Some twenty years later, in the summer of 1711, the people of Quebec again had cause to rejoice in a great deliverance. A mighty English armament, out-numbering by more than three times those who could be gathered to defend the city, was in the St. Lawrence, when a great storm arose, dashing to pieces eight or ten vessels on the rocks of the Egg Islands and drowning nine hundred men. Upon this the incompetent leaders of the expedition, Hill and Walker, turned homeward in dismay. Again Te Deums resounded in Quebec, and in memory of this second notable deliverance the little church was called “Notre Dame des Victoires.”
Nearly half a century later, the building was sorely damaged by the English guns, but its upper portions were afterwards rebuilt “on the old walls,” and to-day in its quiet little nook, just aside from the bustle of Champlain Market, it still stands a quaint memorial of those ancient victories and of a world now passed away.
Old Church St. Anne de Beaupré.
HIPS’ siege of Quebec, with its awkward ship’s carpenter turned admiral, its Indian-mimicking French Governor, its noisy, ineffective bombardment, has more than a touch of comedy; but the drama in which Montcalm and Wolfe dispute the role of hero and contend for a prize of a value guessed at only by the statesmen seers of the time, never sinks beneath the dignity of tragedy.
Both the combatants were valiant, honorable, high-minded, and lovable. Both had already won laurels in battle. Each moved forward to the grand catastrophe by a path beset with difficulty and danger. Each gave his life for his cause and his country, and together they will live forever in the memory of the two peoples whom their great fight on the Plains of Abraham made one.
Montcalm, like Wolfe, had been a soldier from boyhood, gaining a varied experience in the European wars. Again in this resembling his rival, he was no mere soldier delighting in nothing but the clash of swords. He had some love of learning and taste for literature, and a heart that was very tender towards home and friends. Richer than Wolfe in one respect, he had a well-beloved wife and children, besides the mother to whom he wrote much the same kind of letters as the English hero sent to his mother at Greenwich.