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Updated: July 24, 2025
"At last news arrived that he had been shot by some British Indians in Maryland: so there was an end of my hope of ransom for some months more. This made Museau very savage and surly towards me; the more so as his sergeant inflamed his rage by telling him that the Indian woman was partial to me as I believe, poor thing, she was. I was always gentle with her, and grateful to her.
The Indians had retired enriched with British plunder, and the chief part of the French regulars were gone upon expeditions northward. My good Florac had left me upon his service, consigning me to the care of an invalided sergeant. Monsieur de Contrecoeur had accompanied one of these expeditions, leaving an old lieutenant, Museau by name, in command at Duquesne.
"'My poor body will never fetch ten thousand livres, says I; 'and a pretty field in Normandy with a cottage... "'And an orchard. Ah, sacre bleu! says Museau, whimpering, 'and a dish of tripe a la mode du pays!..."
Six weeks after my arrival at home, the poor thing made her appearance at Richmond, having found her way through the wood by pretty much the same track which I had followed, and bringing me the token which Museau had promised to send me when he connived to my flight. A commanding officer and a considerable reinforcement had arrived at Duquesne.
The palace accounts were on the table three thousand pounds for a masque extravagance only surpassed by Nicholas Fouquet twenty years afterwards, when he was squandering the public money. 'My wife is a bad housekeeper, his Majesty said gently, and then he drew down the little French museau with a caressing hand, and kissed her in the presence of those greybeards."
"Museau was very savage when he began to give up all hopes of the first messenger. He fancied that the man might have got the ransom-money and fled with it himself. Of course he was prepared to disown any part in the transaction, should my letter be discovered. His treatment of me varied according to his hopes or fears, or even his mood for the time being.
"Whilst the result of the trapper's mission to my home was yet uncertain, and Museau and I myself expected the payment of my ransom, I was treated kindly enough, allowed to crawl about the fort, and even to go into the adjoining fields and gardens, always keeping my parole, and duly returning before gun-fire. And I exercised a piece of hypocrisy, for which, I hope, you will hold me excused.
Museau would be superseded in his command by an officer of superior rank, who might exchange me, or who might give me up to the Indians in reprisal for cruelties practised by our own people on many and many an officer and soldier of the enemy.
"In vain I said I was a prisoner to the troops of his Most Christian Majesty, that I expected the treatment of a gentleman and an officer. Museau swore that letter should go, and no other; that if I hesitated, he would fling me out of the fort, or hand me over to the tender mercies of his ruffian Indian allies. He would not let the trapper communicate with me except in his presence.
As I went in to the commandant's quarters she says, 'Pour ce soir. And then I knew the time was come. "As for Museau, he knew nothing about the matter. Not he! He growled at me, and said the soup was cold.
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