Montcalm to Command in America

The King has chosen you to command his troops in North America and will honor you on your departure with the rank of major-general.”

Our special project presenting the definitive account of France in Canada by Francis Parkman, one of America’s greatest historians.

Previously in Montcalm and Wolfe, Volume 7 of the French in Canada series. Continuing Chapter 11.

Never in Europe had power been more centralized, and never in France had the reins been held by persons so pitiful, impelled by motives so contemptible. The levity, vanity, and spite of a concubine became a mighty engine to influence the destinies of nations. Louis XV., enervated by pleasures and devoured by ennui, still had his emotions; he shared Pompadour’s detestation of Frederic, and he was tormented at times by a lively fear of damnation. But how damn a king who had entered the lists as champion of the Church? England was Protestant, and so was Prussia; Austria was supremely Catholic. Was it not a merit in the eyes of God to join her in holy war against the powers of heresy? The King of the Parc-aux-Cerfs would propitiate Heaven by a new crusade.

Henceforth France was to turn her strength against her European foes; and the American war, the occasion of the universal outbreak, was to hold in her eyes a second place. The reasons were several: the vanity of Pompadour, infatuated by the advances of the Empress-Queen, and eager to secure her good graces; the superstition of the King; the anger of both against Frederick; the desire of D’Argenson, minister of war, that the army, and not the navy, should play the foremost part; and the passion of courtiers and nobles, ignorant of the naval service, to win laurels in a continental war,–all conspired to one end. It was the interest of France to turn her strength against her only dangerous rival; to continue as she had begun, in building up a naval power that could face England on the seas and sustain her own rising colonies in America, India, and the West Indies: for she too might have multiplied herself, planted her language and her race over all the globe, and grown with the growth of her children, had she not been at the mercy of an effeminate profligate, a mistress turned procuress, and the favorites to whom they delegated power.

Still, something must be done for the American war; at least there must be a new general to replace Dieskau. None of the Court favorites wanted a command in the backwoods, and the minister of war was free to choose whom he would. His choice fell on Louis Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm-Gozon de Saint-Véran.

Montcalm was born in the south of France, at the Château of Candiac, near Nîmes, on the twenty-ninth of February, 1712. At the age of six he was placed in the charge of one Dumas, a natural son of his grandfather. This man, a conscientious pedant, with many theories of education, ruled his pupil stiffly; and, before the age of fifteen, gave him a good knowledge of Latin, Greek, and history. Young Montcalm had a taste for books, continued his reading in such intervals of leisure as camps and garrisons afforded, and cherished to the end of his life the ambition of becoming a member of the Academy. Yet, with all his liking for study, he sometimes revolted against the sway of the pedagogue who wrote letters of complaint to his father protesting against the “judgments of the vulgar, who, contrary to the experience of ages, say that if children are well reproved they will correct their faults.” Dumas, however, was not without sense, as is shown by another letter to the elder Montcalm, in which he says that the boy had better be ignorant of Latin and Greek “than know them as he does without knowing how to read, write, and speak French well.” The main difficulty was to make him write a good hand,–a point in which he signally failed to the day of his death. So refractory was he at times, that his master despaired. “M. de Montcalm,” Dumas informs the father, “has great need of docility, industry, and willingness to take advice. What will become of him?” The pupil, aware of these aspersions, met them by writing to his father his own ideas of what his aims should be. “First, to be an honorable man, of good morals, brave, and a Christian. Secondly, to read in moderation; to know as much Greek and Latin as most men of the world; also the four rules of arithmetic, and something of history, geography, and French and Latin belles-lettres, as well as to have a taste for the arts and sciences. Thirdly, and above all, to be obedient, docile, and very submissive to your orders and those of my dear mother; and also to defer to the advice of M. Dumas. Fourthly, to fence and ride as well as my small abilities will permit.”

[This passage is given by Somervogel from the original letter.]

