“Monsieur, it is quite impossible for us to allow you to carry such a plan into execution. If you are barbarous enough to even dream of shutting this poor child up in a convent, give her time at least first to live and to enjoy her youth. New France is not like old France: we are not over-burdened with young maidens here; indeed, they are greatly in request!”
The speaker, Madame Péan, was a very beautiful woman, a Canadian by birth, who had married a French officer, Major Péan, and because of her beauty was the acknowledged leader of fashion in Quebec. All the world bowed down before her, from the Governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, to the ugly hunchback Maurier, the ally of the two men, Bigot and Varin, who for some time past had been growing rich on the misery of Canada.
Immediately upon his arrival at Quebec Montcalm had been introduced to Madame Péan, and was astonished to find there a salon which might have rivalled any at Versailles. “The ladies are graceful and elegant,” he wrote to his wife, “and by no means behind the fashion.” Having heard that Mercèdes had accompanied her father, Madame Péan took the first opportunity which offered to ask the General if he would bring his daughter to one of her receptions, to which request he replied by saying that Mercèdes would not go into society, that when he left Quebec for his first campaign, which would be in the course of the next fortnight, she would enter the Convent of the Ursulines.
“She came over with me,” he said, “that I might have the consolation of seeing her from time to time during my exile, and as her vocation was a religious life it mattered little whether she followed it in the new or the old country.”
It was this speech which had called forth Madame Péan’s somewhat indignant protest.
“But, Madame,” answered the General, “my daughter is very young, and is only accompanied by her nurse. I cannot look after her. I shall not even have an establishment in Quebec; my duties will call me here, there, and everywhere. I shall live with my soldiers. What would you have me do with a young girl under such circumstances?”
Madame Péan laughed, such a pleasant, easy laugh, and, seating herself, signed the General to take a place on the sofa beside her.
“Certainly those are difficulties,” she said, “but by no means insurmountable. Tell me honestly, General, would you have any objection to a rich husband for your daughter, if one could be found?”
“I have never thought of such a thing. Mercèdes has always been our little nun,” he answered.
“But would you object?” she persisted.