se,
their midnight onslaughts, their butcheries, their burnings, and all
their nameless atrocities, had been for years the theme of fireside
story; and the dread they excited was deepened by the distrust and
dejection of the time. The confusion in the camp lasted through the
afternoon. "The Indians," says Bougainville, "wanted to plunder the
chests of the English; the latter resisted; and there was fear that
serious disorder would ensue. The Marquis de Montcalm ran thither
immediately, and used every means to restore tranquillity: prayers,
threats, caresses, interposition of the officers and interpreters who
have some influence over these savages."[520] "We shall be but too happy
if we can prevent a massacre. Detestable position! of which nobody who
has not been in it can have any idea, and which makes victory itself a
sorrow to the victors. The Marquis spared no efforts to prevent the
rapacity of the savages and, I must say it, of certain persons
associated with them, from resulting in something worse than plunder.
At last, at nine o'clock in the evening, order seemed restored. The
Marquis even induced the Indians to promise that, besides the escort
agreed upon in the capitulation, two chiefs for each tribe should
accompany the English on their way to Fort Edward."[521] He also ordered
La Corne and the other Canadian officers attached to the Indians to see
that no violence took place. He might well have done more. In view of
the disorders of the afternoon, it would not have been too much if he
had ordered the whole body of regular troops, whom alone he could trust
for the purpose, to hold themselves ready to move to the spot in case of
outbreak, and shelter their defeated foes behind a hedge of bayonets.

[Footnote 520: _Bougainville au Ministre, 19 Aout, 1757._]

[Footnote 521: Bougainville, _Journal_.]

Bougainville was not to see what ensued; for Montcalm now sent him to
Montreal, as a special messenger to carry news of the victory. He
embarked at ten o'clock. Returning daylight found him far down the lake;
and as he looked on its still bosom flecked with mists, and its quiet
mountains sleeping under the flush of dawn, there was nothing in the
wild tranquillity of the scene to suggest the tragedy which even then
was beginning on the shore he had left behind.

The English in their camp had passed a troubled night, agitated by
strange rumors. In the morning something like a panic seized them; for
they distrusted n