The joyful colony met in the churches to celebrate the victory. In the parish church of Montreal, three days after Montcalm's return, an imposing ceremony occurred at which the solemn Te Deum was sung and M. de Bourlamaque and M. de Rigaud, in the name of the governor general, publicly presented the conquered English flags to the Abbé de Tonnancour, a member of the diocesan chapter. Outside the church the public joy was made manifest by many effusions of the Canadian muse. One set of song verses from an anonymous Pindar, addressed to the governor general, comes down to us, beginning:
Nous célebrons du grand Vaudreuil
La sagesse et la gloire
Toute l'Angleterre est en deuil
Au bruit de sa victoire.
The bishop of Quebec, Monseigneur de Pontbriand, published a mandement, of thanksgiving, full of patriotic enthusiasm and appreciation of Vaudreuil, and calling the taking of Oswego the "action, the most memorable that has taken place since the founding of the colony, ... it is the more astonishing since we have had only three of our men killed and ten to twelve wounded. The Canadians, the troops from France and the colonial forces, even the savages, have signalized by their mutual emulation their zeal for the fatherland and the service of his majesty."
Not all were entirely pleased with this mandement, for there were allusions to "timid spirits," which Montcalm and his chief officers took to refer to themselves for their previous doubts on the hazardous possibility of capturing Fort Chouaguen, for they knew the prevalent opinion, held by the Canadians, that the French troops, because unaccustomed, did not understand guerrilla warfare, in which, however, the colonial troops had become very expert. Vaudreuil was triumphant, success justified him. In his dispatches to the minister he has no praise for Montcalm, whom he represents as timorous, vacillating, and indisposed to undertake the siege. On the other hand, the Canadian officers, Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil, his brother, and the Chevalier de Mercier, were accredited with being the moving and dominant spirits. Family pride manifests itself frequently in such expressions, as "my brother" did this, "my brother" did that, while his own egotism finds play in similar uses of the first person, varied by "My brother and I."
Montcalm's private judgment of these was written on August 17th from Oswego to de Lévis at Carillon: "Do you remember that Mercier is an ignoramus and a weak man ... all the rest are not worth the trouble of speaking about, even my first lieutenant general, Rigaud." Of the Canadian militia he wrote this appreciation to d'Argenson, the minister of war, "I have employed them usefully but not at works exposed to the fire of the enemy. They know neither discipline nor subordination; j'en ferais dans six mois des grenadiers, et, actuellement, je me garderais bien d'y faire autant de cas que le malheureux Monsieur Dieskau y en a fait, pour avoir trop écouté les propos avantageux des Canadiens, qui se croient, sur tous les points, la première nation du monde."
Once more in the above conflict we see the presence of the préjugé colonial and the préjugé métropolitain again in evidence. It existed between the two protagonists of the period, Vaudreuil and Montcalm, and it was there with the officers and rank and file of both parties. Five months of acquaintance had formed for Vaudreuil a profound aversion to Montcalm, while the latter judged the former a mediocre and vain man, suspected his sincerity, thought him a double dealer, a victim to favoritism, and conceived an antipathy which unhappily daily increased.
After the fall of Oswego, Montcalm visited St. Jean and Carillon, and as it became evident by the end of October that the campaign was finished for the year, the troops were disposed for winter quarters, the regiment of La Sarre being placed at Pointe aux Trembles, Longue Pointe, Rivière des Prairies, Lachine and Pointe Claire; that of Béarn at Boucherville, Longueuil and La Prairie, and the Languedoc Regiment at Montreal itself. The other regiments from France were placed at Quebec, Chambly, St. Charles and St. Antoine, along the Richelieu river. Three Rivers had no French troops.
Montcalm spent the winter in Montreal, with the exception of a trip to Quebec in January, for a month. On November 24th his letter to Bourlamaque from Montreal gives an indication of a time of leisure, for amusement. "M. le Chevalier (de Lévis) passes the time socially at Madame de Pénisseault's house. He has been to a great supper party at M. Martel's. As for myself I play at backgammon, or I have a hand at whist with my general, Madame Varin occasionally, or Madame d'Eschambault." From the end of November to the end of December the audiences with visiting delegations of Indians occupied the attention of Vaudreuil and the military authorities. Montcalm spent the New Year's day alone but on January 3d he joined Vaudreuil and de Lévis at Quebec, whither they had gone on December 31st. His object was to visit the troops garrisoned there under Bourlamaque. The presence of the distinguished visitors in Quebec gave rise to a series of brilliant receptions and balls in an already brilliant season, at which the Intendant Bigot surpassed even himself by his splendour. The fashionable gayety of the capital, then numbering about twelve hundred souls, at this period of peril, is saddening, being only equalled by the venality and corruption abounding. Montcalm reports, "Quebec has appeared to me as a town of very high tone; I do not believe that in France there are a dozen surpassing Quebec in society." He had to note that excessive gaming was the order of the day. The Intendant Bigot indulged his taste in it and Vaudreuil also complacently permitted the extravagances, although many of the officers were ruined by them.
During his stay in Quebec, Montcalm carried out the policy, so energetically inaugurated by Talon, of inducing the soldiery to marry with the view of settling down. But he did not approve so much of the marriages of his officers, for he feared that they would make mediocre marriages, as some indeed did, with the rashness of youth. Montcalm enjoyed his stay in Quebec; its gayeties appealed to him more than those of Montreal, whither he returned shortly.
During the months of February, March and April, Vaudreuil organized from Montreal one of those winter war parties at which the Canadians were past masters. Having received news at Three Rivers, where he was ill from pleurisy, that there had been a brush between an English and a French party at Carillon, he conceived the project of sending a war party to try a coup de main against Fort William Henry, at the head of Lake St. Sacrement (Lake George). This enterprise, directed from Montreal, resulted in an appreciable success, in that it broke down the preparations of the English in that part, for a campaign against the French.