"And then?" exclaimed Uncle Raoul.
"Then, whatever you like, my dear chevalier," answered the curé; "but it must be acknowledged that we have hardly forces enough at our command to long resist our powerful neighbors."
"My dear abbé," exclaimed Uncle Raoul, "I think that in your reading this morning you must have stumbled on a chapter of the lamentations of Jeremiah."
"I might turn your weapon against yourself," retorted the priest, "by reminding you that those prophecies were fulfilled."
"No matter," almost shouted Uncle Raoul, clinching his teeth. "The English, indeed! The English take Canada! By heaven, I would undertake to defend Quebec with my crutch. You forget, it seems, that we have always beaten the English; that we have beaten them against all odds—five to one—ten to one—sometimes twenty to one! The English, indeed!"
"Concedo," said the curé; "I am ready to grant all you claim, and more too if you like. But mark this. We grow weaker and weaker with every victory, while the enemy, thanks to the foresight of England, rises with new strength from each defeat; meanwhile, France leaves us to our own resources."
"Which shows," exclaimed Captain D'Haberville, "the faith our King reposes in our courage."
"Meanwhile," interposed M. d'Egmont, "he sends us so few soldiers that the colony grows weaker day by day."
"Give us but plenty of powder and lead," answered the captain, "and a hundred of my militia will do more in such a war as that which is coming upon us—a war of reconnoitrings, ambuscades, and surprises—than would five hundred of the best soldiers of France. I speak from experience. For all that, however, we stand in great need of help from the mother country. Would that a few of those battalions which our beloved monarch pours into the north of Europe to fight the battles of Austria, might be devoted to the defense of the colony."
"You might rather wish," said "the good gentleman," "that Louis XV had left Maria Theresa to fight it out with Prussia, and had paid a little more attention to New France."