Coulon de Villiers imposed ignominious conditions of surrender upon
Washington, but scorned to take other revenge for the death of his
brother. He spared the life of Washington, who lived to become the
leader and idol of his nation, which, but for the magnanimity of the
noble Canadian, might have never struggled into independence.
There stood also the Sieur de Lery, the King's engineer, charged
with the fortification of the Colony, a man of Vauban's genius in
the art of defence. Had the schemes which he projected, and vainly
urged upon the heedless Court of Versailles, been carried into
effect, the conquest of New France would have been an impossibility.
Arm in arm with De Lery, in earnest conversation, walked the
handsome Claude de Beauharnais,--brother of a former Governor of the
Colony,--a graceful, gallant-looking soldier. De Beauharnais was
the ancestor of a vigorous and beautiful race, among whose posterity
was the fair Hortense de Beauharnais, who in her son, Napoleon III.,
seated an offshoot of Canada upon the imperial throne of France long
after the abandonment of their ancient colony by the corrupt House
of Bourbon.
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