was off, like
a flash, in his nightshirt, and Wolfe had taken his post.
He ought to have been on the alert for friends as well
as foes that early morning, because all the French posts
had been warned to look out for a provision convoy which
was expected down the north shore and in at the Foulon
itself. But Vergor was asleep instead, and half his men
were away at his farm. So Vaudreuil lost his chance to
'see about that Foulon himself' on that 'to-morrow
morning.'
Saunders had been threatening the entrenchments at Beauport
all night, and before daylight the Levis batteries had
redoubled their fire against Quebec. But about five
o'clock Montcalm's quick ear caught the sound of a new
cannonade above Quebec. It came from the Foulon, which
was only two miles and a half from the St Charles bridge
of boats, though the tableland of the Plains of Abraham
rose between, three hundred feet high. Montcalm's first
thought was for the provision convoy, so badly needed in
his half-starved camp. He knew it was expected down at
the Foulon 'this very night, and that the adjacent Samos
battery was to try to protect it from the British men-of-war
as it ran in. But he did not know that it had been stopped
by a British frigate above Pointe aux Trembles, and that
Wolfe's boats were taking its place and fooling the French
sentries, who had been ordered to pass it quietly.
Yet he knew Wolfe; he knew Vergor; and now the sound of
the cannonade alarmed him. Setting spurs to his horse,
he galloped down from Beauport to the bridge of boats,
giving orders as he went to turn out every man at once.
At the bridge he found Vaudreuil writing a letter to
Bougainville. If Vaudreuil had written nothing else in
his life, this single letter would be enough to condemn
him for ever at the bar of history. With the British on
the Plains of Abraham and the fate of half a continent
trembling in the scale, he prattled away on his official
foolscap as if Wolfe was at the head of only a few naughty
boys whom a squad of police could easily arrest. 'I have
set the army in motion. I have sent the Marquis of Montcalm
with one hundred Canadians as a reinforcement.'
Montcalm took up with him a good many more than the 'one
hundred Canadians' Vaudreuil ordered him to take, and he
sent to Bougainville a message very different from the
one Vaudreuil had written. What hero was ever more sorely
tried? When he caught sight of the redcoats marching
towards Quebec, in full view of the place where Vaudreuil
was writing that idiotic letter, he exclaimed, as he well
might: 'Ah! there they are, where they have no right to
be!' Then, turning to the officers with him, he added:
'Gentlemen, this is a serious affair. Let every one take
post at once!'
The camp was already under arms. Montcalm ordered up all
the French and Canadian regulars and all the militia,
except 2,000. Vaudreuil at once ordered a battalion of
regulars and all the militia, except 2,000, to stay where
they were. Montcalm asked for the whole of the twenty-five
field guns in Quebec. Vaudreuil gave him three.
Wolfe's 5,000 redcoats were already on the Plains when
Montcalm galloped up to the crest of ground from which
he could see them, only six hundred yards away. The line
was very thin, only two-deep, and its right did not seem
to have come up yet. Some sailors were dragging up a gun,
not far from the Foulon. Perhaps Wolfe's landing was not
quite completed?
Meanwhile half the 5,000 that Montcalm was able to get
into action was beginning to fire at the redcoats from
under cover and at some distance. This half was militia
and Indians, 2,000 of the first and 500 of the second.
The flat and open battlefield that Wolfe had in his front
was almost empty. It was there that Montcalm would have
to fight with his other 2,500, in eight small battalions
of regulars--five French and three Canadian.
These regulars wasted no time, once they were clear of
Vaudreuil, who still thought some of them should stay
down at Montmorency. They crossed the bridge of boats
and the valley of the St Charles, mounted the Heights of
Abraham, and formed up about as far on the inner side of
the crest of ground as Wolfe's men were on the outer
side. Montcalm called his brigadiers, colonels, and staff
together, to find out if anyone could explain the movements
of the British. No one knew anything certain. But most
of them thought that the enemy's line was not yet complete,
and that, for this reason, as well as because the sailors
were beginning to land entrenching tools and artillery,
it would be better to attack at once.
Montcalm agreed. In fact, he had no choice. He was now
completely cut off from the St Lawrence above Quebec.
His army could not be fed by land for another week. Most
important of all, by prompt action he might get in a blow
before Wolfe was quite ready. There was nothing to wait
for. Bougainville must have started down the river bank,
as hard as his tired-out men could march. To wait for
French reinforcements meant to wait for British ones too,
and the British would gain more by reinforcements than the
French. The fleet was closing in. Boats crowded with marines
and sailors were rowing to the Foulon, with tools and guns
for a siege. Already a naval brigade was on the beach.
Montcalm gave the signal, the eight battalions stepped
off, reached the crest of the hill, and came in sight of
their opponents. Wolfe's front was of six battalions
two-deep, about equal in numbers to Montcalm's eight
battalions six-deep. The redcoats marched forward a
hundred paces and halted. The two fronts were now a
quarter of a mile apart. Wolfe's front represented the
half of his army. Some of the other half were curved back
to protect the flanks against the other half of Montcalm's;
and some were in reserve, ready for Bougainville.
