Cameron of Lochiel
of ours.
"I have been witness of a spectacle," continued Dumais, "which makes
me shudder now when I think of it. I have seen these barbarians burn
an English woman. She was a young woman of great beauty. I still
see her tied to the stake, where they tortured her for eight mortal
hours. I still see her in the midst of her butchers, clothed, like
our first mother, in nothing but her long, fair hair. I shall hear
forever her heart-rending cry of 'My God! my God!' We did all we could
to buy her back, but in vain; for her father, her husband, and her
brothers, in defending her with the courage of despair, had killed
many of the savages, and among them two of their chiefs. We were but
fifteen Canadians, against at least two hundred Indians. I was young
then, and I wept like a child. Ducros, who was nicknamed the Terror,
foamed with rage and cried to Franc[oe]ur: 'What! sergeant, shall we,
who are men and Frenchmen, let them burn a poor woman before our eyes?
Give the order, sergeant, and I will split the skulls of ten of these
red hounds before they have time to defend themselves.' And he would
have done it, for he was a mighty man--was the Terror--and quick as a
fish. Black Bear, one of their greatest warriors, approached us with
a sneer. Ducros sprang toward him with his tomahawk uplifted, crying:
'Take your hatchet, coward, and you shall see that you have no woman
to deal with!' The Indian shrugged his shoulders with an air of pity,
and said slowly; 'The pale face is childish; he would kill his friend
to defend the squaw of a dog of an Englishman, his enemy.' The sergeant
put an end to the argument by ordering Ducros back into the ranks. He
was a brave and generous heart, this sergeant, as his name attested.
With tears in his eyes, he said to us: 'It would be useless for me to
disobey my orders; we would all be massacred without doing the poor
woman any good. What would be the consequence? The great tribe of the
Abénaquis would forsake its alliance with the French, would join our
enemies, and our own women and children would share the fate of this
unhappy English woman. Their blood would be upon my head.' Well, Mr.
Archie, for six months after this hideous scene I used to start from my
sleep bathed in sweat, with those heart-rending cries of 'My God! My
God!' shrieking in my ears. They wondered at my coolness when the ice
was bearing me down to the falls of St. Thomas. Here is the explanation
of it. Through the tumult and uproar I was hearing the screams of the
unhappy English woman, and I believed that Heaven was punishing me, as
I deserved, for not having succored her. For, you see, Mr. Archie, that
man often makes laws which God is very far from sanctioning."
"True, indeed," said Archie, sighing.
During the rest of their journey the two friends talked about the
D'Habervilles. Archie learned that the ladies and Uncle Raoul, on the
appearance of the English fleet in the St. Lawrence, had taken refuge
within the walls of Quebec. Captain D'Haberville and Jules were in camp
at Beaupré, with their respective regiments.
Fearing lest Archie should fall in with some of the Abénaquis spies who
were hanging on the skirts of the English, he escorted Archie all the
way to his encampment. Archie's parting words were as follows:
"You have paid me life for life, my friend; but, for my part, I
shall never forget what I owe you. How strangely our lives have come
together, Dumais! Two years ago I came all the way from Quebec to
South River just in time to snatch you from the abyss. Yesterday,
having but just landed from a voyage across the ocean, I am made
prisoner; and you find yourself waiting on a little island in
Trois-Saumons Lake to save my honor and my life. The hand of God is in
it. Farewell, dear friend. However adventurous the soldier's career, I
cling to the hope that Fate will bring us again together, and that I
may give your children further cause to bless my memory."
When the sun arose, the Highlanders remarked the strange pallor of
their young chief. They concluded that, dreading a surprise, he had
passed the night in wandering about the camp. After a light meal,
Archie gave the order to burn the house beside the mill. He had
scarcely resumed the march when a messenger came from Montgomery,
ordering him to cease from the work of destruction.
"It is time!" cried Archie, gnawing his sword-hilt.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM.
Il est des occasions dans la guerre où le plus brave doit fuir.
+Cervantes.+
_Vae victis!_ says the wisdom of the nations. Woe to the
conquered!--not only because of the ruin which follows defeat, but
because the vanquished are always in the wrong. They suffer materially,
they suffer in their wounded self-love, they suffer in their reputation
as soldiers. Let them have fought one against twenty, let them have
performed prodigies of heroism, they are nevertheless and always the
vanquished. Even their fellow-countrymen forgive them hardly. History
records but their defeat. Here and there they get a word of approval
from some writer of their race; but the praise is almost always mixed
with reproach. Pen and compass in hand, we fight the battle over again.
