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He should see me at a certain point on the ramparts, and, well armed, we also would make our way to Sillery, and from the spot called the Anse du Foulon drift down the river in the dead of night. He promised to do all as I wished. The rest of the day I spent in my room fashioning strange toys out of willow rods.
He knew it was expected down at the Foulon 'this very night, and that the adjacent Samos battery was to try to protect it from the British men-of-war as it ran in. But he did not know that it had been stopped by a British frigate above Pointe aux Trembles, and that Wolfe's boats were taking its place and fooling the French sentries, who had been ordered to pass it quietly.
All good citizens were ordered, by notices affixed to it, not to go down into the garden, under pain of being treated in the same manner as Foulon and Berthier. A young man who did not observe this written order went down into the garden; furious outcries, threats of la lanterne, and the crowd of people which collected upon the terrace warned him of his imprudence, and the danger which he ran.
One of them tried perpetually to reach the king with his lance in his hand; it was the same cut-throat who, two years before, had washed with his own hands in a pail of water the heads of Berthier and Foulon, and, carrying them by the hair to the Quai de la Ferraille, had thrown them amongst the people for symbols of carnage, and incentives to fresh murders.
That night, at nine o'clock, the Terror of France, catching the flow of the tide, with one sail set and a gentle wind, left the fleet, and came slowly up the river, under the batteries of the town. In the gloom we passed lazily on with the flow of the tide, unquestioned, soon leaving the citadel behind, and ere long came softly to that point called Anse du Foulon, above which Sillery stood.
This latter report at this particular time, when the passions of men were so inflamed, and when the stones of Paris had not been long purified from the blood of Foulon and Berthier, might have cost me my life; and I mentioned it to General la Fayette, and solicited his advice. He desired me to make a public reply to it: which I did.
The two brigades of the leading column had already reached the blockhouses by the Anse du Foulon, and formed themselves as the right wing of the French line of battle; but those behind were not yet in position. Murray, kindling at the sight, thought that so favorable a moment was not to be lost, and ordered an advance. His line consisted of eight battalions, numbering a little above two thousand.
The bombardment was kept up all night and became most intense just before dawn, when Wolfe was landing two miles above. At the other end of the French line, above Cap Rouge, Holmes had kept threatening Bougainville more and more towards Pointe-aux-Trembles, twenty miles above the Foulon.
The multitude, still enraged against all who had participated in the project of the 14th of July, had put to death, with relentless cruelty, Foulon, the intended minister, and his nephew, Berthier.
The French on the ridge had formed themselves into three bodies, regulars in the centre, regulars and Canadians on right and left. Two field-pieces, which had been dragged up the heights at Anse du Foulon, fired on them with grapeshot, and the troops, rising from the ground, prepared to receive them. In a few moments more they were in motion.
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