1758
THE VICTORY OF CARILLON
A WINTER OF GAYETY AND FOREBODING
SIXTY LEAGUES ON THE ICE--SHIPS ARRIVE--FAMINE CEASES--ENGLISH
MOBILIZATION--TICONDEROGA (CARILLON)--MILITARY
JEALOUSIES--SAINT-SAUVEUR--RECONCILIATION OF MONTCALM AND
VAUDREUIL--ENMITIES RENEWED--WINTER IN MONTREAL--HIGH COST OF
LIVING--THE "ENCYCLOPEDIA"--AVARICE AND GRAFT--MADAME DE VAUDREUIL.
In the last week of February, 1758, Montcalm returned to Montreal.
Writing on February 22d, he adds: "I have just arrived at Montreal,
having made sixty leagues on the ice, a delightful though cold manner
of traveling." Evidently Montreal was much quieter than Quebec, for
Montcalm was now able to attend steadily to his correspondence and to
his military preparations until the opening of navigation. Meanwhile
the famine still continued; yet we find the spoilers, Varin and Bréard,
returning to France, Péan about to do the same, to put their booty in
safety, already sensing the impending crisis which will end this period
of sad memories in the last days of the French régime. At length, on
the evening of May 19th, eight vessels, laden with 7,500 quarts of
flour, arrived at Quebec, with news of some more to come, and the
spectre of famine ceased to haunt the colony.
With the arrival of the vessels came the news that interested the
military circles of Montreal; the replacement of M. de Paulmy, the
minister of war, by the Maréchal de Belle-Isle.
There came, too, information of the energetic efforts being made by
William Pitt in England to complete the conquest of India and America,
the humiliation of France, and the British supremacy of the seas.
This was no idle scheme. Already a formidable fleet and a powerful army
were preparing to besiege Louisbourg under Admiral Boscawen and Major
General Jeffrey Amherst, with Brigadiers Whitmore, Lawrence and James
Wolfe as their able lieutenants.
On June 13th twenty-three vessels of the line, eighteen frigates and
fireships, and 157 transports, bearing about 12,000 troops, left
Halifax and ran before the wind towards the maritime boulevard of
France in America, surnamed the Dunkerque of the new world. On the
frontier of Lake St. Sacrement, Lord Loudon had been replaced by Major
General Abercromby, who with more than six thousand regulars and nine
thousand provincials was to take Carillon and invade Canada by Lake
Champlain and the Richelieu River. Finally Brigadier John Forbes was
organizing an army of six to seven thousand men destined to wrest from
France the Fort Duquesne and the Ohio region.
The last terrible struggle was soon to commence. Montreal was the scene
of much activity. The troops had been moved to Carillon, the district
around Ticonderoga and the frontier of Lake St. Sacrement, but it
was not until June 24th that Montcalm, after a serious conflict with
Vaudreuil, left Montreal to direct the campaign and on June 30th at 3
o'clock in the afternoon arrived at the dilapidated fort of Carillon
with a force of about 3,400 men. On July 1st he had chosen his camp at
Lachute, at the sawmill.[208]
[Illustration: MAP OF MONTREAL, 1758, BEFORE THE CAPITULATION
The City was then bounded: On the north by a stream and marsh, now
marked by Craig Street: on the west by Fortification Lane and upper
part of McGill Street of today; on the east by the Place Viger Station
of today; on the south by the little River St. Pierre and the St.
Lawrence. This plan of the fortifications was published in London by
Thomas Jefferys, geographer to his Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales,
January, 1758.]
Under him were the staff officers whom he brought from France and
with whom Montrealers had become well acquainted. We would desire to
follow this campaign out for this reason, but we must content ourselves
with chronicling how, on July 5th, Abercromby embarked his army of
15,000 men in 900 small boats and 130 whale boats on Lake George
(St. Sacrement), and moved down to Ticonderoga; how on July 6th the
English army disembarked at the head of the rapids; how on the same day
Lord Howe, "the soul of the army," was killed in a skirmish, and how
the great victory of July 8th was due to Montcalm, when the English
retreated, leaving behind them, according to General Abercromby's
account, in killed, wounded and missing, 1,944 officers and men. The
loss of the French, not counting that of Langy's detachment, was but
377.
