These official falsehoods are contradicted in a letter from
Quebec, _Daine au Marechal de Belleisle, 19 Mai, 1758_. Levis says that
the whole population of the settlement, men, women, and children, was
not above three hundred.]
Montcalm, his summer work over, went to Montreal; and thence in
September to Quebec, a place more to his liking. "Come as soon as you
can," he wrote to Bourlamaque, "and I will tell a certain fair lady how
eager you are." Even Quebec was no paradise for him; and he writes again
to the same friend: "My heart and my stomach are both ill at ease, the
latter being the worse." To his wife he says: "The price of everything
is rising. I am ruining myself; I owe the treasurer twelve thousand
francs. I long for peace and for you. In spite of the public distress,
we have balls and furious gambling." In February he returned to Montreal
in a sleigh on the ice of the St. Lawrence,--a mode of travelling which
he describes as cold but delicious. Montreal pleased him less than ever,
especially as he was not in favor at what he calls the Court, meaning
the circle of the Governor-General. "I find this place so amusing," he
writes ironically to Bourlamaque, "that I wish Holy Week could be
lengthened, to give me a pretext for neither making nor receiving
visits, staying at home, and dining there almost alone. Burn all my
letters, as I do yours." And in the next week: "Lent and devotion have
upset my stomach and given me a cold; which does not prevent me from
having the Governor-General at dinner to-day to end his lenten fast,
according to custom here.
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