The King's Warrant: A Story of Old and New France

by Alfred H. Engelbach

The first two or three days that Isidore passed at Quebec were singularly happy ones. Some months had now elapsed since the death of Captain Lacroix, and Marguerite had regained much of her natural cheerfulness, which seemed all the more bright and winning for the shade of melancholy that occasionally came over her at the thought of her lonely and dependent position in the world. Isidore had few acquaintances there, and did not care to add to their number; at first his visits at the house of Madame de Rocheval were as frequent as he could decorously make them. As it happened, Marguerite was more than an ordinary proficient on the harpsichord, whilst the young marquis, who had a singularly fine voice, and had had the advantage of the best masters that Paris could boast of, sang with a taste and feeling seldom met with; and this afforded a fair excuse for prolonging his visits beyond the ordinary limits. It is like enough that, notwithstanding the vast and absolutely impassable distance which their respective positions would have placed between them in Old France, the most noble and wealthy young Marquis de Beaujardin would have offered his hand to the penniless orphan of a man who could not write the "de" of gentle birth before his name: one untoward circumstance alone, perhaps, prevented this; Madame de Rocheval, who was very fond of Marguerite, could not help feeling what a masterly stroke it would be on her part if she could but catch for her a husband of such rank and fortune, so she at once began to do all she could to bring about the hoped-for result. Unfortunately for all parties, madame's zeal outran her usual discretion, and no sooner did poor Marguerite perceive, or think that she perceived, the covert designs of her friend than her sensitive delicacy recoiled from doing anything that might seem like aiding or abetting such a scheme. She constrained herself to assume a cold and formal manner, so unnatural to her that Isidore, as men are apt enough to do, grew vexed and annoyed at a treatment which he knew was undeserved, and soon began to think there was more affectation about Mademoiselle Lacroix than he had at first imagined. Then he, too, suddenly discovered from some little circumstance or other that he was the object of a studied scheme to make a catch of him, and this naturally irritated him still more. His pride revolted at the thought that he who had been admired and courted by the highest and the noblest even at the Pompadour's own magnificent fêtes and receptions should be entrapped by a mere matchmaker at an out-of-the-way little place like this. So he put on a rather grand and haughty air the next time he called, for which Marguerite not only thought him very silly, but even told him so. That afternoon he took his leave, alleging that he had to return to Montreal early the next morning. Yet when he had quitted the house his heart smote him, and when he passed Madame de Rocheval's the next day he stopped his cariole and went in just to ask if Marguerite had any message for her guardian, the Baron de Valricour, at Montreal. She was alone, and the fact that she had been in tears was so unmistakably apparent that Isidore was led to express a hope that no misfortune had occurred to distress her.

"I was mourning over the loss of a friend," said she; "I have so few in the world that I can scarce afford to lose one, and least of all such an one as Monsieur de Beaujardin has been to me."

Isidore felt that he had been guilty of a very mean but common fault in visiting on Marguerite the ill-humour he had felt at something, in which not she but some one else was to blame.

"Forgive me," said he, at once; "I am, indeed, ashamed to think that I behaved like a fool, or even worse, in giving just cause of offence to one who has every claim to very different treatment at my hands. I was an idiot—I was not myself, or——"

"Yes, yes, let it be so," exclaimed Marguerite, smiling through her tears and extending her hand to him. "Let it be so; you were indeed not your own self, so I will forget the stranger of yesterday, and only remember the courteous Colonel Beaujardin to whom I owe so much."

The entrance of Madame de Rocheval here brought this brief colloquy to an end, and Isidore once more bade adieu and took his departure. Perhaps he would have altered his arrangements and remained still longer at Quebec; but this he could not well do with any show of self-respect, and he was soon on his road to Montreal. It is, however, most certainly the fact that he gave up the intention, which he had formed on the previous evening, of throwing up his commission and returning to France, and he now once more made up his mind to stay in Canada, and see out the campaign of 1757.

The opening of the new year found the British Government resolved to prosecute the war in Canada with unprecedented vigour. An attack on Louisburg was to be the great feature of the campaign. Upwards of twenty thousand regular troops from England co-operating with immense levies raised in America, and large bodies of allied Indians, constituted the force to be arrayed against France in the New World, whilst a splendid fleet, counting no less than twenty ships of the line, under the command of Admiral Holborne, was to carry on the operations by sea. They made a bad beginning, however, for nearly half the year had slipped away before the fleet put to sea, and the end was a complete and disastrous failure. Owing to the incapacity of the commander-in-chief the time was simply wasted in marchings and counter-marchings, and continually embarking, disembarking, and re-embarking the troops. At sea a terrible hurricane scattered the ships, of which many were wrecked and lost, while the rest, more or less shattered, made their way back to England as they best could.

The one success of the year was gained by the French, and it was unfortunately attended by horrors that will never be forgotten. The capture of Fort William Henry, and the massacre which followed it, is an oft-told tale, to which allusion needs only to be made here so far as it bears on the fortunes of our young French soldier. Abandoned at the most critical juncture by Colonel Webb, the brave but unfortunate Munro was compelled to surrender the place to Montcalm, with the stipulation that the garrison, numbering about two thousand men, should be allowed to march out unmolested. Whilst they were doing so, however, the Indian allies of the French fell upon them with all the relentless fury of their savage race. A panic seized upon the wretched victims, and then ensued a scene of slaughter such as defies description. In vain did Montcalm interpose; the respect and even love with which the Indians had come to regard him availed nothing. At the imminent risk of his own life he rushed in and strove to stay the carnage, but to no purpose; those of the ill-fated garrison of Fort William Henry who escaped from the knives and tomahawks of their vengeful foes, found their way to Fort Edward, or some other place of safety.

In this matter the conduct of Montcalm and his officers is wholly free from blame. Many of the latter, like their chief, exposed their lives in their endeavour to save those whom they were bound to protect as far as in them lay. Amongst the foremost of these was Isidore de Beaujardin, and at one moment his life was in the greatest peril. An English soldier who had been thrown down in the rush was just about to rise, when a gigantic Indian, yelling out the dreaded war-whoop, darted towards him. Isidore sprang between them. With a sweep of his tomahawk the maddened savage sent de Beaujardin's small sword flying into the air. The weapon of the Indian was already uplifted for the deadly stroke when a strange fantastically-dressed figure passed, noiselessly but swiftly, between the two combatants, and then the red skin fell back, the fierce expression of his face changing to one of awe, if not of terror. Then came another rush, in which Isidore received a slight wound, and then by degrees the French regulars succeeded in forcing back the Indians, but, unhappily, not until their purpose had been but too thoroughly effected.

Isidore's wound did not prove serious, and in the course of a fortnight he had nearly recovered from its effects, but he had mentioned it in a letter to his father, and the consequence was an urgent injunction, almost amounting to an order, that he should at once return home. This did not reach him, however, until near the end of October, and it is by no means improbable that he would have made his recovery an excuse for disregarding his father's wishes but for other circumstances. It had become necessary for Madame de Rocheval to visit the old country, and Monsieur de Valricour had resolved to avail himself of that opportunity to send Marguerite to France, in order that she might take up her abode under his roof and find there the home which he had promised to her dying father to provide for her. This may or may not have influenced young Beaujardin; at all events he wrote to his father a letter intimating a dutiful compliance with the order for his return, and after resigning his appointment as aide-de-camp he made his arrangements for his departure. Finding no immediate opportunity of going down from Montreal to Quebec by the St. Lawrence, he resolved to travel on horseback, and, after selecting a steady servant to accompany him, he bade adieu to his old quarters and set out for Quebec.