Montcalm announced the victory thus to his wife: "Without Indians,
almost without Canadian or colony troops--I had only 400--along with
Lévis and Bourlamaque and the troops of the line, 3,100 fighting
men,--I have beaten an army of 25,000 men."[209]
And he wrote to his friend Doreil: "What a day for France! If I had had
two hundred Indians to send out at the head of a thousand picked men,
under the Chevalier de Lévis, not many would have escaped. Ah, my dear
Doreil, what soldiers are ours! Never saw I the like. Why were they not
at Louisbourg?"
On the day of the victory he caused a great cross to be erected on the
battlefield inscribed with these lines, attributing the victory to
Divine interposition:
"Quid dux! Quid miles! Quid strata ingentia ligna!
En signum! En victor! Deus hic, Deus ipse triumphat."
"Soldier and chief and ramparts' strength are nought;
Behold the conquering cross! 'Tis God the triumph wrought."
It was a famous victory, on the height of Ticonderoga, and no sweeter
name than Carillon falls from a French Canadian's lips to this day.
[Illustration: TICONDEROGA IN 1759]
Once more was Montcalm victorious, but it was to bring him bitter
trouble with Vaudreuil and those surrounding him at Montreal, since
the glory was due to the troops from France. On July 11th, when the
English under Abercromby were in full retreat, M. de Rigaud and several
colonial officers, with a good number of colonials and savages, arrived
at Carillon, to be followed by more than two thousand others, on July
13th.
The object of this manoeuvre of Vaudreuil in sending this tardy
reinforcement seemed to Montcalm and his officers an excuse for
Vaudreuil to complain to the court, that having been reinforced he had
not pursued the English, as the previous year he had not taken Fort
Lydius, being unwilling to complete the victory and so give glory to
the colonial troops. At Montreal feelings ran high and bitter; there
were two camps, those who found fault with every action of the royal
troops, and those who--the ladies especially--saw in the delay in
sending the reinforcement a desire to abandon the poor battalions to
the enemy.
At Carillon the colonial troops could not hide their chagrin and
jealousy at not having participated more fully in the victory of the
8th of July, nor could the French regulars on their part dissimulate
their satisfaction at having won the battle almost without Canadian
"colony troops." Again the two hostile prejudices were in evidence and
manifested themselves even in the letters of their leaders, Montcalm
from Carillon, and Vaudreuil from Montreal, to the minister of war.
This acrimonious rivalry which existed between the higher military
officers and the Canadian officers and functionaries, though not so
largely shared by the soldiers and common people, who for the most part
maintained good relations amongst themselves, is a mark of this unhappy
period, and must be mentioned if we are to present a true picture of
Montreal as the headquarters of military life of this period.
An epistolary duel was carried on from Montreal and Carillon veiled in
the language of courtesy, but none the less bitter. In justification
of the uselessness of pursuing the enemy, Montcalm relied on the
experience of the men on the spot, while Vaudreuil, seated in his
bureau at Montreal, "believed himself in a position at a distance of
fifty leagues to determine war operations in a country he has never
seen, and where the best generals would be embarrassed even after
having seen it."
There are few generals who can so conduct campaigns. Von Moltke was
one, Vaudreuil was not another; nor was his secretary.
Montcalm in his letters to the governor saw the hand of an enemy--that
of the governor's secretary, Grasset de Saint-Sauveur.[210]
The author of the "Mémoires du Canada (Mémoires et réflections
politiques et militaires sur la guerre du Canada depuis 1756 jusqu'à
1760)," says of this secretary: "M. de la Jonquière has placed too
much confidence, as he explained himself, in a secretary named
Saint-Sauveur. For this man, without honour and without sentiment, has
employed all means, licit or illicit, to make his fortune. He asked and
obtained from his master the exclusive right to sell _eau de vie_ to
the Indians. From that moment he attracted public enmity as well as did
his master, who was said to be a half partner in the proceeds of
the traffic." At the end of the same "Mémoire," speaking of the
functionaries who remained in Canada in 1760 the author writes again:
"Saint-Sauveur, the governor's secretary, has remained also. I have had
the pleasure of hearing the English governor, Murray, speak in 1759 of
this man, saying that he desired this man to fall into his hands; that
if France, or rather the French government, had tolerated vice in this
man, he wished to correct him; that he was a traitor to his master;
that he had abused the confidence given him; that they only saw in
him cheating (_friponnerie_) and illicit trading; that he himself was
grieved at the blindness of this general (Vaudreuil). It is doubtful
whether this man dare cross over into France. It is an established fact
that he is worth more than 1,200,000 _livres_."