We teach the generals, whose bodies rest on the well-fought field, how
they might have managed affairs much better. Seated in a well-stuffed
arm-chair, we proudly demonstrate the skillful man[oe]uvres by which
they might have snatched the victory; and bitterly we reproach them
with their defeat. They have deserved a more generous treatment. A
great general, who has equaled in our own day the exploits of Alexander
and of Cæsar, has said: "Who is he that has never made a mistake in
battle?" _Vae victis!_
It was the 13th day of September, 1759, a day accursed in the annals
of France. The English army, under General Wolfe, after having eluded
the vigilance of the French sentinels and surprised the pickets under
cover of the darkness, were discovered at daybreak on the Plains of
Abraham, where they were beginning to entrench themselves. Montcalm was
either carried away by his chivalrous courage, or he concluded that the
work of entrenchment had to be at once interrupted; for he attacked
the English with only a portion of his troops, and was defeated, as
he might have foreseen, by the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. On
this memorable battle field both generals laid down their lives--Wolfe
bestowing upon his country a colony half as large as Europe, Montcalm
losing to France a vast territory which the King and his improvident
ministers knew not how to appreciate.
Woe to the vanquished! Had Montcalm been victorious he would have been
lauded to the skies, instead of being heaped with reproaches for not
awaiting the re-enforcements which would have come from De Vaudreuil
and De Bougainville. We would have praised his tactics in hurling
himself upon the enemy before the latter had had time to establish
himself. We would have said that a hundred men behind cover were equal
to a thousand in the open. We would never have imputed to General
Montcalm any jealous and unworthy motives. His shining laurels, gained
on so many glorious fields, would have shielded him from any such
suspicions.
_Vae victis!_ After the fatal battle of the 13th the city of Quebec was
little more than a heap of ruins. Not even the fortifications furnished
shelter, for a portion of the ramparts had been shattered to fragments.
The magazines were empty of ammunition, and the gunners, rather to
conceal their distress than with any hope of injuring the enemy,
answered the English batteries only with an occasional cannon-shot.
There were no provisions left. Yet they bring the charge of cowardice
against the brave garrison which endured so much and defended itself
so valiantly. If the governor, a new Nostradamus, had known that the
Chevalier de Lévis was bringing succor to the city, and, instead of
capitulating, had awaited the arrival of the French troops, it is
certain that the garrison would have been lavishly applauded for its
courage. To be sure the garrison showed itself most pusillanimous in
giving up a city which it was no longer able to defend! To be sure it
should rather have put its trust in the humanity of an enemy who had
already carried fire and sword through all the peaceful villages, and
should have refused to consider the lives of the citizens, the honor of
their wives and daughters, exposed to all the horrors of a capture by
assault! Assuredly this unhappy garrison was very pusillanimous! Woe to
the vanquished!
After the capitulation the English left nothing undone to secure
themselves in the possession of a place so important. The walls
were rebuilt, new fortifications added, and the batteries immensely
strengthened. It was conceivable that the besiegers might become the
besieged. This foresight was justified, for in the following spring
General Lévis took the offensive with an army of eight thousand men,
made up of regulars and militia in about equal numbers.
At eight o'clock in the morning, April 28, 1760, the English army was
drawn up in order of battle on the same field where it had moved to
victory seven months before. General Murray, with this army of six
thousand men and twenty guns, held a very strong position, while the
French army, a little more numerous, but supported by only two guns,
occupied the heights of St. Foy. The French were wearied with their
painful march over the marshes of La Suède, but they burned to wipe out
the memory of their defeat. The hate of centuries stirred the bosoms
of both armies. The courage of both was beyond question, and fifteen
thousand of the best troops in the world only awaited the word of their
commanders to spring at each other's throats.
Jules D'Haberville, who had distinguished himself in the first battle
on the Plains of Abraham, was with a detachment commanded by Captain
d'Aiguebelle. By order of General de Lévis, this detachment had at
first abandoned Dumont's mill under the attack of a much superior
force. Jules was severely wounded by the explosion of a shell,
which had shattered his left arm, but he refused to go to the rear.
Presently the general concluded that the mill was a position of supreme
importance, and, when he gave the order to recapture it, Jules led his
company to the charge, carrying his arm in a sling.
Almost all Murray's artillery was directed to the maintenance of
this position. The French grenadiers charged on the run. The bullets
and grape decimated their ranks, but they closed up as accurately
as if they were on parade. The mill was taken and retaken several
times during this memorable struggle. Jules D'Haberville, "the little
grenadier," as the soldiers called him, had hurled himself, sword
in hand, into the very midst of the enemy, who yielded ground for a
moment; but scarcely had the French established themselves, when the
English returned to the attack in overwhelming numbers, and took the
position after a most bloody struggle.
The French grenadiers, thrown for a moment into disorder, reformed at
a little distance under a scathing fire; then, charging for the third
time, they carried the position at the point of the bayonet, and held
it.
One would have thought, during this last charge, that the love of
life was extinct in the soul of Jules, who, his heart torn by what he
thought the treason of his friend, and by the total ruin of his family,
appeared to seek death as a blessing. As soon as the order for that
third charge was given he sprang forward like a tiger with the cry
of, "_À moi grenadiers!_" and hurled himself single handed upon the
English. When the French found themselves masters of the position they
drew Jules from under a heap of dead and wounded. Seeing that he was