TICONDEROGA IN 1759
Once more was Montcalm victorious, but it was to bring him bitter trouble with Vaudreuil and those surrounding him at Montreal, since the glory was due to the troops from France. On July 11th, when the English under Abercromby were in full retreat, M. de Rigaud and several colonial officers, with a good number of colonials and savages, arrived at Carillon, to be followed by more than two thousand others, on July 13th.
The object of this manœuvre of Vaudreuil in sending this tardy reinforcement seemed to Montcalm and his officers an excuse for Vaudreuil to complain to the court, that having been reinforced he had not pursued the English, as the previous year he had not taken Fort Lydius, being unwilling to complete the victory and so give glory to the colonial troops. At Montreal feelings ran high and bitter; there were two camps, those who found fault with every action of the royal troops, and those who—the ladies especially—saw in the delay in sending the reinforcement a desire to abandon the poor battalions to the enemy.
At Carillon the colonial troops could not hide their chagrin and jealousy at not having participated more fully in the victory of the 8th of July, nor could the French regulars on their part dissimulate their satisfaction at having won the battle almost without Canadian "colony troops." Again the two hostile prejudices were in evidence and manifested themselves even in the letters of their leaders, Montcalm from Carillon, and Vaudreuil from Montreal, to the minister of war.
This acrimonious rivalry which existed between the higher military officers and the Canadian officers and functionaries, though not so largely shared by the soldiers and common people, who for the most part maintained good relations amongst themselves, is a mark of this unhappy period, and must be mentioned if we are to present a true picture of Montreal as the headquarters of military life of this period.
An epistolary duel was carried on from Montreal and Carillon veiled in the language of courtesy, but none the less bitter. In justification of the uselessness of pursuing the enemy, Montcalm relied on the experience of the men on the spot, while Vaudreuil, seated in his bureau at Montreal, "believed himself in a position at a distance of fifty leagues to determine war operations in a country he has never seen, and where the best generals would be embarrassed even after having seen it."
There are few generals who can so conduct campaigns. Von Moltke was one, Vaudreuil was not another; nor was his secretary.
Montcalm in his letters to the governor saw the hand of an enemy—that of the governor's secretary, Grasset de Saint-Sauveur. [210]
The author of the "Mémoires du Canada (Mémoires et réflections politiques et militaires sur la guerre du Canada depuis 1756 jusqu'à 1760)," says of this secretary: "M. de la Jonquière has placed too much confidence, as he explained himself, in a secretary named Saint-Sauveur. For this man, without honour and without sentiment, has employed all means, licit or illicit, to make his fortune. He asked and obtained from his master the exclusive right to sell eau de vie to the Indians. From that moment he attracted public enmity as well as did his master, who was said to be a half partner in the proceeds of the traffic." At the end of the same "Mémoire," speaking of the functionaries who remained in Canada in 1760 the author writes again: "Saint-Sauveur, the governor's secretary, has remained also. I have had the pleasure of hearing the English governor, Murray, speak in 1759 of this man, saying that he desired this man to fall into his hands; that if France, or rather the French government, had tolerated vice in this man, he wished to correct him; that he was a traitor to his master; that he had abused the confidence given him; that they only saw in him cheating (friponnerie) and illicit trading; that he himself was grieved at the blindness of this general (Vaudreuil). It is doubtful whether this man dare cross over into France. It is an established fact that he is worth more than 1,200,000 livres."