With a view of a reconciliation, on August 7th Montcalm sent
Bougainville from Carillon to the governor of Montreal to make personal
explanations, and on the 13th the _aide-de-camp_ returned. We learn
the success of his mission from his letter written to the minister of
war on August 10th: "Union appears to me today perfectly established
in good faith between our chiefs." In his journal on his return to
Carillon he writes of his impressions and his delicate mission at
Montreal: "I have been sent by the Marquis of Montcalm to the Marquis
de Vaudreuil with the order to stifle, if possible, this leaven of
discord which is being fermented and which perhaps may have been
hurtful to the good of the service. Thus our general still makes the
advances. Public interest is the rule of his conduct and he has acted
ceaselessly in the spirit of the words of Themistocles, 'Strike! But
hear!' It appears that the Marquis de Vaudreuil in all his bickerings
has followed the impressions of subalterns interested in creating
variances, rather than his own ideas. What is, however, his own is his
'amour propre' and a jealousy of a rival--a foundation on which the
mischief makers readily build. The appearances are that my journey has
not been unfruitful. I hope that facts will prove it so."
Meanwhile Montcalm remained at Carillon, holding the position so as
effectively to prevent any return of the English. On September 1st a
courier came from Montreal with news that the English were on Lake
Ontario and had arrived within three leagues of Fort Frontenac. This
was followed shortly by the news of the fall of Louisbourg. This latter
was at first discredited by Montcalm, but the entry in his journal,
at once heartbreaking and laconic, tells its own tale: "September 6,
1758--News from Quebec announcing the capture of Louisbourg; from
Montreal, that of Frontenac."
That night Montcalm left Carillon secretly with Pontleroy and
Bougainville, called by Vaudreuil to consult on the critical
conjuncture in which the French possessions in America were now placed.
Never since the beginning of the "Seven Years' War" was the situation
so menacing for the colony. With the loss of Frontenac, the French were
no longer masters of Lake Ontario; Niagara was in a perilous position
and French prestige had suffered a mortal blow in the regions of the
Great Lakes. With the capture of Louisbourg, the English held the
gateway of Canada. Their return to Lake Ontario and the destruction of
Frontenac would open to them the route of the higher reaches of the St.
Lawrence, onward to Montreal.
Montreal was reached on September 6th and Montcalm stayed there four
days. During that time he drew up for Vaudreuil three "mémoires," one
on the defence of the frontier of Lake Ontario, another on that of Lake
Champlain, and a third on the defence of Quebec, as well as on general
operations and regulations. These, in spite of the apparent cessation
of personal hostilities, and the renewal of courtesies, seem to have
displeased Vaudreuil. The latter "mémoire" on the reorganization
of the army and the future methods of conducting war in Canada was
looked upon by Vaudreuil and his secretary as a personal offence.
In his letter of November 1st to the minister of marine, Vaudreuil
calls to his attention "the faults of this 'mémoire,' the passion
with which it is treated, the desire to censure the government, the
desire of innovation, and more particularly that of lording it over the
colonists."
The Montreal clique saw in the frank attempt of Montcalm to solve the
situation another depreciation of the colonial forces.
While in Montreal it was arranged, with Vaudreuil's consent, that
Bougainville should be sent to France at the end of the campaign to
expose the Canadian situation to the king.
On September 13th Montcalm was on his way back to Carillon. But the
enemy never returned. At the end of October news arrived that the
English had broken up their camp at William Henry and had left Lake St.
Sacrement. On November 4th, leaving behind at Carillon a garrison of
400 men, Montcalm left Montreal with the Languedoc battalion, which was
soon to be followed by the other battalions. The war of 1758 was over.
