like a stormy sea congealed; on the right, the long procession of the
Green Mountains; and, far beyond, on the dim verge of the eastern sky,
the White Mountains throned in savage solitude. They passed over the
bastioned square of Fort St. John, Fort Chambly guarding the rapids of
the Richelieu, and the broad belt of the St. Lawrence, with Montreal
seated on its bank. Here we leave them, to build their nests and hatch
their brood among the fens of the lonely North.

Montreal, the military heart of Canada, was in the past winter its
social centre also, where were gathered conspicuous representatives both
of Old France and of New; not men only, but women. It was a sparkling
fragment of the reign of Louis XV. dropped into the American wilderness.
Montcalm was here with his staff and his chief officers, now pondering
schemes of war, and now turning in thought to his beloved Chateau of
Candiac, his mother, children, and wife, to whom he sent letters with
every opportunity. To his wife he writes: "Think of me affectionately;
give love to my girls. I hope next year I may be with you all. I love
you tenderly, dearest." He says that he has sent her a packet of
marten-skins for a muff, "and another time I shall send some to our
daughter; but I should like better to bring them myself." Of this eldest
daughter he writes in reply to a letter of domestic news from Madame de
Montcalm: "The new gown with blonde trimmings must be becoming, for she
is pretty." Again, "There is not an hour in the day when I do not think
of you, my mother and my children." He had the tastes of a country
gentleman, and was eager to know all that was passing on his estate.
Before leaving home he had set up a mill to grind olives for oil, and
was well pleased to hear of its prosperity. "It seems to be a good
thing, which pleases me very much. Bougainville and I talk a great deal
about the oil-mill." Some time after, when the King sent him the coveted
decoration of the _cordon rouge_, he informed Madame de Montcalm of the
honor done him, and added: "But I think I am better pleased with what
you tell me of the success of my oil-mill."

To his mother he writes of his absorbing occupations, and says: "You can
tell my dearest that I have no time to occupy myself with the ladies,
even if I wished to." Nevertheless he now and then found leisure for
some little solace in his banishment; for he writes to Bourlamaque,
whom he had left at Quebec, after a visit which he h