Old Quebec, the city of Champlain

IV. The Plains of Abraham

PHIPS’ siege of Quebec, with its awkward ship’s carpenter turned admiral, its Indian-mimicking French Governor, its noisy, ineffective bombardment, has more than a touch of comedy; but the drama in which Montcalm and Wolfe dispute the role of hero and contend for a prize of a value guessed at only by the statesmen seers of the time, never sinks beneath the dignity of tragedy.

Both the combatants were valiant, honorable, high-minded, and lovable. Both had already won laurels in battle. Each moved forward to the grand catastrophe by a path beset with difficulty and danger. Each gave his life for his cause and his country, and together they will live forever in the memory of the two peoples whom their great fight on the Plains of Abraham made one.

Montcalm, like Wolfe, had been a soldier from boyhood, gaining a varied experience in the European wars. Again in this resembling his rival, he was no mere soldier delighting in nothing but the clash of swords. He had some love of learning and taste for literature, and a heart that was very tender towards home and friends. Richer than Wolfe in one respect, he had a well-beloved wife and children, besides the mother to whom he wrote much the same kind of letters as the English hero sent to his mother at Greenwich.

Montcalm, nearly fifteen years older than his future antagonist, received his baptism of fire almost before Wolfe was out of his cradle. His experience of American warfare began two full years before his rival made his first painful passage of the Atlantic, and, on the July day when the young English brigadier was throwing up the redoubts which were to silence the batteries of Louisbourg, Montcalm, at Ticonderoga, hundreds of miles away, was flinging back from his bristling abatis of tree-tops a British force nearly four times the strength of his own.

Both men received their meed of honor and promotion. Whilst Montcalm was informed that “the king trusted everything to his zeal and generalship,” Wolfe was given a new opportunity to win distinction in the command of an expedition against Quebec.

In his brief winter’s sojourn in his native land, Wolfe had spent some weeks at Bath, trying to recuperate his shattered health, and in that fashionable resort of invalids and hypochondriacs had made the acquaintance of a beautiful girl, Katherine Lowther, who soon consented to betroth herself to the gaunt, odd-looking young hero of Louisbourg.

Montcalm, meanwhile, though a great man in the gay little society of Quebec, was passing his time unpleasantly enough. Far from home, tortured by anxiety, and hampered by the jealousy of the Governor de Vaudreuil and the shameless corruption of the Intendant Bigot and his accomplices, the general declared that only a miracle could save the colony. The people, who had been cheated, robbed, and oppressed for years, were at the point of starvation, and were losing heart. Yet, when news came in May that Wolfe had sailed to attack Quebec, seigneurs and habitants alike rallied bravely to the call of their leaders, and men and boys, red warriors and white, came pouring into the city.

Soon the army of defence numbered 16,000 men, most of whom Montcalm posted in a long-extended camp, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, touching the St. Charles on the right and the Montmorency on the left. Taking up his quarters at Beauport, he set his men to erect batteries and throw up earthworks on the steep ridge that runs for miles along the river.

As for the city itself—its fortifications were garrisoned by between one and two thousand men, guns were mounted on the walls, and the gates were shut and barricaded, except Palace Gate, from which a road led to the camp at Beauport across a bridge of boats girdling the St. Charles. That river was defended by a great boom of logs, whilst floating batteries, gunboats, and fire-ships were prepared for the protection of the harbor.

Then when all was done came a lull of horrible suspense, and the impatient “habitants” grew weary of waiting behind the entrenchments. But some, with hopeful memories of “Notre Dame des Victoires” and the miracles of their grandsires’ days, pleased themselves with the fancy that wind and wave must again be doing their grim work on the foe.

Not so. The English fleet, of twenty-two ships of the line and a great number of smaller vessels, was close at hand. It was under the command of the gallant Admiral Saunders, without whose cordial co-operation Wolfe could never have conquered Quebec, and it had on board nearly nine thousand seasoned troops, in addition to the seamen.

