“You speak like your ancestor the crusader, Count. But I cannot spare the Royal Roussillon. Think you you can hold Carillon with your present garrison?”
“Against all the force of New England. But I cannot promise the same against the English regulars now landing at New York.”
“They are the same whom the King defeated at Fontenoy, are they not?” interrupted the Intendant, who, courtier as he was, disliked the tenor of the royal despatches as much as any officer present,—all the more as he knew La Pompadour was advising peace out of a woman's considerations rather than upholding the glory of France.
“Among them are many troops who fought us at Fontenoy. I learned the fact from an English prisoner whom our Indians brought in from Fort Lydius,” replied the Count de Lusignan.
“Well, the more of them the merrier,” laughed La Corne St. Luc. “The bigger the prize, the richer they who take it. The treasure-chests of the English will make up for the beggarly packs of the New Englanders. Dried stock fish, and eel-skin garters to drive away the rheumatism, were the usual prizes we got from them down in Acadia!”
“The English of Fontenoy are not such despicable foes,” remarked the Chevalier de Lery; “they sufficed to take Louisbourg, and if we discontinue our walls, will suffice to take Quebec.”
“Louisbourg was not taken by THEM, but fell through the mutiny of the base Swiss!” replied Bigot, touched sharply by any allusion to that fortress where he had figured so discreditably. “The vile hirelings demanded money of their commander when they should have drawn the blood of the enemy!” added he, angrily.
“Satan is bold, but he would blush in the presence of Bigot,” remarked La Corne St. Luc to an Acadian officer seated next him. “Bigot kept the King's treasure, and defrauded the soldiers of their pay: hence the mutiny and the fall of Louisbourg.”
“It is what the whole army knows,” replied the officer. “But hark! the Abbé Piquet is going to speak. It is a new thing to see clergy in a Council of War!”
“No one has a better right to speak here than the Abbé Piquet,” replied La Corne. “No one has sent more Indian allies into the field to fight for New France than the patriotic Abbé.”