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"Your health will improve by a purer air," said she, "and your pronunciation of French is, at present, any thing but correct. Take care of yourself, therefore, my dear son, and pray lose no time in engaging Coulon as your maitre de danse." My father gave me his blessing, and a check on his banker.
Talking gayly with De Beaujeu were two gallant-looking young men of a Canadian family which, out of seven brothers, lost six slain in the service of their King Jumonville de Villiers, who was afterwards, in defiance of a flag of truce, shot down by order of Colonel Washington, in the far-off forests of the Alleghenies, and his brother, Coulon de Villiers, who received the sword of Washington when he surrendered himself and garrison prisoners of war, at Fort Necessity, in 1754.
A recess, sheltered by the rock outside, served as kitchen and dining-room; while an empty space under another large boulder was utilized as a cellar for the keeping of provisions. This was the abode so well known afterward as the Hotel des Neuchatelois. Its first occupants were Louis Agassiz, Edouard Desor, Charles Vogt, Francois de Pourtales, Celestin Nicolet, and Henri Coulon.
Coulon was resolved, however, that at any risk a detachment should cross at once, to stop the roads to Grand Pre, and prevent the English from being warned of his approach; for though the Acadians inclined to the French, and were eager to serve them when the risk was not too great, there were some of them who, from interest or fear, were ready to make favor with the English by carrying them intelligence.
It seems clear, however, that when Coulon began his march from Baye Verte, his party consisted of about three hundred Canadians and Indians, without reckoning some Acadians who had joined him from Beaubassin and Isle St. Jean. Others joined him on the way to Grand Pre, counting a hundred and fifty according to Shirley, which appears to be much too large an estimate.
She nodded her head with one of those sudden gestures whose graceful vivacity is not to be translated into words. "My good friend, don't go away," cried the geometrician. "This is my wife!" I bowed for the second time! Oh, Coulon! Why wert thou not present to applaud the only one of thy pupils who understood from that moment the expression, "anacreontic," as applied to a bow?
Several others have been given me from Lake Superior. Since my return to Boston I have been collecting birds and comparing them with those of Europe. If M. Coulon could obtain for me a collection of European eggs, even the most common, I could exchange them for an admirable series of the native species here.
Miot de Melito speaks of them as "Bourrienne and other subordinate scoundrels," and, indeed, Miot de Melito does not exaggerate in his estimate of them. Fouché says that Bourrienne kept him advised of all Napoleon's movements for 25,000 francs per month, besides being both partner and patron in the house of Coulon Brothers, cavalry equipment providers, who failed for £120,000.
It was now broad day, but they could not see through the falling snow whether the enterprise, as a whole, had prospered or failed. Therefore Beaujeu sent Marin to find La Corne, who, in the absence of Coulon, held the chief command. Marin was gone two hours.
This was less to be regretted, in view of the quality of his officers, for he had with him the flower of the warlike Canadian noblesse, Coulon de Villiers, who, seven years later, defeated Washington at Fort Necessity; Beaujeu, the future hero of the Monongahela, in appearance a carpet knight, in reality a bold and determined warrior; the Chevalier de la Corne, a model of bodily and mental hardihood; Saint-Pierre, Lanaudiere, Saint-Ours, Desligneris, Courtemanche, Repentigny, Boishebert, Gaspe, Colombiere, Marin, Lusignan, all adepts in the warfare of surprise and sudden onslaught in which the Canadians excelled.
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