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 blame for the
offence laid to his charge. Whether the killing of the Bourgeois
was privately regarded at Court as good service was never known.
But Le Gardeur, true to his loyal instincts, obeyed the King,
rejoined the army, and once more took the field.
Upon the outbreak of the last French war in America, he returned to
New France, a changed and reformed man; an ascetic in his living,
and, although a soldier, a monk in the rigor of his penitential
observances.
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