With the unwilling aid of French pilots, entrapped by stratagem, the vessels passed the perilous “traverse” at Cap Tourmente, and from that time the citizens of Quebec had no lack of excitement. The landing of the British on the Island of Orleans, the abortive attempt of the French to destroy the enemy’s fleet with their fire-ships, the erection of English batteries on Point Lévis and on the island, the encampment of the British below the Falls of Montmorency, the beginning of the bombardment, the passing of the invaders’ ships above the batteries of the city, all this kept the people of Quebec in a state of feverish expectancy. But Montcalm was not to be tempted nor provoked to descend for one moment from his inaccessible position.

At last Wolfe tried to force a battle. He landed a body of troops on a little beach about a mile above the Falls, and prepared to attack the French in their camp. But the men first on shore were too eager. Without waiting for orders or for their comrades, who were crossing to their assistance by a ford below the Falls, they tried to rush the heights where Montcalm’s army was gathered in force, and were beaten back with heavy loss.

For weeks after this battle there was a grim game of patience between the two skilled leaders. Unmoved by reverses on Lake Champlain which obliged him to send troops to Montreal, by the wasting of the parishes above and below Quebec, by threatened famine, present desolation, and the murmurs of his habitants, who were eager to escape from the army to gather in their harvests, Montcalm remained upon his heights, waiting for time and bad weather to rid the country of the foe.

But he had to do with a man whose stock of endurance matched his own. Disease weakened the English forces and came near robbing them of their head; but Wolfe’s work was not yet done, and on his bed of pain he still bent every power of mind and body to the accomplishment of his task.

If Montcalm could not be made to fight below the town, was it impossible to force a battle on the plains above Quebec? Impossible is not a word that heroes love; much is possible that at the first blush seems foolhardiness. Wolfe’s rugged pathway to battle and victory, death and immortal fame, was there, waiting his need, and in due time he discerned it.

Meanwhile there had begun mighty preparation in fleet and army for some last attempt on Quebec. There was movement of ships and bustle of men, re-disposition of forces, a noisy bombardment of the Beauport camp—the object of all concealed even from most of the British officers, lest some enlightening rumor should reach the ears of Montcalm.

On the night of September 12th, Wolfe made his last reconnaissance, and, haunted, it may be, by presentiments of his swiftly approaching death, repeated to his attendant officers some verses of Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard,” an incident that has seemed the more worthy of note because the young general’s own path of glory led so speedily to the grave.

Wolfe well knew the desperate nature of his plan. From the opposite shore he had seen the white tents of the troops who were on guard above the Anse-au-Foulon, where he proposed to land; and he did not know that the post was commanded by the heedless coward Vergor, who had only escaped well-merited disgrace by the interposition of Bigot and Vaudreuil.

When, an hour before sunrise on the fateful morning of September 13th, Wolfe led his forlorn hope to the spot where the ascent was to be made, he did not guess that the guards above slept at their post; and his heart was heavy with misgivings.

The little path had been rendered impassable by obstructions, and the men had to clamber up the face of the rugged cliff, tree-covered then as it is to-day, whilst, below, the general waited in agonizing suspense till a ringing cheer told him that the guard was overpowered. Then the rough track was cleared, and, before day dawned grey and cloudy over the fortress, Wolfe’s little army of four thousand men (sadly small for the work in hand) had gained the top of the cliff, where now lies a sweet old-fashioned garden spread to the sun.

But Wolfe chose his battle-ground nearer the town, on the world-famous Plains of Abraham. There he drew up his men “in the first of all thin red lines”; there the French, forced to fight at last, made their gallant charge; there “fell Wolfe victorious”; there noble Montcalm received his mortal wound; and there was sounded the death-knell of the dominion of France in North America. But “the dramatic ending of the old order blessed the birth of the new.” It has been well said that “in a sense, which it is easier to feel than to express—two rival races, under two rival leaders, unconsciously joined hands on the Plains of Abraham.”

