[J] Bigot’s coterie.—(J. M. L.)
[K] It was reported in Canada, that the ball which killed that great, good and honest man, was not fired by an English musket. But I never credited this.
[L] Arnoux gave me this account of his last moments.—Manuscript Notes.
[M] The place where Montcalm died appears yet shrouded in doubt. It is stated, in Knox’s Journal, that, on being wounded, Montcalm was conveyed to the General Hospital, towards which the French squadrons in retreat had to pass to regain, over the bridge of boats, their camp at Beauport. The General Hospital was also the head-quarters of the wounded—both English and French. It has been supposed that Arnoux’s house, where Montcalm was conveyed, stood in St. Louis street. No where does it appear that Montcalm was conveyed to his own residence on the ramparts (on which now stands the residence of R. H. Wurtele, Esquire). As the city surrendered five days after the great battle, it was likely to be bombarded—and, moreover, one-third of the houses in it had been burnt and destroyed—we do not see why the wounded General should have been conveyed from the battle-field to the Château St. Louis—certainly an exposed situation in the event of a new bombardment; and, moreover, the city itself, after and during the battle, was considered so insecure that the French army, instead of retreating to it for shelter, hurried past the General Hospital, over the bridge, to their camp at Beauport. There is a passage in Lieutenant-Colonel Beatson’s Notes on the Plains of Abraham, which we give:—“The valiant Frenchman (Montcalm), regardless of pain, relaxed not his efforts to rally his broken battalions in their hurried retreat towards the city until he was shot through the loins, when within a few hundred yards of St. Louis Gate.[N] And so invincible was his fortitude that not even the severity of this mortal stroke could abate his gallant spirit or alter his intrepid bearing. Supported by two grenadiers—one at each side of his horse—he re-entered the city; and in reply to some women who, on seeing blood flow from his wounds as he rode down St. Louis street, on his way to the Château, exclaimed: Oh, mon Dieu! mon Dieu! le Marquis est tuê!!! he courteously assured them that he was not seriously hurt, and begged of them not to distress themselves on his account.—Ce n’est rien! ce n’est rien! Ne vous affligez pas pour moi, mes bonnes amies.”[O]
[N] M. Garneau, in his Histoire du Canada, says:—“The two Brigadier-Generals, M. de Semezergues and the Baron de St. Ours, fell mortally wounded; and Montcalm (who had already received two wounds), while exerting himself to the utmost to rally his troops and preserve order in the retreat, was also mortally wounded in the loins by a musket-ball. He was at that moment between Les Buttes-a-Neveu and St. Louis Gate.” From the city, on the one side, and from the battle-field, on the other, the ground rises until the two slopes meet and form a ridge; the summit of which was formerly occupied by a windmill belonging to a man named Neveu or Nepveu. About midway between this ridge and St. Louis Gate, and to the southward of the St. Louis Road, are some slight eminences, still known by the older French residents as Les Buttes-a-Nepveu or Neveu’s hillocks, and about three-quarters of a mile distant from the spot where the British line charged.—R. S. Beatson.
[O] For these particulars I am indebted to my friend Mr. G. B. Faribault—a gentleman well known in Canada for his researches into the history of the Colony; whose information on this subject was derived from his much respected fellow-citizen the Hon. John Malcolm Frazer—grandson of one of Wolfe’s officers, and now (1854) one of the oldest inhabitants of Quebec; where, in his childhood and youth, he had the facts, as above narrated, often described to him by an elderly woman who, when about eighteen years of age, was an eye-witness of the scene.—R. S. Beatson.
[P] This bakehouse appears to have been some where at the foot of Abraham’s hill.
[Q] The excavations of these French works are very visible to this day behind Mr. G. H. Parke’s residence, Ringfield, Charlesbourg road. The hornwork appears to have covered about twelve acres of ground, surrounded by a ditch.
[R] It crossed the St. Charles a little higher up than the Marine Hospital, at the foot of Crown street.—(J. M. L.)
[S] A small bridge supported on masonry has since been built at this spot, exactly across the main road at Brown’s mills.—(J. M. L.)