The rigorous winter season set in very early this year and the return
to Montreal from Carillon was a painful journey to Montcalm and his
troops. A disastrous wind on Lake Champlain separated the vessels and
nigh foundered several. The cold was intense and the last vessels found
themselves hampered by the ice. Yet the victorious general reached St.
John without harm. "I will venture to say," he wrote to Bourlamaque,
"that my vessels carry Caesar and his fortunes."
On November 9th he reached Montreal. Then started the work of
distributing the troops for winter quarters, many of them being
stationed round about the Montreal district. The battalion of La Sarre
was stationed on the Ile Jésus, Lachenaie, Terrebonne, Mascouche
and l'Assomption; the royal Roussillons at La Prairie, Longueuil,
Boucherville, Varennes and Verchères; that of Languedoc, in the
governmental district of Three Rivers, from Ste. Anne to Batiscan; that
of Guyenne, at Contrecoeur, the River Chambly, St. Ours, Sorel; the
first battalion of the Berry regiment in the Beaupré district, and the
second on the Ile d'Orleans; and that of Béarn at Sault-au-Récollet,
Longue Pointe, Pointe aux Trembles, the Rivière des Prairies, St.
Sulpice, La Valtrie and Repentigny.
In Montreal Montcalm's first care was to make representations to the
governor and the Intendant Bigot, of the insufficient salary of the
soldiers and the officers especially, owing to the high cost of living.
In his journal Montcalm gives a comparative table of the tariffs of
1758, 1755, and 1743. For example, in 1743 a sheep cost four _livres_;
in 1755, ten; and in 1758, forty. In 1753 a pound of pork cost three
_sous_, ten in 1755, one _livre_ and ten _sous_ in 1758. In 1743 a
pound of butter cost five _sous_; twelve _sous_ in 1755, and forty
_sous_ in 1758.
This application brought a supplementary payment of forty-five _livres_
a month to the captains, and thirty to the lieutenants. Yet it must
be added that the officers affected much disedifying ostentation and
magnificence in their high rate of living, and many abused the facility
they had of borrowing money. On November 12th de Bougainville and M. de
Doreil, of the commissary department, were sent as representatives to
the court to tell of the condition of affairs in Canada. The governor,
Vaudreuil, somewhat distrusted these as friends of Montcalm but he
had an ally in Péan, who had left as early as August 13th, with warm
recommendations. The ostensible purpose of the adjutant major of Quebec
was to take the waters at Barèges for the cure of a wounded arm, but
M. Doreil, writing to the minister in the same month and warning him
that Péan was one of the chief causes of the maladministration of the
colony, suggests that he was anxious to clear away with his fortune
of 2,000,000, which he had rapidly amassed. "I have not dared to say
4,000,000, although according to public report I could have done so."
The mails to France and the favourable envoys bore Montcalm's urgent
demand for peace, peace, peace at any price to meet the contingencies
of the hour. Montcalm had no illusions; he foresaw final disaster
owing to the weakness of the mother country, worn out by the European
war, and to the supremacy of the English force by sea which would
effectively cut off all supplies and reinforcements, could they be
sent. Yet he did not despair, but prepared to meet the imminent
invasion should peace not be declared. His letters to his family reveal
a secret presentiment that he might never again see his dear Candiac or
Montpellier.
Montcalm remained in Montreal till December 22d. His letters to
Bourlamaque show that he spent the time intervening in a very quiet
manner, going out little, reading much and finding the days very long.
He read with interest the "Dictionnaire Encyclopédique," then in all
its novelty and vogue. This vast literary, philosophic and scientific
enterprise, which was to have such an effect on French thought,
pernicious in its skepticism and anti-religious spirit, had been
interdicted in 1752 after the publication of the first two volumes; but
on its resumption by 1758 it had already given forth eight volumes.
Montcalm wrote to Bourlamaque that he was skipping over the articles he
did not wish to know about, and leaving those he could not understand.