Not yet, however, would all the French admit that their cause was irretrievably lost. Though Montcalm lay under the Ursuline Chapel, in “his soldier’s grave dug for him, while yet alive, by the bursting of a shell”; though Governor de Vaudreuil had fled and Quebec had opened her gates to the foe, the gallant De Lévis had no thought of acquiescing in the passing of New France.

Gathering ten thousand men at Montreal, he marched in the spring upon Quebec. The English general, Murray, came out, with a far inferior force, to meet him, and again French and English locked in desperate strife on the plateau behind the city. A tall shaft, surmounted by a statue of Bellona, on the Ste. Foy road, marks the battlefield where the French won their last victory in a lost cause.

The English had to retreat within their walls, but Murray, calling even on the sick and maimed for such aid as they could give, gallantly defended his crumbling battlements till a fleet from England came to his relief.

In his turn, De Lévis was forced to retreat, and, though the war smouldered on for a few months longer, the situation was hopeless for the French, and just before the anniversary of Wolfe’s great victory, their leaders signed the capitulation of Canada.

V. The Fifth Siege of Quebec

IN November, 1775, when the British flag had waved for sixteen years over Quebec, there marched into the village of Point Lévis a little army of gaunt half-starved, wayworn men, who for forty days had been pushing their way through the hungry wilderness from the settlements of Maine. On this terrible march the weaklings of their force had fallen or turned back, and those who reached the St. Lawrence (but two-thirds of the original eleven hundred) had proved their fitness for hard service by grim, dogged endurance to the very point of death.

At their head was a strong, dark-skinned, black-browed man, full of daring and energy—Benedict Arnold—ex-druggist, horse-trader, smuggler, future traitor, but at that moment, and for several years to come, one of the ablest and most inspiring officers in the recently formed army of the United Colonies.

He and his few hundred bush-rangers and Indian-fighters had come on a mighty errand. Without stores, artillery, or ships, Arnold proposed to do again Wolfe’s work and conquer Quebec.

True, times had changed since Wolfe’s day. That general’s friend and subordinate, Sir Guy Carleton, who proved himself great alike in war and peace, was now in command. But, when Arnold reached the St. Lawrence, Carleton was absent in Montreal, whence came rumors of his discomfiture and capture, and there was but a feeble garrison of eighteen hundred men to defend the city. There was now no army encamped outside the walls to dispute the landing of the foe; the inhabitants of the country around were indifferent, if not hostile, to the English, and Colonel MacLean, Carleton’s second-in-command, found the situation disheartening.

Arnold, trusting much to the friendship of the French, had proposed to take the city by surprise; but the St. Lawrence flowed deep and wide between him and his intended prey, and on the first rumor of his approach the English had taken the precaution of removing every possible means of transport out of the invaders’ reach. Not a bateau, not a canoe was to be had, and the eager Arnold had to send twenty miles inland for canoes before he could get within striking distance of Quebec.

At last, on the evening of November 13th, he embarked five hundred of his men, leaving a hundred and fifty at Point Lévis, and stole in the darkness across the river to Wolfe’s Cove. Unopposed, he climbed the heights, and before daybreak drew up his little army on the Plains of Abraham; then, with characteristic audacity, he marched almost up to the St. Louis Gate, and, with loud cheers, challenged the enemy to sally forth. They refused to give him battle, however, and scorned his summons to surrender, so he retreated some twenty miles up the river to Point aux Trembles, there to await the arrival of reinforcements under General Montgomery—an Irishman of good family who had held a commission in the British army before taking up arms for the seceding Colonies. Entering Canada by way of Lake Champlain, he had captured the Forts of St. John’s and Chambly, and had received the submission of Montreal. Thus the whole country save Quebec was at his feet.

