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Updated: May 7, 2025
Then the French promptly sank some of their own ships at the entrance to keep him out. But six hundred British sailors rowed in at night and boarded and took the only two ships remaining afloat. The others had been blown up a month before by British shells fired by naval gunners from Amherst's batteries. Drucour was now in a terrible, plight. Not a ship was left.
The surgeons have to run at many a cry of 'Ware Shell! for fear lest they should share the patients' fate. Amherst had offered to spare the island or any one of the French ships if Drucour would put his hospital in either place.
"It may be better for them in the end," said Madame Drucour, heaving a long sigh as she watched the departure of the garrison, and saw the scarlet uniforms of the English flooding the streets of Quebec, "And yet it is hard to see it. I knew it must come, but my heart is heavy within me. If only we had made a more gallant fight, I should have felt it less."
"Then I should have been shot as a spy, I do not doubt," answered Julian, "and should never have known the pleasure of making the acquaintance of the brave Madame Drucour 'Madame le General, as she was called in Louisbourg nor of being presented in Quebec to Mademoiselle her niece." And as he spoke he bowed over Corinne's hand and raised it to his lips. The girl blushed and smiled.
Corinne, who had the best view, leaned eagerly forward to see, and her face blanched instantly. A horseman was coming through the gate, supported on either side by a soldier; his face was deadly white, and blood was streaming from a wound in his breast. Madame Drucour looked also and uttered a cry: "Monsieur le Marquis est tue!"
The scent of coffee pervaded the house, and soon a savoury mess such as had not been seen for long upon that table was set down, and the guests, in excellent spirits, took their places. Corinne found herself seated next to Julian, with Arthur on her other side. The Abbe took the foot of the table, and Madame Drucour the head.
Julian, too, was very desirous to meet Madame Drucour once more, and renew with her those pleasant relations which had commenced within the fortress of Louisbourg. Townshend, the Brigadier now in command, had granted easy terms to the place. He knew too well the peril of his position not to be thankful for having Quebec almost at any price.
Drucour insisted that they should stay to aid the defence, and they complied; but soon left their moorings and anchored as close as possible under the guns of the town, in order to escape the fire of Wolfe's batteries. Hence there was great murmuring among the military officers, who would have had them engage the hostile guns at short range.
Then, of still more immediate interest was the nimble little Echo, which tried to run the gauntlet of the British fleet on June 18, a day long afterwards made famous on the field of Waterloo. Drucour had entrusted his wife and several other ladies to the captain of the Echo, who was to make a dash for Quebec with dispatches for the governor of Canada.
Taking everything into account, by land and sea, the British united service at the siege was quite three times as strong as the French united service. But the French ships, manned by three thousand sailors, were in a good harbour, and they and the soldiers were defended by thick walls with many guns. Besides, the whole defence was conducted by Drucour, as gallant a leader as ever drew sword.
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