Montcalm spent January and February amid the gayeties of Quebec and
the pleasant company of the _Rue du Parloir_, which appealed to him so
strongly. His correspondence with his lieutenant gives us an insight
into the causes leading to the impending ruin which he foresaw surely
stealing onward. He was not happy; he had a presentiment of the
brooding catastrophe and foresaw the supreme crisis. Thus he wrote of
January 4, 1759: "A ball on Sunday. Peace, or all will go wrong; 1759
will be worse than 1758. Ah! how black I see things!" Another day: "The
colony is lost if peace does not come. I see nothing that can save her.
Those who govern it have serious cause to reproach themselves. I have
none for myself."
Again: "Pleasures at Quebec have been most keenly pursued in spite of
the prevailing misery and the approaching loss of the colony. There
have never been so many balls, nor such heavy games of chance in spite
of the prohibition of last year. The governor general and the intendant
have authorized it."
In March, Montcalm was again in the more sober atmosphere of Montreal,
preparing military memoirs, and reading, according to his letter to
Bourlamaque, in the third volume of the Encyclopedia, "the beautiful
articles on Christianity, citation, comedy, comic, college, council,
colony, commerce, etc." He was also preparing his letters for France.
In a letter dated April 12, 1759, to the minister of war, the Maréchal
de Belle-Isle, he threw away all reserve and decided to tell all he saw
and knew, thus to expose in its heartbreaking reality the desperate
state of the colony, to lay bare the plagues that were gnawing it, the
corruption and the depredations which were conspiring with the English
invasions to precipitate its downfall. "Except for an unexpected good
fortune," he wrote, "of a great diversion into the English colonies
by sea, or of great mistakes on the side of the enemy, Canada will be
taken this campaign or certainly next.
"The English have sixty thousand men, we at most ten thousand to eleven
thousand. Our government has no money. Advance pay and provisions are
wanting. In default of these the English will win. The fields are
uncultivated. We need cattle. The Canadians are discouraged. There
is no confidence in M. de Vaudreuil or in M. Bigot. M. de Vaudreuil
is in no position to direct a war campaign. He is inactive; he gives
his confidence to experimenters rather than to the general sent from
France. M. Bigot appears to be engaged only in making a great fortune
for himself, his adherents and hangers-on. Avarice has obtained the
master hand. The officers, the government storekeepers and clerks, ...
are making astounding fortunes.... The expenses which have been paid at
Quebec by the treasurer of the colony reach twenty-four millions; the
year before they were only twelve to thirteen millions. This year they
will mount up to thirty-six millions. It seems that all are hurrying to
make their fortunes before the loss of the colony, which many perhaps
desire as an impenetrable veil to hide their bad conduct."
He then enumerates particular instances of glaring acts of "grafting"
and illicit trading. For example: "Is it necessary to transport the
artillery, gun carriages, wagons and utensils? M. Mercier, who commands
the artillery, is the contractor under different names; everything
is done badly and dearly; this officer, who came as a simple soldier
twenty years ago, will soon become rich to the amount of about six
hundred thousand or seven hundred thousand _livres_, perhaps a million
if this lasts. I have often spoken of this to M. de Vaudreuil or to M.
Bigot. Each one throws the fault onto his colleague."
"The people," he continues, "frightened by these expenses, fear a
deterioration in the value of the paper money of the country; a bad
effect follows--the cost of living increases. The Canadians who have
not taken part in illicit profits hate the government.... Even should
peace come, the colony is ruined if the whole government is not
changed." Thus he wrote to his responsible chief in France.
In his journal he is naturally fuller in his condemnations and he
remarks: "One would need to have the pen always in hand to write down
all these 'friponneries.' O! tempora! O mores!"
This season was a painful one for him; he laments over the present and
the future. "Pauvre roi! Pauvre France! Cara patria!" In another letter
to Bourlamaque he surveys his own position: "In a short time I shall
be forty-seven years of age. The dignity of a marshal of France would
flatter me as well as any other man; it would be fine to have it in six
years, but to buy it by this kind of life would be at too dear a price."
