ubility that sometimes forgot prudence; and Vaudreuil,
always affable towards adherents, but full of suspicious egotism and
restless jealousy that bristled within him at the very thought of his
colleague. Some of the by-play of the quarrel may be seen in Montcalm's
familiar correspondence with Bourlamaque. One day the Governor, in his
own house, brought up the old complaint that Montcalm, after taking Fort
William Henry, did not take Fort Edward also. The General, for the
twentieth time, gave good reasons for not making the attempt. "I ended,"
he tells Bourlamaque, "by saying quietly that when I went to war I did
the best I could; and that when one is not pleased with one's
lieutenants, one had better take the field in person. He was very much
moved, and muttered between his teeth that perhaps he would; at which I
said that I should be delighted to serve under him. Madame de Vaudreuil
wanted to put in her word. I said: 'Madame, saving due respect, permit
me to have the honor to say that ladies ought not to talk war.' She kept
on. I said: 'Madame, saving due respect, permit me to have the honor to
say that if Madame de Montcalm were here, and heard me talking war with
Monsieur le Marquis de Vaudreuil, she would remain silent.' This scene
was in presence of eight officers, three of them belonging to the colony
troops; and a pretty story they will make of it."

These letters to Bourlamaque, in their detestable handwriting, small,
cramped, confused, without stops, and sometimes almost indecipherable,
betray the writer's state of mind. "I should like as well as anybody to
be Marshal of France; but to buy the honor with the life I am leading
here would be too much." He recounts the last news from Fort Duquesne,
just before its fall. "Mutiny among the Canadians, who want to come
home; the officers busy with making money, and stealing like mandarins.
Their commander sets the example, and will come back with three or four
hundred thousand francs; the pettiest ensign, who does not gamble, will
have ten, twelve, or fifteen thousand. The Indians don't like Ligneris,
who is drunk every day. Forgive the confusion of this letter; I have not
slept all night with thinking of the robberies and mismanagement and
folly. _Pauvre Roi, pauvre France, cara patria!_" "Oh, when shall we get
out of this country! I think I would give half that I have to go home.
Pardon this digression to a melancholy man. It is not that I have not
still some remnan