The ships brought news of grave changes in France. The result of the alliance between Austria and France, concluded on May 1, 1756, had been that France had now become embroiled in a great international war. There had also been an attempt of assassination on the life of Louis XV. But what particularly affected the government of Montreal was the information that the minister of war, d'Argenson, and of marine, de Machault, had been succeeded respectively by M. de Paulmy and M. de Mauras—due to the influence of Madame de Pompadour. These changes were not looked upon with too much favour by those responsible for Canada in the critical period it was now in. To Montcalm the serious loss of his patron, d'Argenson, was somewhat mitigated by the knowledge that M. de Paulmy, the minister succeeding, was d'Argenson's nephew. The change of M. de Machault, with whom Montcalm had had less relations, was less distasteful, as the new minister, de Mauras, was the brother-in-law of Madame Hérault, the protectress of his first aide-de-camp, Bougainville; moreover, there were common ties between the de Hérault family and that of Montcalm.
The vessels from France had lightened the strain of provisioning the army, but the needs of the army and the gatherings at Montreal of a vast number of redskins, attracted by the success at Oswego to take up the axe against the English and share in the campaign, caused Vaudreuil, acting on a suggestion made by Montcalm as early as March, to send Martel, the storekeeper, around the Montreal district to commandeer rations for a month for 12,800 men. On June 22d, more than eight hundred of these wild allies were encamped around Montreal, and 300 more were expected from Détroit. According to the enumeration in Montcalm's journal there were: 400 Ottawans, [201] 100 Poutéouatamies, about four hundred Puants, Sakés, Folles-Avoines and Iowas. The latter had never been seen before at Montreal and their language was unknown.
The streets and public places saw an incessant passing to and fro of dusky braves, armed for the warpath, with lances, bows and arrows, with bodies almost entirely naked, or loosely draped in their beaver or buffalo coverings, vividly painted in red or blue or black, with their heads shaven except for the topknots, in which were stuck the tufts of multicoloured feathers. A great number were of colossal stature; and these copper-coloured giants, fierce in aspect, guttural in speech, and strikingly tattooed, moved around the town, ight to the citizens, and mingled with the French officers and soldiers, whose brilliant European uniforms produced a strange contrast with their barbaric but picturesque accoutrements. Sometimes they would be seen wending their way, with their interpreters, to the Château de Vaudreuil to pay their respects to the governor, whose inexhaustible patience offered no rebuff to their interminable deputations. Now, they would go in a band to carry on their Indian dances before the houses of the chief officials.
Montreal with its bronzed soldiery, who had warred beyond the Rhine, crossed the Alps and braved the suns of Italy, presented in this meeting of two races, two civilizations so widely divergent, a wonderfully moving and dramatic spectacle. But there was a pitiable reverse to this picture. At times when the strong liquors had seized them, their camps became veritable pandemoniums, and revolting scenes were enacted. Already presentiments of horrible extravagances were experienced by the officers from France, such as Bougainville, who wrote of his fierce, drunken and bloodthirsty allies to Madame de Hérault on June 30th: "I will tell you that we count on two sieges and a battle, and your child trembles at the horrors he will be forced to witness. There will be difficulty in restraining the savages from up country, who are the fiercest of men and great cannibals. Listen to what their chiefs said just three days ago to M. de Montcalm, 'My father, do not count upon our giving quarter to the English. We have with us young men, who have not yet drunk of this broth (blood). This fresh flesh has led them hither from the ends of the universe. They have to learn to wield the knife and to plunge it into an English heart.' Such are our companions, ... what a spectacle for a human heart!"
Everything was now ready for the campaign. By the 18th of June Montcalm was with de Lévis at St. John; thence he proceeded to Chambly to inspect the troops, and the military roads, and suitable places for camping. By the end of June the troops were ordered to move, and on July 2d de Lévis went to take command of the troops at Carillon. On July 9th Vaudreuil gave his instructions to General Montcalm. He was to take Fort George (or Fort William Henry) and then, on its fall, he was to go to the siege of Fort Lydius (or Fort Edward), situated fifteen miles from Fort George and from Lake St. Sacrement. That same day Montcalm with Bougainville went to the Lake of Two Mountains to join in the war song with the Algonquins and the Nipissings of the district and he returned to Montreal on July 11th, having received the name of Goroniatsigoa, that is to say, the "Great Sky in Anger." On the 12th, Montcalm departed for Montreal for St. John, which he left on July 15th with the colonial officers, de Rigaud, Dumas, de St. Ours, de Bonne and many others under the escort of the Guyenne grenadiers and a small detachment of Ottawans. Three days afterwards he arrived at Carillon.
