s comrades said for danger's sake--with a desperate valor that
was the boast of the army; but few suspected that he sought death and
tempted fate in every form.

His wish was at last accomplished,--as all earnest, absorbing wishes
ever are. He fell valorously, dying a soldier's death upon the field
of Minden, his last moments sweetened by the thought that his beloved
Amelie was waiting for him on the other side of the dark river, to
welcome him with the bridal kiss promised upon the banks of the Lake of
Tilly. He met her joyfully in that land where love is real, and where
its promises are never broken.

The death of the Bourgeois Philibert, affecting so many fortunes, was
of immense consequence to the Colony. It led to the ruin of the party of
the Honnetes Gens, to the supremacy of the Grand company, and the final
overthrow of New France.

The power and extravagance of Bigot after that event grew without check
or challenge, and the departure of the virtuous La Galissoniere left the
Colony to the weak and corrupt administrations of La Jonquiere, and
De Vaudreuil. The latter made the Castle of St. Louis as noted for its
venality as was the Palace of the Intendant. Bigot kept his high place
through every change. The Marquis de Vaudreuil gave him free course,
and it was more than suspected shared with the corrupt Intendant in the
plunder of the Colony.

These public vices bore their natural fruit, and all the efforts of
the Honnetes Gens to stay the tide of corruption were futile. Montcalm,
after reaping successive harvests of victories, brilliant beyond all
precedent in North America, died a sacrifice to the insatiable greed
and extravagance of Bigot and his associates, who, while enriching
themselves, starved the army and plundered the Colony of all its
resources. The fall of Quebec, and the capitulation of Montreal were
less owing to the power of the English than to the corrupt misgovernment
of Bigot and Vaudreuil, and the neglect by the court of France of her
ancient and devoted Colony.

Le Gardeur, after a long confinement in the Bastille, where he
incessantly demanded trial and punishment for his rank offence of the
murder of the Bourgeois, as he ever called it, was at last liberated by
express command of the King, without trial and against his own wishes.
His sword was restored to him, accompanied by a royal order bidding him,
upon his allegiance, return to his regiment, as an officer of the King,
free from all