[231] "La famille de Montcalm joint ordinairement à son nom celui de Gozon, sons lequel elle s'illustra au quatorzième siècle; le grand-maître de l'ordre de St. Jean de Jérusalem, qui obtint cette dignité pour avoir délivré l'ile de Rhodes d'un dragon qui la ravageoit. Les grans bois de la terre de Gozon, vendu domainalement, portent encore le nom de dragonnières, d'après la tradition que c'est là que le chevalier Dieu Donnè exerçoit ses chiens à la poursuite d'un dragon artificiel avant d'attaquer celui que désoloit l'ile de Gozon. La même tradition de la famille Montcalm a conservé le nom du fidèle domestique qui accompagna ce héros; il se nomma Roustan. On grava sur son tombeau cette courte inscription, 'Draconia Extinctor.' Plusieurs critiques ont cherché a jeter des doutes sur le combat de Gozon. On peut voir dans le Dictionnaire de Chaufepié, les raisons qu'on leur oppose, tirées de l'existence de serpents monstreux, prouvée par l'accord des historiens anciens, et par les récits des voyageurs, comme par le témoignage des monuments contemporains, des Chroniques de l'Ordre de Malte, et enfin d'une tapisserie sur laquelle est représenté le mémorable combat de Gozon."—Biographie Universelle, art. Gozon.
[232] "Le frère aîné de Montcalm, Jean Louis Pierre Elizabeth de Montcalm de Candiac, étoit un enfant célébre, qui attira l'attention et les hommages des savants à Nîmes, à Montpellier, à Grenoble, à Lyons, à Paris. Sa vie n'eut que sept ans de durée, et cependant outre sa langue maternelle qu'il connoissait par principes, il avoit des notions assez avancées de Latin, de Grec, et d'Hébreu, il possédoit toute l'arithmétique, savoit la fable, le blason, la géographie et plusieurs parties importantes de l'histoire sacrée et profane, ancienne et moderne. Il étoit l'élève de Dumas aussi bien que son frère; sa mort fut causée par une hydropisie de cerveau."—Biographie Universelle, art. Candiac.
[233] "Le Comte de Belleisle avoit la promesse du bâton de Maréchal de France s'il réussissait de pénétrer dans le cœur du Piémont avec l'armée du Dauphiné. Le 19 Juillet, 1746, à la pointe du jour, il commença l'attaque mémorable et sanglante, où tous les prodiges de la valeur Française furent vains. Quatorze bataillons Piémontais défendaient le col de l'Assiette qui couvroit, à la fois, Exilles et Fenestrelles. Désespéré du mauvais succés d'une attaque désapprouvée par les généraux les plus expérimentés, le Comte de Belleisle se mit à la tête des officiers de l'armée, dont il forma une colonne, et qui, presque tous, vinrent se faire tuer au pied des retranchemens. Blessé aux deux mains, Belleisle tachoit d'arracher les palisades avec les dents, lorsque il reçut un coup mortel. Les François repoussés et sans chef firent leur retraite sur Briançon."—Biographie Universelle, art. Belleisle.
[234] Jean Pierre de Bougainville was Secretary to the French Academy of Inscriptions. He died in 1763, at the age of forty-one, of asthma, brought on by intense application. His brother, Louis Antoine, the celebrated circumnavigator, who had been Montcalm's aide-de-camp, retired from the service in 1790. He was afterward made a count and a senator by Bonaparte, became member of the National Institute, and of the Royal Society of London. He died at Paris in 1811, at the age of eighty-two.
Memoir of General Wolfe.
James Wolfe was the second son of Colonel Edward Wolfe, who was afterward colonel of the 8th Regiment, and died on the 27th of March, 1759, but a short time before the death of his gallant son. Colonel Wolfe had served and won honorable estimation, under Marlborough in early life; on his return from the continental wars he married Miss Harriett Thompson, sister to the then member of Parliament for York. The inhabitants of that city made a vigorous effort to appropriate the honor of James Wolfe having been born among them, and a controversy in prose and verse, neither of them of a very brilliant description, was long carried on in the periodicals of the day, between the capital of the North and the quiet village of Westerham. Whatever the merits of the writers upon either side may have been, and their power of wit and argument, there were a few lines in the parish register of the Kentish hamlet which proved more convincing than any thing else; James, son of Colonel Edward Wolfe, was baptized on January 11th, 1727. On a tablet erected to his memory in Westerham Church, it is stated that he was born on the 2nd of January, 1727.
The vicarage house of the village was the place of Wolfe's birth, then leased to his father by the Reverend George Lewis, the vicar, whose son was vicar when Wolfe died, and wrote the inscription for his monument. The elder brother of this gallant general died young; he himself was sent to a respectable private school in the neighborhood, where, although an ardent and clever boy, he was not distinguished for any very remarkable characteristics.
When only fourteen years of age he embarked with his father, who was engaged in the expedition to Flanders under Lord Cathcart; the youth, however, who was then and always of a very delicate constitution, fell ill, and was under the necessity of being landed at Portsmouth. After a little time, his health being somewhat re-established, he joined his father on the Continent, and at once began to read the lessons of military art in the stern school of reality.
On the 3rd of November, 1741, Colonel Wolfe caused his youthful son to be appointed to a commission in a battalion of marines which he himself commanded. On the 27th of March, 1742, James Wolfe removed into the 12th Regiment as ensign, and fought at the battle of Dettingen in that same year. In April he appears to have been on leave, traveling probably for health; in this month he writes to his mother, dating Rome, a grateful and affectionate letter. On the 14th of July, 1743, he was promoted to a lieutenancy in the same regiment, while serving with the allies behind the Scheldt, and in 1744 was engaged under Wade in his inglorious operations; in that year he was given a company in the 4th Regiment; in the following, he fought under the Duke of Cumberland in the fatal but glorious battle of Fontenoy. Up to this time Wolfe had been with his regiment in every engagement in which it had taken part, and had already gained greater distinction than can usually fall to the lot of those in the junior ranks of the army. In 1746 he fought under Hawley in the front line at the disgraceful rout at Falkirk, and his conduct, even in that unfortunate occasion, called forth the praise of his superiors. In the same year his services were transferred to a service more worthy of his future fame than the obscure and painful struggles of a civil war; he served and gained new approbation under the gallant Ligonier at Liers.