“Then, madame,” said M. de Montcalm, turning to me, “if you are to stay with us you must renounce your retirement, and give us your support in our little society. We are too few to spare any possible addition to it, the more so that if peace be not proclaimed before spring everything is likely to come to an end, so far as we are concerned.”
“Mon Dieu, Marquis! Do not speak so lightly of disaster,” interrupted Mme. de Sarennes, severely.
“Ma foi, madame! What is the use of shutting our eyes to the inevitable? We are hemmed in right and left, and the next move will be directed on us here. It needs no prophet to foretell that.”
“But is there not Carillon?”
“There is also the river.”
“They can never come up the river! See what befell them before! I remember well how their fleet was destroyed under their Admiral Walker.”
“Nothing happens but the impossible, madame; and we are no longer in an age that hopes for miracles.”
“Monsieur, it pains me to hear you speak thus. God is not less powerful now than He was fifty years ago.”
“I sincerely trust not, madame; but his Majesty will hardly acquit me if I rely on a chance tempest or a difficult channel. It is only the question of a pilot.”
“And think you, monsieur, a Canadian would ever consent to pilot an enemy up our river?”