Bougainville

“ The French regular officers, as we have seen, had hated this kind of warfare. Bougainville says that his soul shuddered at the sights in Montreal, where the whole town turned out to see an English prisoner killed, boiled, and eaten by the savages. Worse still, captive mothers were obliged to eat the flesh of their own children. The French believed that they could not get on without the savage allies who committed these outrages, and they were not strong enough to coerce them. Amherst, on the other hand, held his Indians in check and rebuked outrage. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Augustin to attack the strong post which Bougainville had established at Le Calvaire. Within the walls of Quebec, fever, dysentery, and scurvy grew so malignant that by the middle of April hardly more than three thousand men were fit for duty; and all the while evidence of the concentration of the French forces grew more apparent. So long before as the 26th of January, Lieutenant Montresor had been despatched over the snow with twelve rangers to apprise General Amherst of the plight of the city ”

“ 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." ”

“ On one side was the garrison of Quebec and the army of Beauport, and Bougainville was on the other. Wolfe's alternative was victory or ruin; for if he should be overwhelmed by a combined attack, retreat would be hopeless. His feelings no man can know; but it would be safe to say that hesitation or doubt had no part in them. ”

“ It is from his quick eye and eager pen that we learn much of the inner story of these last days of New France. Montcalm discusses frankly in his letters these and other officers, with whom he was on the whole well pleased. In his heart he could echo the words of Bougainville as he watched the brilliant spectacle of the embarkation at Brest: “What a nation is ours! Happy is he who leads and is worthy of it.” ”

“ The confusion in the camp lasted through the afternoon. "The Indians," says Bougainville, "wanted to plunder the chests of the English; the latter resisted; and there was fear that serious disorder would ensue. The Marquis de Montcalm ran thither immediately, and used every means to restore tranquillity: prayers, threats, caresses, interposition of the officers and interpreters who have some influence over these savages." "We shall be but too happy if we can prevent a massacre. ”

“ The morning of the seventh was fair and warm, and the vessels of Holmes, their crowded decks gay with scarlet uniforms, sailed up the river to Cap-Rouge. A lively scene awaited them; for here were the headquarters of Bougainville, and here lay his principal force, while the rest watched the banks above and below. The cove into which the little river runs was guarded by floating batteries; the surrounding shore was defended by breastworks; and a large body of regulars, militia, and mounted Canadians in blue uniforms moved to and fro, with restless activity, on the hills behind. ”

“ Some days before this, as I was walking the streets with Tupia, a man totally unknown to me ran out of his house, and eagerly accosting me, asked if the Indian whom he saw with me had not been at Batavia before. On my declaring that he had not, and asking the reason of so odd a question, he told me that a year and a half before, Mr. De Bougainville had been at Batavia with two French ships, and that with him was an Indian so like this that he had imagined him to be the identical same person, until I informed him of the contrary. ”

“ At midnight Jensen came to the wheel again. The night was bright with the light of shining stars, and the sea, although the breeze was brisk, was smooth as a mountain lake, only the rip, ripy rip of the barque's cutwater and the bubbling sounds of her eddying wake broke the silence of the night. Ten miles away the verdure-clad peaks and spurs of lofty Bougainville stood clearly out, silhouetted against the sea-rim on the starboard hand. The wind was fair abeam and the ship as steady as a church, and Proctor scarce glanced at the compass at all. ”

“ We ran along in flight all night; and at daybreak M. de Bougainville, with his detachment, joined us near Cap Rouge. In the evening, our army arrived at Pointe-aux-Trembles​—​five leagues from Quebec​—​where it passed the night, and next day came to Jacques-Cartier. The English had so little suspicion of our retreat, seeing our tents standing without any change at our camp, that Belcour​—​an officer of La Rochebaucourt’s cavalry​—​having returned to it with a detachment, two days after our flight, he found everything the same as when we left it. ”

“ It was a modest and perhaps an involuntary exaggeration. "The very recital of the cruelties they committed on the battle-field is horrible," writes Bougainville. "The ferocity and insolence of these black-souled barbarians makes one shudder. It is an abominable kind of war. The air one breathes is contagious of insensibility and hardness." [454] This was but one of the many such parties sent out from Ticonderoga this year.
[454] Bougainville, Journal.
Early in September a band of New England rangers came to Winslow's camp, with three prisoners taken within the lines of Ticonderoga. ”

“ The scattered French posts along the summit were easily dispersed, while the main army at Beauport, some miles away, on the far side of the city, were as yet unconscious of danger. Bougainville and his force back at Cap Rouge were as far off and as yet no wiser. Quebec had just caught the alarm, but its weak and heterogeneous garrison had no power for combined mobility. By six o'clock Wolfe had his whole force of forty-three hundred men drawn up on the plateau, with their backs to the river and their faces to the north. ”

“ Charles; and lastly, when Bougainville saw Holmes's vessels drift down the stream, he did not tax his weary troops to follow them, thinking that they would return as usual with the flood tide. But for these conspiring circumstances New France might have lived a little longer, and the fruitless heroism of Wolfe would have passed, with countless other heroisms, into oblivion. ”

“ It is very expensive, not very amusing, and often tedious. At Quebec, where we spent a month, I gave receptions or parties, often at the Intendant's house. I like my gallant Chevalier de Lévis very much. Bourlamaque was a good choice; he is steady and cool, with good parts. Bougainville has talent, a warm head, and warm heart; he will ripen in time. ”

