of black ruin, and the gossips have all they can do to keep
track of the amours and the duels and the high personages cultivating
Madame Pean; for cultivated she must be by all who covet place or
power. A word from Madame Pean to Bigot is of more value than a bribe.
Even Montcalm and De Levis attend her revels.

[Illustration: RUINS OF CHATEAU BIGOT]

Twenty people sup with Monsieur Bigot each night, either at the
Intendant's palace down by Charles River, or nine miles out towards
Beauport, where he has built himself the Forest Hermitage, now known as
Chateau Bigot,--a magnificent country manor house of red brick, hidden
away among the hills with the gay shrubberies of French gardens set
down in an American wilderness. Supper over by seven, the guests sit
down to play, and the amount a man may gamble is his social barometer,
whether {246} he lose or win, cheat or steal. If dancing follows
gambling, the rout will not disperse till seven in the morning. What
time is left of the twenty-four hours in a day will be devoted to
public affairs.

Montcalm's salary is only 25,000 francs, or $5,000. To maintain the
dignity of the King, the commander in chief must keep the pace, and he
too gives weekly suppers, with places set for forty people, "whom I
don't know," he writes dejectedly to his wife, "and don't want to know;
and wish that I might spend the evenings quietly in my own chamber."
To Montcalm, who was of noble birth with no shamming, this lowbred
pretense and play at courtcraft became a bore; to his staff of
officers, a source of continual amusement; but De Levis presently falls
victim to a pair of fine eyes possessed by the wife of another man.

War filled the summers, but the winters were given up to social life;
and of all midwinter social gayeties the most important was the
official visit of the Governor and the Intendant to Montreal. By this
time a good road had been cut from Quebec to Montreal along the north
shore, and the sleighs usually set out in January or February. Bigot
added to the occasion all the prestige of a social rout. All the grand
dames and cavaliers of Quebec were invited. Baggage was sent on ahead
with servants to break the way, find quarters for the night, and
prepare meals. After a dinner at the Intendant's palace the sleighs
set out, two horses to each, driven tandem because the sleigh road was
too narrow for a team. Each sleigh held only two occupants, and to the
damage done by f