de Vaudreuil with weakness in
not preventing."[569]

[Footnote 569: _Le Ministre a Bigotu, 29 Aout, 1759_ (second letter of
this date).]

These drastic utterances seem to have been partly due to a letter
written by Montcalm in cipher to the Marechal de Belleisle, then
minister of war. It painted the deplorable condition of Canada, and
exposed without reserve the peculations and robberies of those intrusted
with its interests. "It seems," said the General, "as if they were all
hastening to make their fortunes before the loss of the colony; which
many of them perhaps desire as a veil to their conduct." He gives among
other cases that of Le Mercier, chief of Canadian artillery, who had
come to Canada as a private soldier twenty years before, and had so
prospered on fraudulent contracts that he would soon be worth nearly a
million. "I have often," continues Montcalm, "spoken of these
expenditures to M. de Vaudreuil and M. Bigot; and each throws the blame
on the other."[570] And yet at the same time Vaudreuil was assuring the
Minister that Bigot was without blame.

[Footnote 570: _Montcalm au Ministre de la Guerre, Lettre
confidentielle, 12 Avril,_ 1759.]

Some two months before Montcalm wrote this letter, the Minister,
Berryer, sent a despatch to the Governor and Intendant which filled them
with ire and mortification. It ordered them to do nothing without
consulting the general of the French regulars, not only in matters of
war, but in all matters of administration touching the defence and
preservation of the colony. A plainer proof of confidence on one hand
and distrust on the other could not have been given.[571]

[Footnote 571: _Le Ministre a Vaudreuil et Bigot, 20 Fev. 1759._]

One Querdisien-Tremais was sent from Bordeaux as an agent of Government
to make investigation. He played the part of detective, wormed himself
into the secrets of the confederates, and after six months of patient
inquisition traced out four distinct combinations for public plunder.
Explicit orders were now given to Bigot, who, seeing no other escape,
broke with Cadet, and made him disgorge two millions of stolen money.
The Commissary-General and his partners became so terrified that they
afterwards gave up nearly seven millions more.[572] Stormy events
followed, and the culprits found shelter for a time amid the tumults of
war. Peculation did not cease, but a day of reckoning was at hand.

[Footnote 572: _Proces de Bigot, Cadet, et autre