SILENT INFLUENCE
From the first General Montcalm’s position was one of great difficulty. All
the Canadian officials were opposed to him. Their conduct was so dubious, and
would bear so little looking into, that they feared his clear-sightedness and
uprightness. Vaudreuil, the governor, was jealous of him, and it was not long
before the General was made to feel this. False reports concerning him were
sent to the court of France; any advantages he gained over the enemy Vaudreuil
attributed to himself and the civil government.
“My real crime,” Montcalm wrote to his wife, “is to have more prestige than
Vaudreuil, and, above all things, more virtue than he has. I much fear time
will only increase his dislike of me.”
Montcalm’s popularity with the colonists and with the Indians was another
cause for Vaudreuil’s displeasure. The General was incapable of dissimulation,
and as he had received full military power, he was naturally impatient of
interference, and showed it. His second officer, Chevalier Levis, was far more
popular: he ingratiated himself with all the government men--Vaudreuil, Bigot,
Varin, etc. He knew exactly what they were worth; but, as he observed to
Montcalm more than once, “We shall not make them better by opposition; all we
have to do is to make use of them.” He also did what Montcalm failed to do,
courted the good graces of the ladies. When in the camp and field, there was
not a better officer, and his devotion to his general knew no bounds; he stood
between him and his enemies, trying to conciliate all parties; but when off
duty he threw himself into the gaieties both of Quebec and Montreal, attending
the balls and picnics, always gracious and gallant, and therefore an immense
favourite with the fair sex.
Montcalm, on the contrary, held himself aloof from all such dissipations.
Notwithstanding his buoyant nature, the opposition he met with, and the
difficulties which seemed to crowd ever thicker and thicker around him,
weighed upon his spirits, and at times caused deep depression. He seemed to
have a presentiment that his mission would prove a failure.
“Ah, when shall I see my dear Candiac again, my avenue of chestnut trees, and
you, my dearest?” he wrote in one of his letters to his wife.
Contrary to what might have been expected, Mercèdes settled down to her new
life under Madame Péan’s roof easily and happily. Certain characters have a
strange admixture of good and evil in them. Madame Péan had been early spoilt
by adulation; she lived entirely for the world and society. Her husband was in
receipt of immense sums of money, through the influence of his commercial
partners, Bigot and Varin. His fortune was estimated at three to four
millions. His wife, therefore, could satisfy her passion for luxury, dress and
dissipation. When she proposed taking Mercèdes into her house, during the
General’s first campaign, it had, as we know, been to get a hold over
Montcalm; but when she saw the little dark-eyed girl, with the impetuosity of
an undisciplined nature she was taken with a sudden fondness for her, which
day by day grew more intense. Had Mercèdes been beautiful, jealousy and
rivalry might have arisen between them; but with this simple, nun-like maiden
it was impossible. Her presence in the house gradually became a necessity to
Madame.
“We are supposed, all of us, to have our guardian angels,” she said to
Mercèdes one day, “and I think you must be mine. I believe I am a better, and
I am quite sure I am a happier woman, since I have had you beside me.”
The suite of rooms at the top of the house which she had destined for Mercèdes
were plain, almost comfortless, when the latter was first introduced to them;
but before long it was converted into a perfect nest of comfort and luxury.
“I don’t want all this, you know; I shall only have a cold bare cell when I am
a nun. You are spoiling me,” said Mercèdes.
“It is my pleasure; indeed, my happiness,” answered Madame. “Sacrifice
yourself to me, Mercèdes, my child. I have been spoilt and adored ever since I
can remember, but I have never cared for anything before. Let me spoil you; it
is a novel pastime.” And so it came to pass that when the General returned to
Quebec he found Mercèdes settled; and at the first word he uttered about her
leaving, and going to the Ursulines, Madame exclaimed,--
“You cannot take her away from me; she is my guardian angel. She is of more
use to me than she would be in the convent; there she could only pray, here
she is a living example. When I see her little figure going morning and
evening across the road to the Ursuline Chapel, I feel as if a saint had
entered my house and sanctified it. You need not fear, Monsieur; nothing evil
shall approach her, either by word or sight. She is my almoner. Somehow she
seems to find out the poor and sick; they come to her, and she and Marthe are
now familiar figures in the back streets and poor quarters of Quebec. ‘The
little nun, the good General’s daughter,’ she is called. What would you have
more? Let her do her work: it is a blessed work. She never appears at my grand
receptions. She knows nothing of _our_ world; but when I am weary I go up to
her, and it is as if I breathed a new life. I am better for it. Leave her
under my roof, General; she is in the world, but not of it.”
Still the General hesitated. He knew now that much that went on at Madame
Péan’s was contrary to his ideas, and in direct opposition to his and his
wife’s code of morals; but the Chevalier Levis added his persuasions to
Madame’s.
“You will give mortal offence if you remove her,” he said; “and surely you
have enemies enough already. It is quite true what Madame says: Mademoiselle
Mercèdes lives a life utterly apart from hers. She is never seen in the
_salons_ of the Intendance, and only appears when it is a quiet home party.
You can judge for yourself.”
And the General did so. His happiest moments during his short stay in Quebec
were spent in Mercèdes’ rooms, the windows of which looked upon the convent
gardens, where the silent nuns were pacing up and down the paths, turning
their backs, with their heavy sable coiffures sweeping their black robes, and
anon their still, mask-like faces, set in that stiff framework of white linen,
towards these windows; and he felt almost relieved to keep his Mercèdes a
little longer a free agent; she looked so happy and so well, as she stood
beside him in the little greenery which Madame Péan had created for her of
house plants, tall geraniums, an over-arching ivy, and delicate roses.