In his journal he unburdens himself more fully. "O, king, worthy of
being better served," he writes. "Dear fatherland, crushed with taxes,
to enrich cheats and greedy ones!... Shall I keep my innocence as I
have done up to the present, in the midst of corruption? I shall have
defended the colony; I shall have owed 10,000 écus; but I shall see
men enriching themselves like a Ralig, a Coban, a Cécile, a set of men
without faith, rascals interested in the provision enterprise, gaining
in one year four or five hundred thousand _livres_, arising from their
outrageous expenditures; a Maurin, a clerk at 100 crowns, an abortion
by nature, a snail in figure, traveling with a suite of calèches and
carriages, spending more in conveyances, harness and in horses than a
young coxcomb and giddy-headed farmer-general of revenues. And this
uphold of provisions, an enterprise formed since the time of M. de la
Porte, who went shares in it! Will France never produce an enlightened
head of its marine department, a reformer of abuses? The peculations of
a Verres, of a Marius, of which Juvenal speaks, do not come near these."
When not otherwise engaged in his literary and military studies--for
social life seems to have been not very attractive to him in
Montreal--Montcalm would confer with the governor, with whom the
appearance of courtesy at least was preserved, though at times with
underlying mutual antipathies. On one occasion he entered the office of
Vaudreuil, whom he surprised listening indulgently to M. d'Eschambault,
his nephew by marriage, inveighing against the French officers,
accusing them of insubordinate speech against the authorities after
the unfortunate events following Carillon. Caught in the act, the
governor, flushing up, took the opportunity to complain bitterly of the
French officers. Montcalm profited by the occasion also to unburden his
heart on the subject of all the unworthy hawking of tittle-tattle and
exaggerations productive of harm to the service, and he dealt "a long
and strong, but respectful" lesson to both of them. "I should trust,"
wrote Montcalm to Bourlamaque, "that this will correct tale-bearers and
those who listen to them."
Another incident related to Bourlamaque also gives a picture of the
strained relations of the two military factions in Montreal. One day,
in the governor's office, an officer of the colonial militia saw fit
to say in the presence of Vaudreuil, Montcalm and others, that during
the siege of William Henry, General Webb had great fear at Fort Lydius,
that Orange and New York were without troops, and that this fort
could have been easily taken. This being a favourite topic with the
governor, he commented on it with eagerness. Stung to the quick by this
recurrence to an old sore, Montcalm gave anew the reasons which had
prevented him making the second siege in 1757, adding that it was no
use feeding still on chimeras. "I concluded, by saying modestly, that
I did my best at the seat of war, following my feeble lights, and that
if he was not satisfied with his second in command, he had better make
the campaign in person, so as to carry out his own ideas. The tears
sprang to his eyes and he muttered between his teeth that such might be
the case. The conversation finished on my part by saying: 'I shall be
delighted and I shall willingly serve under you.'
"Madame de Vaudreuil wished to intervene. 'Madame,' I said, 'permit
me, without departing from the respect due to you, to have the honour
to tell you that ladies ought not to mix in war affairs.' Madame again
wished to interrupt. 'Madame,' I said, 'without departing from the
respect due to you, allow me to have the honour to inform you that if
Madame de Montcalm were here and heard us speaking of war affairs with
M. le Marquis de Vaudreuil, she would maintain silence.'"
"This scene, before his officers, three of them colonials, will be
embroidered and reimbroidered; but here it is."
FOOTNOTES:
[208] The following, according to Montcalm's journal, was the military
strength of the French on July 8th: The Marquis de Montcalm, maréchal
des camps; Chevalier de Lévis, brigadier; Sieur de Bourlamaque,
colonel; the Sieur de Bougainville, aide maréchal des logis; Chevalier
de Montreuil, aide major général; Brigade de la Reine, 345 men; Béarn,
410; Guyenne, 470; Brigade de la Sarre, 460; Languedoc, 426; Brigade
de Royal Roussillon, 480; First Batallion of the Berry Brigade, 450;
Second Batallion, a guard of 50 at Fort Carillon; troops of the marine
department, 150; Canadian forces, 250; savages, 15; total 3,506.
[209] There were only 14,000 men, including reserves, engaged in the
attack.
[210] Saint-Sauveur had been employed in the same secretarial functions
by M. de la Jonquière, and under both he seems to have used his
position unduly to increase his fortune.