If Louis de Montcalm failed to satisfy his preceptor, he had a brother who made ample amends. Of this infant prodigy it is related that at six years he knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and had some acquaintance with arithmetic, French history, geography, and heraldry. He was destined for the Church, but died at the age of seven; his precocious brain having been urged to fatal activity by the exertions of Dumas.

Other destinies and a more wholesome growth were the lot of young Louis. At fifteen he joined the army as ensign in the regiment of Hainaut. Two years after, his father bought him a captaincy and he was first under fire at the siege of Philipsbourg. His father died in 1735, and left him heir to a considerable landed estate, much embarrassed by debt. The Marquis de la Fare, a friend of the family, soon after sought for him an advantageous marriage to strengthen his position and increase his prospects of promotion; and he accordingly espoused Mademoiselle Angélique Louise Talon du Boulay, — a union which brought him influential alliances and some property. Madame de Montcalm bore him ten children, of whom only two sons and four daughters were living in 1752. “May God preserve them all,” he writes in his autobiography, “and make them prosper for this world and the next! Perhaps it will be thought that the number is large for so moderate a fortune, especially as four of them are girls; but does God ever abandon his children in their need?”

‘Aux petits des oiseaux il donne la pâture,
Et sa bonté s’étend sur toute la nature.'”

He was pious in his soldierly way, and ardently loyal to Church and King.

His family seat was Candiac; where, in the intervals of campaigning, he found repose with his wife, his children, and his mother, who was a woman of remarkable force of character and who held great influence over her son. He had a strong attachment to this home of his childhood; and in after years, out of the midst of the American wilderness, his thoughts turned longingly towards it. “Quand reverrai-je mon cher Candiac!”

In 1741 Montcalm took part in the Bohemian campaign. He was made colonel of the regiment of Auxerrois two years later and passed unharmed through the severe campaign of 1744. In the next year he fought in Italy under Maréchal de Maillebois. In 1746, at the disastrous action under the walls of Piacenza, where he twice rallied his regiment, he received five saber-cuts, — two of which were in the head, — and was made prisoner. Returning to France on parole, he was promoted in the year following to the rank of brigadier; and being soon after exchanged, rejoined the army, and was again wounded by a musket-shot. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle now gave him a period of rest. [1] At length, being on a visit to Paris late in the autumn of 1755, the minister, D’Argenson, hinted to him that he might be appointed to command the troops in America. He heard no more of the matter till, after his return home, he received from D’Argenson a letter dated at Versailles the twenty-fifth of January, at midnight. “Perhaps, Monsieur,” it began, “you did not expect to hear from me again on the subject of the conversation I had with you the day you came to bid me farewell at Paris. Nevertheless, I have not forgotten for a moment the suggestion I then made you; and it is with the greatest pleasure that I announce to you that my views have prevailed. The King has chosen you to command his troops in North America and will honor you on your departure with the rank of major-general.”

[1: The account of Montcalm up to this time is chiefly from his unpublished autobiography, preserved by his descendants, and entitled Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire de ma Vie. Somervogel, Comme on servait autrefois; Bonnechose, Montcalm et le Canada; Martin, Le Marquis de Montcalm; Éloge de Montcalm; Autre Éloge de Montcalm; Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760, and other writings in print and manuscript have also been consulted.]

The Chevalier de Lévis, afterwards Marshal of France, was named as his second in command, with the rank of brigadier, and the Chevalier de Bourlamaque as his third, with the rank of colonel; but what especially pleased him was the appointment of his eldest son to command a regiment in France. He set out from Candiac for the Court and occupied himself on the way with reading Charlevoix. “I take great pleasure in it,” he writes from Lyons to his mother; “he gives a pleasant account of Quebec. But be comforted; I shall always be glad to come home.” At Paris he writes again: “Don’t expect any long letter from me before the first of March; all my business will be done by that time, and I shall begin to breathe again. I have not yet seen the Chevalier de Montcalm [his son]. Last night I came from Versailles and am going back tomorrow. The King gives me twenty-five thousand francs a year, as he did to M. Dieskau, besides twelve thousand for my equipment, which will cost me above a thousand crowns more; but I cannot stop for that. I embrace my dearest and all the family.” A few days later his son joined him. “He is as thin and delicate as ever but grows prodigiously tall.”

