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Once clear of Montreal and its gang of parasites, he soon had his motley army in hand, in spite of all kinds of difficulties. In May Bourlamaque had begun rebuilding Ticonderoga. In July Lake Champlain began to swarm with boats, canoes, and sailing vessels, all moving south towards the doomed fort on Lake George. Montcalm's whole force numbered 8,000.
Third in command was the Chevalier de Bourlamaque, a quiet, reserved man, with no striking social gifts and in consequence not likely at first to make a good impression, though Montcalm, who was at the beginning a little doubtful of his quality, came in the end to rely upon him fully. The most brilliant man in that company was the young Colonel de Bougainville, Montcalm's chief aide-de-camp.
I wish you were here; for I cannot be everywhere, though I multiply myself, and have not taken off my clothes since the twenty-third of June." On the eleventh of September he wrote his last letter to Bourlamaque, and probably the last that his pen ever traced. "I am overwhelmed with work, and should often lose temper, like you, if I did not remember that I am paid by Europe for not losing it.
They heard too that Bourlamaque after his retreat from Ticonderoga and Crown Point was sitting securely within his lines and intrenchments at Isle-aux-Noix and that the cautious Amherst would delay longer and yet longer. It was now certain that no help could be expected from Amherst and his strong army that year.
Rigaud, Vaudreuil's brother, writing from Montreal to Bourlamaque on the 23d of June, says: "Je compte que l'armée campée sous Québec sera de 17,000 hommes bien effectifs, sans les sauvages." He then gives a list of Indians who have joined the army, or are on the way, amounting to thirteen hundred. At the end of June Wolfe had about eight thousand six hundred effective soldiers.
I burn your letters, Monsieur, and I beg you to do the same with mine, after making a note of anything you may want to keep." But Bourlamaque kept all the letters, and bound them in a volume, which still exists.
Vaudreuil sent Ramesay a message, revoking his order to surrender if threatened with assault, telling him to hold out to the last, and assuring him that the whole army was coming to his relief. Lévis hastened to be gone; but first he found time to write a few lines to Bourlamaque. "We have had a very great loss, for we have lost M. de Montcalm. I regret him as my general and my friend.
In May there was a complete revival of social pleasures, and Montcalm wrote to Bourlamaque: "Madame de Beaubassin's supper was very gay. There were toasts to the Rue du Parloir and to the General. To-day I must give a dinner to Madame de Saint-Ours, which will be a little more serious.
In the night of humiliation when Vaudreuil abandoned Quebec, Montcalm was breathing his last within its walls. When he was brought wounded from the field, he was placed in the house of the Surgeon Arnoux, who was then with Bourlamaque at Isle-aux-Noix, but whose younger brother, also a surgeon, examined the wound and pronounced it mortal.
The French army rose with the sun, the drums beating the call to battle. Montcalm stationed the battalions of Languedoc and La Sarre on the left with Bourlamaque to command them, on the right De Levis led the battalions of Béarn, Guienne and La Reine. Montcalm himself stood with the battalion of Royal Roussillon in the center, and St. Luc was by his side.
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