On November 9th he reached Montreal. Then started the work of distributing the troops for winter quarters, many of them being stationed round about the Montreal district. The battalion of La Sarre was stationed on the Ile Jésus, Lachenaie, Terrebonne, Mascouche and l'Assomption; the royal Roussillons at La Prairie, Longueuil, Boucherville, Varennes and Verchères; that of Languedoc, in the governmental district of Three Rivers, from Ste. Anne to Batiscan; that of Guyenne, at Contrecœur, the River Chambly, St. Ours, Sorel; the first battalion of the Berry regiment in the Beaupré district, and the second on the Ile d'Orleans; and that of Béarn at Sault-au-Récollet, Longue Pointe, Pointe aux Trembles, the Rivière des Prairies, St. Sulpice, La Valtrie and Repentigny.
In Montreal Montcalm's first care was to make representations to the governor and the Intendant Bigot, of the insufficient salary of the soldiers and the officers especially, owing to the high cost of living. In his journal Montcalm gives a comparative table of the tariffs of 1758, 1755, and 1743. For example, in 1743 a sheep cost four livres; in 1755, ten; and in 1758, forty. In 1753 a pound of pork cost three sous, ten in 1755, one livre and ten sous in 1758. In 1743 a pound of butter cost five sous; twelve sous in 1755, and forty sous in 1758.
This application brought a supplementary payment of forty-five livres a month to the captains, and thirty to the lieutenants. Yet it must be added that the officers affected much disedifying ostentation and magnificence in their high rate of living, and many abused the facility they had of borrowing money. On November 12th de Bougainville and M. de Doreil, of the commissary department, were sent as representatives to the court to tell of the condition of affairs in Canada. The governor, Vaudreuil, somewhat distrusted these as friends of Montcalm but he had an ally in Péan, who had left as early as August 13th, with warm recommendations. The ostensible purpose of the adjutant major of Quebec was to take the waters at Barèges for the cure of a wounded arm, but M. Doreil, writing to the minister in the same month and warning him that Péan was one of the chief causes of the maladministration of the colony, suggests that he was anxious to clear away with his fortune of 2,000,000, which he had rapidly amassed. "I have not dared to say 4,000,000, although according to public report I could have done so."
The mails to France and the favourable envoys bore Montcalm's urgent demand for peace, peace, peace at any price to meet the contingencies of the hour. Montcalm had no illusions; he foresaw final disaster owing to the weakness of the mother country, worn out by the European war, and to the supremacy of the English force by sea which would effectively cut off all supplies and reinforcements, could they be sent. Yet he did not despair, but prepared to meet the imminent invasion should peace not be declared. His letters to his family reveal a secret presentiment that he might never again see his dear Candiac or Montpellier.
Montcalm remained in Montreal till December 22d. His letters to Bourlamaque show that he spent the time intervening in a very quiet manner, going out little, reading much and finding the days very long. He read with interest the "Dictionnaire Encyclopédique," then in all its novelty and vogue. This vast literary, philosophic and scientific enterprise, which was to have such an effect on French thought, pernicious in its skepticism and anti-religious spirit, had been interdicted in 1752 after the publication of the first two volumes; but on its resumption by 1758 it had already given forth eight volumes. Montcalm wrote to Bourlamaque that he was skipping over the articles he did not wish to know about, and leaving those he could not understand.
Montcalm spent January and February amid the gayeties of Quebec and the pleasant company of the Rue du Parloir, which appealed to him so strongly. His correspondence with his lieutenant gives us an insight into the causes leading to the impending ruin which he foresaw surely stealing onward. He was not happy; he had a presentiment of the brooding catastrophe and foresaw the supreme crisis. Thus he wrote of January 4, 1759: "A ball on Sunday. Peace, or all will go wrong; 1759 will be worse than 1758. Ah! how black I see things!" Another day: "The colony is lost if peace does not come. I see nothing that can save her. Those who govern it have serious cause to reproach themselves. I have none for myself."
Again: "Pleasures at Quebec have been most keenly pursued in spite of the prevailing misery and the approaching loss of the colony. There have never been so many balls, nor such heavy games of chance in spite of the prohibition of last year. The governor general and the intendant have authorized it."
In March, Montcalm was again in the more sober atmosphere of Montreal, preparing military memoirs, and reading, according to his letter to Bourlamaque, in the third volume of the Encyclopedia, "the beautiful articles on Christianity, citation, comedy, comic, college, council, colony, commerce, etc." He was also preparing his letters for France. In a letter dated April 12, 1759, to the minister of war, the Maréchal de Belle-Isle, he threw away all reserve and decided to tell all he saw and knew, thus to expose in its heartbreaking reality the desperate state of the colony, to lay bare the plagues that were gnawing it, the corruption and the depredations which were conspiring with the English invasions to precipitate its downfall. "Except for an unexpected good fortune," he wrote, "of a great diversion into the English colonies by sea, or of great mistakes on the side of the enemy, Canada will be taken this campaign or certainly next.
"The English have sixty thousand men, we at most ten thousand to eleven thousand. Our government has no money. Advance pay and provisions are wanting. In default of these the English will win. The fields are uncultivated. We need cattle. The Canadians are discouraged. There is no confidence in M. de Vaudreuil or in M. Bigot. M. de Vaudreuil is in no position to direct a war campaign. He is inactive; he gives his confidence to experimenters rather than to the general sent from France. M. Bigot appears to be engaged only in making a great fortune for himself, his adherents and hangers-on. Avarice has obtained the master hand. The officers, the government storekeepers and clerks, ... are making astounding fortunes.... The expenses which have been paid at Quebec by the treasurer of the colony reach twenty-four millions; the year before they were only twelve to thirteen millions. This year they will mount up to thirty-six millions. It seems that all are hurrying to make their fortunes before the loss of the colony, which many perhaps desire as an impenetrable veil to hide their bad conduct."
He then enumerates particular instances of glaring acts of "grafting" and illicit trading. For example: "Is it necessary to transport the artillery, gun carriages, wagons and utensils? M. Mercier, who commands the artillery, is the contractor under different names; everything is done badly and dearly; this officer, who came as a simple soldier twenty years ago, will soon become rich to the amount of about six hundred thousand or seven hundred thousand livres, perhaps a million if this lasts. I have often spoken of this to M. de Vaudreuil or to M. Bigot. Each one throws the fault onto his colleague."