ng carried inside, he was told that his wound was mortal.
"How long have I to live?" he asked. "Twelve hours perhaps," responded
the surgeon. "So much the better," said Montcalm; "I am happy that I
shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." Then, turning to
Commandant de Ramezay and the colonel of the Regiment of Royal
Roussillon, who stood by, he said: "Gentlemen, to your keeping I
commend the honour of France. Endeavour to secure the retreat of my
army to-night beyond Cap Rouge. As for myself, I shall pass the night
with God, and prepare for death."

[Illustration: _General Gage_
_1st Military Governor of Montreal_]

Yet ever mindful of the wretched people who hung upon him, he
addressed this note to the commander of the English army--

"Monsieur, the humanity of the English sets my
mind at peace concerning the fate of the French
prisoners and the Canadians, Feel towards them as
they have caused me to feel. Do not let them perceive
that they have changed masters. Be their
protector as I have been their father."

[Illustration: NEW KENT GATE]

By dawn the next morning his gallant soul had fled. And when another
day had gone, and night came again, a silent funeral passed, by the
light of a flambeau, to the chapel of the Ursulines for the lonely
obsequies. A bursting shell had ploughed a deep trench along the wall
of the convent, and there they sadly laid him--fitting rest for one
whose life had been spent amid the din and doom of war. In 1833 his
skull was exhumed; and to-day it is reverently exposed in the
almoners' room of the Ursuline convent--all that remains of as fine a
figure, as noble a son of his race as the years have seen.

Here also an interesting tablet, erected by Lord Aylmer in 1835, bears
the sympathetic inscription--

HONNEUR
A
MONTCALM
LE DESTIN EN LUI DEROBANT
LA VICTOIRE
L'A RECOMPENSE PAR
UNE MORTE GLORIEUSE.

Besides Montcalm, the French army lost its second and third in
command, De Senezergues having expired on one of the English ships,
while M. de Saint-Ours was killed in the same bloody charge in which
Wolfe also met his death. The French losses in killed and wounded
numbered almost fifteen hundred officers and men, the British record
being fifty-eight killed, and five hundred and ninety-seven wounded.

When Wolfe was slain the chief command of the British army in Canada
had passed