But General Carleton had not submitted, and while Quebec held out for England he did not despair of saving the country. On the approach of the enemy he had left Montreal, which he judged indefensible, and had hastened down the river in a birch-bark canoe. He had slipped past some American vessels under cover of darkness; and Arnold, before he left the neighborhood of Quebec, had the mortification of hearing the great guns of the citadel thundering a welcome to the resolute Governor. Carleton’s arrival put new heart into the garrison, and he began instantly to take measures for a vigorous defence.

It was early in December when Montgomery reached Point aux Trembles with clothing, stores and a few hundred ill-disciplined troops, most of whom were counting the days till the term of their enlistment ended with the close of the year.

Joined by a few Canadians, the little American army now returned to invest Quebec. Again the garrison was summoned to surrender. Again the demand was treated with contempt. In fact Carleton refused to “hold any parley with rebels”; but the American leaders hoped soon to humble his pride. Throwing up batteries of ice and snow, they began to bombard the walls; but their guns were too light to make any impression on the masonry, and the besieged kept vigilant guard against surprise. On moonless nights they lighted the great ditch surrounding their ramparts by lanterns hung on poles from the bastions, and thus not even a dog could approach unobserved.

Discouraged by ill-success and weakened by smallpox, the American army appeared to be in danger of melting away, but the two leaders resolved to try to capture Quebec by one bold stroke before more of the discontented troops left them.

Their plan was a complicated one. Montgomery was to advance along a narrow road skirting the base of Cape Diamond, while Arnold, from the suburb of St. Roch, already in possession of the Americans, was to enter the Lower Town from the opposite side, meet Montgomery’s division at the foot of Mountain Street, and join in an attempt to force the barrier (where later was erected the Prescott Gate) which guarded the approach to the Upper Town. Meanwhile, to distract the attention of the besieged, a feint was to be made against St. John’s Gate.

The time fixed for the attempt was the early hours of the thirty-first day of December. The weather was wild and blustering, promising that the planned surprise would be complete, and two hours after midnight Montgomery marched his troops down to Wolfe’s Cove, and thence along the narrow drifted path below the cliff, now known as Champlain Street.

That they might know each other in the darkness, his soldiers wore in their caps slips of white paper, on which they had written as a watchword, “Liberty or death!” Through the blinding snow they pressed on till they reached a barrier of palisades below the precipitous rock now crowned by the Citadel. Forcing this, they rushed forward, with their intrepid leader at their head, to capture a battery directly in their path. They had almost reached it, when the guns suddenly blazed forth a deadly storm of grapeshot. Montgomery fell dead, with several of his followers, and the rest broke and fled precipitately along the narrow path swept by the cannon, leaving behind them their dead and dying in the snow.

Arnold, meanwhile, at the head of his column, was pressing towards the rendezvous, though when he passed Palace Gate he knew that the attack would be no surprise, for bells were ringing and drums beating the call to arms. In single file, with bent heads, and guns covered with their coats, the Americans dashed forward, stormed the first barrier at the corner of Sault-au-Matelot Street, and captured its defenders. But Arnold was severely wounded in the leg by a musket-ball, and had to drag himself back to the General Hospital, whilst his men made a gallant attempt to seize the second barrier also.

In this they failed. Many lost their lives or their liberty, and the remainder fled. Later in the day the British sallied out and set fire to the suburb of St. Roch, which had so long given shelter to the rebels. Amongst the buildings consumed was the Intendant’s Palace, where Bigot, not many years earlier, had dazzled with his shameless luxury the wretched people he was defrauding.

Again there was rejoicing in old Quebec; but Arnold, beaten, wounded, short of supplies as he was, kept up the blockade of the city till spring. Then Carleton received reinforcements from England, and sallying out of his fortifications swept the foe before him up the St. Lawrence. Thus Quebec was saved to the Empire, and with it was saved the possibility of the second British “Dominion” in North America.

