CHAPTER XIII.
THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM.
Il est des occasions dans la guerre où le plus brave doit fuir.
Cervantes.
Vae victis! says the wisdom of the nations. Woe to the conquered!—not only because of the ruin which follows defeat, but because the vanquished are always in the wrong. They suffer materially, they suffer in their wounded self-love, they suffer in their reputation as soldiers. Let them have fought one against twenty, let them have performed prodigies of heroism, they are nevertheless and always the vanquished. Even their fellow-countrymen forgive them hardly. History records but their defeat. Here and there they get a word of approval from some writer of their race; but the praise is almost always mixed with reproach. Pen and compass in hand, we fight the battle over again. We teach the generals, whose bodies rest on the well-fought field, how they might have managed affairs much better. Seated in a well-stuffed arm-chair, we proudly demonstrate the skillful manœuvres by which they might have snatched the victory; and bitterly we reproach them with their defeat. They have deserved a more generous treatment. A great general, who has equaled in our own day the exploits of Alexander and of Cæsar, has said: "Who is he that has never made a mistake in battle?" Vae victis!
It was the 13th day of September, 1759, a day accursed in the annals of France. The English army, under General Wolfe, after having eluded the vigilance of the French sentinels and surprised the pickets under cover of the darkness, were discovered at daybreak on the Plains of Abraham, where they were beginning to entrench themselves. Montcalm was either carried away by his chivalrous courage, or he concluded that the work of entrenchment had to be at once interrupted; for he attacked the English with only a portion of his troops, and was defeated, as he might have foreseen, by the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. On this memorable battle field both generals laid down their lives—Wolfe bestowing upon his country a colony half as large as Europe, Montcalm losing to France a vast territory which the King and his improvident ministers knew not how to appreciate.
Woe to the vanquished! Had Montcalm been victorious he would have been lauded to the skies, instead of being heaped with reproaches for not awaiting the re-enforcements which would have come from De Vaudreuil and De Bougainville. We would have praised his tactics in hurling himself upon the enemy before the latter had had time to establish himself. We would have said that a hundred men behind cover were equal to a thousand in the open. We would never have imputed to General Montcalm any jealous and unworthy motives. His shining laurels, gained on so many glorious fields, would have shielded him from any such suspicions.
Vae victis! After the fatal battle of the 13th the city of Quebec was little more than a heap of ruins. Not even the fortifications furnished shelter, for a portion of the ramparts had been shattered to fragments. The magazines were empty of ammunition, and the gunners, rather to conceal their distress than with any hope of injuring the enemy, answered the English batteries only with an occasional cannon-shot. There were no provisions left. Yet they bring the charge of cowardice against the brave garrison which endured so much and defended itself so valiantly. If the governor, a new Nostradamus, had known that the Chevalier de Lévis was bringing succor to the city, and, instead of capitulating, had awaited the arrival of the French troops, it is certain that the garrison would have been lavishly applauded for its courage. To be sure the garrison showed itself most pusillanimous in giving up a city which it was no longer able to defend! To be sure it should rather have put its trust in the humanity of an enemy who had already carried fire and sword through all the peaceful villages, and should have refused to consider the lives of the citizens, the honor of their wives and daughters, exposed to all the horrors of a capture by assault! Assuredly this unhappy garrison was very pusillanimous! Woe to the vanquished!
After the capitulation the English left nothing undone to secure themselves in the possession of a place so important. The walls were rebuilt, new fortifications added, and the batteries immensely strengthened. It was conceivable that the besiegers might become the besieged. This foresight was justified, for in the following spring General Lévis took the offensive with an army of eight thousand men, made up of regulars and militia in about equal numbers.