“ He knew, too, that behind him lay Bougainville and his thousands, who, by joining in a concentrated action with Montcalm, could hem him in between two fires, and cut his gallant little army to pieces. He realized all this right well, if others did not, and knew that victory or death--even annihilation--lay before them. And knowing this, he made his survey of the place with a concentrated attention, and issued his orders without hesitation or delay.
The grassy plain was pretty level. Quebec bounded it on the east, the precipices on the St. ”

“ Bougainville apparently remained in the town.
"The town," says Parkman, "was crowded with noncombatant refugees. Here, too, was nearly all the remaining force of Canada, consisting of twenty-two hundred troops of the line and some two hundred colony troops; for all the Canadians had by this time gone home. Many of the regulars, especially of the colony troops, had also deserted; and the rest were so broken in discipline that their officers were forced to use entreaties instead of commands. The three armies encamped around the city amounted to seventeen thousand men." ”

“ V1 friend Bougainville, who says that the Indians had a great liking for him, and that he "knew how to manage them as well as if he had been born in their wigwams." [483] And while Vaudreuil complains that the Canadians are ill-used by Montcalm, Bougainville declares that the regulars are ill-used by Vaudreuil. "One must be blind not to see that we are treated as the Spartans treated the Helots." Then he comments on the jealous reticence of the Governor. "The Marquis de Montcalm has not the honor of being consulted ”

“ Already presentiments of horrible extravagances were experienced by the officers from France, such as Bougainville, who wrote of his fierce, drunken and bloodthirsty allies to Madame de Hérault on June 30th: "I will tell you that we count on two sieges and a battle, and your child trembles at the horrors he will be forced to witness. There will be difficulty in restraining the savages from up country, who are the fiercest of men and great cannibals. Listen to what their chiefs said just three days ago to M. de Montcalm, 'My father, do not count upon our giving quarter to the English. ”

“ Montcalm's letters highly commended the envoy, but Vaudreuil as promptly described him as a creature of the General, and their quarrel did not help New France at the Royal Court. Berryer, the Colonial Minister, received Bougainville coldly, and to his appeal for help replied: "Eh, Monsieur, when the house is on fire one cannot concern one's self with the stable." But the Canadian envoy responded, with caustic wit, "At least, Monsieur, nobody will say that you talk like a horse." ”

“ The French government sent him back to Quebec with a bundle of advice and platitudes and titles and badges and promotions and soft words, but of the sinew which makes war, men and money, France had naught to spare. The rumor of the English invasion was confirmed by Bougainville. Every man capable of bearing arms was called to Quebec except the small forces at the outposts, and Bourlamaque at Champlain was instructed if attacked by Amherst to blow up Fort Carillon, then Crown Point, and retire. ”

“ On the day before, two deserters from the camp of Bougainville had given information that at ebb tide a night convoy of provisions for Montcalm, to meet the necessities of the camp at Beauport, would be sent down the river. As the men stationed at the various outposts were expecting fresh supplies, it was easy to deceive the guard at Sillery, and, after a little further dialogue, in which the cool Highlander completely blinded the French sentries, the British were allowed to slip past in the darkness. ”

“ Lévis, Journal de la Guerre du Canada.
The prospects of the next campaign began to open. Captain Pouchot had written from Niagara that three thousand savages were waiting to 11
V2 be let loose against the English borders. "What a scourge!" exclaims Bougainville. "Humanity groans at being forced to use such monsters. What can be done against an invisible enemy, who strikes and vanishes, swift as the lightning? It is the destroying angel." Captain Hebecourt kept watch and ward at Ticonderoga, begirt with snow and ice, and much plagued by English rangers, who sometimes got into the ditch itself. ”

“ General Wolfe, the English commander, saw that he must take Quebec by his own efforts or not at all. He attempted several diversions above the city in the hope of drawing Montcalm, the French commander, from his intrenchments into the open field, but Montcalm merely sent De Bougainville with fifteen hundred men to watch the shore above Quebec and prevent a landing. Wolfe fell into a fever, caused by his anxiety, and his despatches to his government created the gravest uneasiness in England for the success of his enterprise. ”

“ Montcalm's own aide de camp was De Bougainville, more famed in after years on sea than land. His name stands first in the list of French navigators; he was the rival and contemporary of Captain Cook. Good leaders France sent out to America in the spring of 1756, but she sent few troops with them. The campaign on the continent absorbed her strength, and New France was lost in consequence.
Montcalm and his officers arrived in May; in June and July three English commanders appeared on the scene—Colonel Daniel Webb, General Abercromby, and Lord Loudoun. ”

“ The king counts upon your zeal, your courage, and your firmness to spare no pains and no exertion. You must hold out to the very last, whatever happens. I have answered for you to the king.' Montcalm replied: 'I shall do everything to maintain a foothold in New France, or die in its defence'; and he kept his word.
There was both joy and sorrow in the news from Candiac. His eldest daughter was happily married. His eldest son was no less happily engaged. But, at the last minute, Bougainville had heard that another daughter had died suddenly ”

“ V2 be proposed to the English; and these were unanimously approved. [853] In the morning Bougainville carried them to the tent of Amherst. He granted the greater part, modified some, and flatly refused others. That which the French officers thought more important than all the rest was the provision that the troops should march out with arms, cannon, and the honors of war; to which it was replied: "The whole garrison of Montreal and all other French troops in Canada must lay down their arms, and shall not serve during the present war." ”