Since that time—though the old city has often rung with the stir of warlike preparations—though her steep streets have echoed to the tread of regiments coming and going—though the Basin has given anchorage to privateers and their prizes—though the wharves have witnessed the struggles of many a luckless fisherlad or townsman in the clutches of the press-gang—no hostile army has ever threatened the safety of the “Queen of the North.” Even during the fierce strife of the War of 1812, thanks to the valor of the descendants of those who at the side of Montcalm so long withstood Wolfe and his disciplined veterans, the invading army came no nearer to Quebec than the field of Chateauguay, where the valiant De Salaberry and his Voltigeurs earned the undying gratitude of all lovers of their country.

VI. In Days of Peace

GLANCING back over the pages of this brief sketch, it might seem that the memories connected with Quebec were all of war. The names of many soldier-heroes glorify the story of this City of Five Sieges, and even to-day the ancient stronghold makes a brave show, like a mediæval warrior, of being armed cap-à-pie.

The first glimpse of Quebec, whether from the River, Point Lévis, or Beauport, shows grey bastions and battlements above all other buildings, and it will be strange if further knowledge of the place does not remind you more and more of the warlike times gone by. The very notices in the shop-windows—bilingual and giving to the beginner in the Gallic tongue of our compatriots a pleasing sense of walking in the pages of a dictionary—are a reminder of the long struggle between French and English for the domination of this continent. The driver of your calèche (if you elect to make your first tour of the city in that quaint modern imitation of a quainter prototype) will take care that you miss nothing of the military flavor of the place.

He will tell you the story of “Notre Dame des Victoires”; call upon you to admire “the Golden Dog,” that strange memento of a bitter private quarrel; take you to handsome Parliament Buildings, where, in niches in the façade, you will behold statues of the warriors Frontenac, Wolfe, Montcalm, De Lévis and De Salaberry, besides one of that notable Governor-General, the Earl of Elgin, who risked his popularity by giving his assent to a measure for compensating the sufferers by the Rebellion of 1837.

Close by the Parliament House is the great Drill Hall, for the use of the present-day citizen-soldiers of Quebec; and turning back, through the modern St. Louis Gate, which has replaced the portal through which the wounded Montcalm was swept by a rush of fugitives into the city to die, one comes to the site of the surgeon’s office where he breathed his last. Not far away there stood till 1889 another humble dwelling, where Montgomery’s corpse was prepared for burial. On the same street still stands the old Kent House—now a fascinating curiosity shop—once, towards the close of the eighteenth century, the town-residence of Queen Victoria’s father, then colonel of a regiment of Fusiliers stationed at Quebec. Some miles distant there is, by the way, another Kent House, where the Duke used to spend his summers on the heights from which the Montmorency takes its impetuous leap of two hundred and fifty feet to join the St. Lawrence. Quebec has also its Kent Gate, a modern structure, to commemorate the same prince, who, if he lacked opportunity to shine as a great military genius, at least succeeded in winning for himself a reputation as the strictest of disciplinarians.

But the military suggestions of Quebec are not confined to historic associations. You have them in concrete form, from the picturesque Citadel—which, however, was not built till long after the latest siege—to the little groups of cannon-balls, piled up in odd corners like a young giant’s marbles. At any turn you may meet a red-coated soldier or a blue-jacket from some visiting iron-clad; you may chance on a long row of obsolete guns, or on an ancient mortar, now powerless for mischief, with a great gag of iron in its throat; and here, there and everywhere you will find tablets or monuments marking the spots once deeply stained with the heart’s blood of the brave.

Yet, after all, this is but one aspect of Quebec, and not the brightest. To some persons the fair old town speaks more insistently of peace than of war; for so quaint is it, so old-world, that it seems, despite all evidence to the contrary, that here life must have run on undisturbed for centuries. To one brought up in another community, the unfamiliar figures of quaintly-garbed nuns, long-robed priests, and brothers in russet gowns, suggest the long-ago. The very markets, with all their bustle and hurry of eager life, seem survivals of the past.