Montcalm rode along his little line for the last time.
There stood the heroes of his four great victories--Oswego,
Fort William Henry, Ticonderoga, Montmorency. He knew
that at least half of them would follow wherever he led.
The three Canadian battalions on his right and left might
not close with an enemy who had bayonets and knew how to
use them, when they themselves had none. The Languedoc
battalion of Frenchmen was also a little shaky, because
it had been obliged to take most of the bad recruits sent
out to replace the tried soldiers captured by the British
fleet in 1755. But the remainder were true as steel.
'Don't you want a little rest before you begin?' asked
Montcalm, as he passed the veteran Royal Roussillon. 'No,
no; we're never tired before a battle!' the men shouted
back. And so he rode along, stopping to say a word to
each battalion on the way. He had put on his full uniform
that morning, thinking a battle might be fought. He wore
the green, gold-embroidered coat he had worn at court
when he presented his son to the king and took leave of
France for ever. It was open in front, showing his polished
cuirass. The Grand Cross of St Louis glittered on his
breast, over as brave a heart as any of the Montcalms had
shown during centuries in the presence of the foe. From
head to foot he looked the hero that he was; and he sat
his jet-black charger as if the horse and man were one.
He reined up beside the Languedoc battalion, hoping to
steady it by leading it in person. As he did so he saw
that the Canadians and Indians were pressing Wolfe's
flanks more closely from under cover and that there was
some confusion in the thin red line itself, where its
skirmishers, having been called in, were trying to find
their places in too much of a hurry. This was his only
chance. Up went his sword, and the advance began, the
eight six-deep battalions stepping off together at the
slow march, with shouldered arms. 'Long live the King
and Montcalm!' they shouted, as they had shouted at
Ticonderoga; and the ensigns waved the fleurs-de-lis
aloft.
Half the distance was covered in good formation. But when
the three battalions of Canadian regulars came within
musket-shot they suddenly began to fire without orders,
and then dropped down flat to reload. This threw out the
line; and there was more wavering when the French saw
that the Canadians, far from regaining their places, were
running off to the flanks to join the militia and Indians
under cover. Montcalm was now left with only his five
French battalions--five short, thick lines, four white
and one blue, against Wolfe's long, six-jointed, thin
red line. He halted a moment, to steady the men, and
advanced again in the way that regulars at that time
fought each other on flat and open battlefields: a short
march of fifty paces or so, in slow time, a halt to fire,
another advance and another halt to fire, until the foes
came to close quarters, when a bayonet charge gave the
victory to whichever side had kept its formation the
better.
A single British gun was firing grape-shot straight into
the French left and cutting down a great many men. But
the thin red line itself was silent; silent as the grave
and steadfast as a wall. Presently the substitutes in
the Languedoc battalion could not endure the strain any
longer. They fired without orders and could not be stopped.
At the same time Montcalm saw that his five little bodies
of men were drifting apart. When the Canadian regulars
had moved off, they had left the French flanks quite
open. In consequence, the French battalions nearest the
flanks kept edging outwards, the ones on the right towards
their own right and the ones on the left towards their
own left, to prevent themselves from being overlapped by
the long red line of fire and steel when the two fronts
closed. But this drift outwards, while not enough to
reach Wolfe's flanks, was quite enough to make a fatal
gap in Montcalm's centre. Thus the British, at the final
moment, took the French on both the outer and both the
inner flanks as well as straight in front.
The separating distance was growing less and less. A
hundred paces now! Would that grim line of redcoats never
fire? Seventy-five!!--Fifty!!--Forty!!!--the glint of a
sword-blade on the British right!--the word of command
to their grenadiers!--'Ready!--Present!--Fire!!!' Like
six single shots from as many cannon the British volleys
crashed forth, from right to left, battalion by battalion,
all down that thin red line.
The stricken front rank of the French fell before these
double-shotted volleys almost to a man. When the smoke
cleared off the British had come nearer still. They had
closed up twenty paces to their front, reloading as they
came. And now, taking the six-deep French in front and
flanks, they fired as fast as they could, but steadily
and under perfect control. The French, on the other hand,
were firing wildly, and simply crumbling away before that
well-aimed storm of lead. The four white lines melted
into shapeless masses. They rocked and reeled like sinking
vessels. In a vain, last effort to lead them on, their
officers faced death and found it. All three brigadiers
and two of the colonels went down. Montcalm was the only
one of four French generals still on horseback; and he
was wounded while trying to keep the Languedoc men in
action.
Suddenly, on the right, the Sarre and Languedoc battalions
turned and ran. A moment more, and Bearn and Guienne, in
the centre, had followed them. The wounded Montcalm rode
alone among the mad rush of panic-stricken fugitives.
But over towards the St Lawrence cliffs he saw the blue
line of the Royal Roussillon still fighting desperately
against the overlapping redcoats. He galloped up to them.
