The Passing of New France | Page 4

set out for Paris.
From Lyons he wrote to his mother: 'I am reading with much pleasure
the History of New France by Father Charlevoix. He gives a pleasant
description of Quebec.' From Paris he wrote to his wife: 'Do not expect
any long letter before the 1st of March. All my pressing work will then
be finished, and I shall be able to breathe once more. Last night I came
from Versailles and I am going back to-morrow. My outfit will cost me
a thousand crowns more than the amount I am paid to cover it. But I
cannot stop for that.' On March 15 he wrote home: 'Yesterday I
presented my son, with whom I am very well pleased, to all the royal
family.' Three days later he wrote to his wife: 'I shall be at Brest on the

twenty-first. My son has been here since yesterday, for me to coach
him and also in order to get his uniform properly made. He will thank
the king for his promotion at the same time that I make my adieux in
my embroidered coat. Perhaps I shall leave some debts behind me. I
wait impatiently for the accounts. You have my will. I wish you would
have it copied, and would send me the duplicate before I sail.'
On April 3 Montcalm left Brest in the Licorne, a ship of the little fleet
which the French were hurrying out to Canada before war should be
declared in Europe. The passage proved long and stormy. But
Montcalm was lucky in being a much better sailor than his great
opponent Wolfe. Impatient to reach the capital at the earliest possible
moment he rowed ashore from below the island of Orleans, where the
Licorne met a contrary wind, and drove up to Quebec, a distance of
twenty-five miles. It was May 13 when he first passed along the
Beauport shore between Montmorency and Quebec. Three years and
nine days later he was to come back to that very point, there to make
his last heroic stand.
On the evening of his arrival Bigot the intendant gave a magnificent
dinner-party for him. Forty guests sat down to the banquet. Montcalm
had not expected that the poor struggling colony could boast such a
scene as this. In a letter home he said: 'Even a Parisian would have
been astonished at the profusion of good things on the table. Such
splendour and good cheer show how much the intendant's place is
worth.' We shall soon hear more of Bigot the intendant.
On the 26th Montcalm arrived at Montreal to see the Marquis of
Vaudreuil the governor. The meeting went off very well. The governor
was as full of airs and graces as the intendant, and said that nothing else
in the world could have given him so much pleasure as to greet the
general sent out to take command of the troops from France. We shall
soon hear more of Vaudreuil the governor.

CHAPTER II

MONTCALM IN CANADA 1756
The French colonies in North America consisted of nothing more than
two very long and very thin lines of scattered posts and settlements,
running up the St Lawrence and the Mississippi to meet, in the far
interior, at the Great Lakes. Along the whole of these four thousand
miles there were not one hundred thousand people. Only two parts of
the country were really settled at all: one Acadia, the other the shores of
the St Lawrence between Bic and Montreal; and both regions together
covered not more than four hundred of the whole four thousand miles.
There were but three considerable towns--Louisbourg, Quebec, and
Montreal--and Quebec, which was much the largest, had only twelve
thousand inhabitants.
The territory bordering on the Mississippi was called Louisiana. That in
the St Lawrence region was called New France along the river and
Acadia down by the Gulf; though Canada is much the best word to
cover both. Now, Canada had ten times as many people as Louisiana;
and Louisiana by itself seemed helplessly weak. This very weakness
made the French particularly anxious about the country south of the
Lakes, where Canada and Louisiana met. For, so long as they held it,
they held the gateways of the West, kept the valleys of the Ohio and
Mississippi quite securely, shut up the British colonies between the
Alleghany Mountains and the Atlantic and prevented them from
expanding westward. One other thing was even more vital than this to
the French in America: it was that they should continue to hold the
mouth of the St Lawrence. Canada could live only by getting help from
France; and as this help could not come up the Mississippi it had to
come up the St Lawrence.
The general position of the French may be