On the second of March he informs his mother,

My affairs begin to get on. A good part of the baggage went off the day before yesterday in the King’s wagons; an assistant-cook and two liverymen yesterday. I have got a good cook. Estève, my secretary, will go on the eighth; Joseph and Déjean will follow me. Tomorrow evening I go to Versailles till Sunday, and will write from there to Madame de Montcalm [his wife]. I have three aides-de-camp; one of them, Bougainville, a man of parts, pleasant company. Madame Mazade was happily delivered on Wednesday; in extremity on Friday with a malignant fever; Saturday and yesterday, reports favorable. I go there twice a day, and am just going now. She has a girl. I embrace you all.”

Again, on the fifteenth:

In a few hours I set out for Brest. Yesterday I presented my son, with whom I am well pleased, to all the royal family. I shall have a secretary at Brest and will write more at length.” On the eighteenth he writes from Rennes to his wife: “I arrived, dearest, this morning, and stay here all day. I shall be at Brest on the twenty-first. Everything will be on board on the twenty-sixth. My son has been here since yesterday for me to coach him and get him a uniform made, in which he will give thanks for his regiment at the same time that I take leave in my embroidered coat. Perhaps I shall leave debts behind. I wait impatiently for the bills. You have my will; I wish you would get it copied and send it to me before I sail.”

Reaching Brest, the place of embarkation, he writes to his mother: “I have business on hand still. My health is good, and the passage will be a time of rest. I embrace you, and my dearest, and my daughters. Love to all the family. I shall write up to the last moment.”

No translation can give an idea of the rapid, abrupt, elliptical style of this familiar correspondence, where the meaning is sometimes suggested by a single word, unintelligible to any but those for whom it is written.

From Montcalm and Wolfe, Chapter 11 by Francis Parkman

The below is from Francis Parkman’s Preface to this book.

A very large amount of unpublished material has been used in its preparation, consisting for the most part of documents copied from the archives and libraries of France and England, especially from the Archives de la Marine et des Colonies, the Archives de la Guerre, and the Archives Nationales at Paris, and the Public Record Office and the British Museum at London. The papers copied for the present work in France alone exceed six thousand folio pages of manuscript, additional and supplementary to the “Paris Documents” procured for the State of New York under the agency of Mr. Brodhead. The copies made in England form ten volumes, besides many English documents consulted in the original manuscript. Great numbers of autograph letters, diaries, and other writings of persons engaged in the war have also been examined on this side of the Atlantic.

I owe to the kindness of the present Marquis de Montcalm the permission to copy all the letters written by his ancestor, General Montcalm, when in America, to members of his family in France. General Montcalm, from his first arrival in Canada to a few days before his death, also carried on an active correspondence with one of his chief officers, Bourlamaque, with whom he was on terms of intimacy. These autograph letters are now preserved in a private collection. I have examined them and obtained copies of the whole. They form an interesting complement to the official correspondence of the writer, and throw the most curious side-lights on the persons and events of the time.

Besides manuscripts, the printed matter in the form of books, pamphlets, contemporary newspapers, and other publications relating to the American part of the Seven Years’ War, is varied and abundant; and I believe I may safely say that nothing in it of much consequence has escaped me. The liberality of some of the older States of the Union, especially New York and Pennsylvania, in printing the voluminous records of their colonial history, has saved me a deal of tedious labor.

The whole of this published and unpublished mass of evidence has been read and collated with extreme care, and more than common pains have been taken to secure accuracy of statement. The study of books and papers, however, could not alone answer the purpose. The plan of the work was formed in early youth; and though various causes have long delayed its execution, it has always been kept in view. Meanwhile, I have visited and examined every spot where events of any importance in connection with the contest took place, and have observed with attention such scenes and persons as might help to illustrate those I meant to describe. In short, the subject has been studied as much from life and in the open air as at the library table.

BOSTON, Sept. 16, 1884.

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