Meanwhile Vaudreuil remained at Montreal, directing the war from his cabinet. We cannot follow this campaign in detail, but we may pursue the fortunes of Montcalm somewhat. On July 29th he found himself, with 7,819 men, advancing to Fort William Henry, his force composed of 2,570 land troops; colonials and militia, 3,470; gunners, 180; and Indian allies, 1,599. On August 1st he began the siege of William Henry, held by Colonel Monroe with 2,200 men. On August 9th Colonel Monroe perforce capitulated, having hung out the white flag at 7 a. m. that morning. It was a glorious victory, but marred by the shameful extravagances, feared by Montcalm and the others, of the Indians, who, glutted with victory, broke the capitulation agreement.
This event may be summed up in the account given in Bancroft's "History of the United States," II, p. 467:
"To make the capitulation inviolably binding on the Indians, Montcalm summoned their war chiefs to council. The English were to depart under an escort with the honors of war on a pledge not to serve against the French for eighteen months; they were to abandon all but their private effects; every Canadian or French Indian captive was to be liberated. The Indians applauded; the capitulation was signed. Late on the 9th the French entered the fort and the English retired to their entrenched camp. Montcalm had kept all intoxicating drinks from the savages; but they obtained them of the English, and all night long were wild with dances, songs and revelry. The Abenakis of Acadia inflamed other tribes by recalling their sufferings from English perfidy and power. At daybreak, they gathered round the entrenchments, and as the terrified English soldiers filed off, began to plunder them, and incited one another to use the tomahawk. Twenty, perhaps even thirty, [202] persons were massacred, while very many were made prisoners. Officers and soldiers, stripped of everything, fled to the woods, to the fort, to the tents of the French. To arrest the disorder Lévis plunged into the tumult, daring death a thousand times. French officers received wounds in rescuing the captives, and stood at their tents as sentries over those they recovered. 'Kill me,' cried Montcalm, using prayers and menaces and promises, 'but spare the English who are under my protection,' and he urged the troops to defend themselves. The march to Fort Edward (Fort Lydius) was a flight; not more than six hundred reached there in a body. From the French camp Montcalm collected together more than four hundred, who were dismissed with a great escort, and he sent Vaudreuil [203] to ransom those whom the Indians had carried away."
Bougainville's journal tells how "the savages (those from up country) arrived in a mob at Montreal with about two hundred English. M. de Vaudreuil reprimanded them for having violated the capituion treaty; they excused themselves and threw the blame on the domiciliated tribes settled with the French. It was announced that they must give up the English prisoners unjustly captured and they would be paid two barrels of eau-de-vie apiece for them." Even with this shameful ransom the savages released their prisoners only with reluctance, "for," says Bougainville, "on the 15th, at two o'clock in the afternoon, in the presence of the whole town, they killed one of them, put him into the kettle and forced his unfortunate compatriots to feed on him."
On the same evening, at Lake George, the columns of smoke from the heaps of cinders and the last flickering flames from the dying fires were the only indications of the site where eight days before the bastions of Fort William Henry had stood. The campaign was virtually over and Montcalm returned to Montreal at the beginning of September, a victorious general. But he had not attempted to take Fort Edward or Lydius, much to the chagrin of Vaudreuil. The reasons for this, as given by his aide-de-camp, in a letter to the minister of war on August 18th, seem sufficient. "The extreme difficulty of making a portage of ten leagues without oxen or horses, with an army almost worn out with fatigue and want of food, the lack of ammunition, the necessity of sending the Canadians back to gather in their harvests, already ripe, the departure of all the redskins from the upper countries, as well as nearly all of the more civilized ones nearer home: such are the invincible obstacles which did not permit us to march immediately to Fort Edward." Grave reasons, enough, but they did not satisfy the governor general, who had watched the situation from the comfortable quarters of Government House, eighty leagues from the theatre of war, and he did not hesitate to send his complaints to France, insinuating the inefficiency of Montcalm, his strained relations with the colonial officers and want of consideration for the home forces and unwise treatment of the savages. On the other hand, the letters of Bougainville go to show the extreme popularity of the general with all classes. We cannot enter into a discussion of the rights and wrongs of their bitter controversy; we quote it as a sidelight, illustrating the division in the highest circles of Montreal during this period—the préjugé colonial and the préjugé métropolitain, over again! [204]