But, even as he arrived, the whole mass swayed, turned,
and broke in wild confusion. Only three officers remained.
Half the battalion was killed or wounded. Nothing could
stay its flight.
On the top of the crest of ground, where he had formed
his line of attack only a few minutes before, Montcalm
was trying to rally some men to keep back the pursuing
British when he was hit again, and this time he received
a mortal wound. He reeled in the saddle, and would have
fallen had not two faithful grenadiers sprung to his side
and held him up. His splendid black charger seemed to
know what was the matter with his master, and walked on
gently at a foot's pace down the Grande Allee and into
Quebec by the St Louis Gate. Pursuers and pursued were
now racing for the valley of the St Charles, and Quebec
itself was, for the moment, safe.
Never was there a greater rout than on the Plains of
Abraham at ten o'clock that morning. The French and
Canadians ran for the bridge of boats, their only safety.
But they came very close to being cut off both in front
and rear. Vaudreuil had poked his nose out of one of the
gates of Quebec when the flight began. He then galloped
down to the bridge, telling the Canadians on the Cote
d'Abraham, which was the road from the Plains to the St
Charles, to make a stand there. Having got safely over
the bridge himself, he was actually having it cut adrift,
when some officers rushed up and stopped this crowning
act of shame. This saved the fugitives in front of the
broken army.
Meanwhile the flying troops were being saved in the rear
by the Canadians at the Cote d'Abraham under a French
officer called Dumas. These Canadians had not done much
in the battle, for various reasons: one was that the
fighting was in the open, a mode of warfare in which they
had not been trained; the British, moreover, used bayonets,
of which the Canadians themselves had none. But in the
bush along the crest of the cliffs overlooking the valley
they fought splendidly. After holding back the pursuit
for twenty minutes, and losing a quarter of their numbers,
they gave way. Then a few of them made a second stand at
a mill and bakery in the valley itself, and were killed
or wounded to a man.
Montcalm heard the outburst of firing at the Cote d'Abraham.
But he knew that all was over now, that Canada was lost,
and with it all he had fought for so nobly, so wisely,
and so well. As he rode through St Louis Gate, with the
two grenadiers holding him up in his saddle, a terrified
woman shrieked out: 'Oh! look at the marquis, he's killed,
he's killed!' 'It is nothing at all, my kind friend,'
answered Montcalm, trying to sit up straight, 'you must
not be so much alarmed!' Five minutes later the doctor
told him he had only a few hours to live. 'So much the
better,' he replied; 'I shall not see the surrender of
Quebec.'
On hearing that he had such a short time before him his
first thought was to leave no possible duty undone. He
told the commandant of Quebec that he had no advice to
give about the surrender. He told Vaudreuil's messenger
that there were only three courses for the army to follow:
to fight again, surrender, or retreat towards Montreal;
and that he would advise a retreat. He dictated a letter
to the British commander. It was written by his devoted
secretary, Marcel, and delivered to Wolfe's successor,
Townshend:
'Sir, being obliged to surrender Quebec to your arms
I have the honour to recommend our sick and wounded
to Your Excellency's kindness, and to ask you to carry
out the exchange of prisoners, as agreed upon between
His Most Christian Majesty and His Britannic Majesty.
I beg Your Excellency to rest assured of the high
esteem and great respect with which I have the honour
to be your most humble and obedient servant,
MONTCALM.'
And then, his public duty over, he sent a message to each
member of his family at Candiac, including 'poor Mirete,'
for not a word had come from France since the British
fleet had sealed up the St Lawrence, and he did not yet
know which of his daughters had died.
Having remembered his family he gave the rest of his
thoughts to his God and to that other world he was so
soon to enter. All night long his lips were seen to move
in prayer. And, just as the dreary dawn was breaking; he
breathed his last.
'War is the grave of the Montcalms.'
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Montcalm is, of course, a very prominent character in
every history of New France. Parkman ('Montcalm and
Wolfe') tried to be just, but the facts were not all
before him when he wrote. The Abbe Casgrain ('Guerre du
Canada, 1756-1760: Montcalm et Levis') was unfortunately
too prejudiced in favour of Vaudreuil and Levis to be
just, much less generous, towards Montcalm; but the
Honourable Thomas Chapais's work ('Le Marquis de Montcalm,
1712-1759') based on much more nearly complete materials,
does honour both to Montcalm and to French-Canadian
scholarship. Captain Sautai's monograph on Ticonderoga
('Montcalm au Combat de Carillon') is the best military
study yet published. An elaborate bibliography of works
connected with Montcalm's Quebec campaign is to be found
in volume vi of Doughty's 'Siege of Quebec'. The present
work seems to be the only life of Montcalm written by an
English-speaking author with access to all the original
data, naval as well as military.
See also in this Series: 'The Winning of Canada'; 'The
Great Fortress'; 'The Acadian Exiles'.
END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Passing of New France, by William Wood