“You are content to remain here, Mercèdes?” he asked.
“Only too content,” she answered. “I try always to remember it is but for a
time, and because she wants me; and I look across the road and know that my
true home is there.”
“And you have no regrets for the world you will leave behind, Mercèdes?” he
asked.
She turned her head slightly on one side, so that the General could not see
the colour which mantled her face.
“I think not,” she answered quietly. “Why should I?”
And so, when the General left her for the winter campaign, it was an
understood thing that for the present at least she was to remain with Madame
Péan. Events followed so rapidly--defeats, victories, hair-breadth
escapes--that, feeling she was in safe keeping, the General had no time to be
even anxious about Mercèdes; and so she led a strange though by no means an
unhappy life in that upper story. Both her and Marthe’s time was spent working
and fashioning clothes for the poor; for, alas! only too quickly the poverty
and distress grew to be severe. Bread rose to an exorbitant price; meat there
was none save horseflesh. At least, so Mercèdes saw and heard in her visits
among the poor; but at Madame Péan’s table there was every luxury both in and
out of season. She remarked upon this more than once, and was told she must
not be too credulous, the poor were so improvident! At Montreal everything was
at famine price, and the public indignation was so great against the
government that the populace mobbed the Governor, the troops joining in the
mutiny, and it was with difficulty that Chevalier Levis, by his authority and
tact, succeeded in quelling the rebellion.
Occasionally, at rare intervals, Mercèdes and Charles Langlade met. Often
months elapsed between these interviews; then suddenly at the corner of a
street, or maybe as she rose from her knees after service in the cathedral,
Mercèdes would become aware of the Canadian hunter’s presence. He would salute
her, enquire after her well-being, and walk with her and Marthe part of the
homeward way; but at the door they parted.
One day, as Charles Langlade was still standing cap in hand looking after
Mercèdes’ retreating figure, Madame Péan’s coach drove up. A light came into
her eyes, and she hastened to descend. “At last,” she murmured, and going
quickly up to the young officer, she said,--
“Monsieur Langlade, why are you such a stranger? Major Péan was speaking only
yesterday of your services, how inestimable they are. Will you not come in and
partake of supper? We happen to be almost alone to-night, and our little nun
will then come out of her shell. You and she are great friends, if I mistake
not.”
“You honour me too much, Madame,” answered Charles. “I am but a poor hunter, a
chief among savages. I can scarcely venture to call myself the friend of my
illustrious General’s daughter. When, as now, I have been with her father, if
I happen to meet her, I give her news of him--that is all.”
Madame looked at him steadily for a minute, then said, “But you will come in
to supper?” He shook his head, bowed low, and was gone. And Mercèdes from her
window, looking down, watched the tall figure as it strode up the street, and
at last disappeared. These interviews made her feel strangely bright and
happy, and she gradually grew to look forward to them. She knew that he was
her father’s right hand, that, so to speak, he kept guard upon all the country
for many miles round Quebec down the St. Lawrence. The General himself had
told her that, out of his own army, there was no one he trusted like Charles
Langlade and the tribe he commanded.
Events were crowding upon each other; and the General knew full well that
unless France came to his assistance, England must gain the mastery. Pitt was
determined to win and to carry on the colonisation of the continent under the
auspices of Protestantism, rather than allow France leagued with the Roman
Catholics to gain the ascendency. His policy was popular; he invited the
colonies to co-operate willingly, and entirely rejected the coercive policy of
his predecessors. He was eminently successful; and whilst Montcalm wrote in
1758, “New France needs peace, or sooner or later it must fall--such are the
numbers of the English, such the difficulty of our receiving supplies,” the
colonies were making immense sacrifices to levy, pay, and clothe the
provincial army.
Massachusetts set a noble example; she was the frontier and advance-guard of
all the colonies against the enemy. Notwithstanding the extreme poverty of her
population, which lived mainly by fishing, farming, and a trade hampered by
the British navigation laws, she still imposed taxes to the amount of thirteen
shillings in the pound, and there was no murmuring. The war gradually assumed
almost the character of a crusade, and was viewed with religious enthusiasm.
All sects for the time being sank their differences, and the chaplains
exhorted their congregations to unite together, themselves setting the example
of good fellowship.
“Be courageous, for no cowards go to heaven,” said Dr. Caleb Rea, chaplain of
a Massachusetts regiment, in his last sermon to a young band of volunteers;
and they went forth, like the Puritans of old, singing hymns and psalms.
The Canadian population were not less desirous of supporting Montcalm and
maintaining their independence; but they had two parties to contend with, the
civil and military government, between whom there was no union. Besides which,
vice, luxury, and an exorbitant love of gain were rampant among those who
ought to have set the example of moderation and self-sacrifice; and thus their
resources were undermined. In vain Montcalm applied to the mother country for
help, despatching Bougainville to represent the state of affairs to the Court
at Versailles; but the sins which were to cause the loss of Canada were in
full force there; and to Bougainville’s earnest pleading he received for
answer, “Eh, Monsieur, when the house is on fire, one cannot occupy one’s self
with the stable.”
And so the French officer returned sadly to Canada and gave this message.
Montcalm recognised that from henceforth he was forsaken by the Court, and
could reckon only upon God’s mercy and his own genius and courage.
“Poor king, poor France, _cara patria_,” was his only answer; and he prepared
for what he knew to be an almost hopeless struggle.