The General, for the
twentieth time, gave good reasons for not making the attempt. "I ended,"
he tells Bourlamaque, "by saying quietly that when I went to war I did
the best I could; and that when one is not pleased with one's
lieutenants, one had better take the field in person. He was very much
moved, and muttered between his teeth that perhaps he would; at which I
said that I should be delighted to serve under him. Madame de Vaudreuil
wanted to put in her word. I said: 'Madame, saving due respect, permit
me to have the honor to say that ladies ought not to talk war.' She kept
on. I said: 'Madame, saving due respect, permit me to have the honor to
say that if Madame de Montcalm were here, and heard me talking war with
Monsieur le Marquis de Vaudreuil, she would remain silent.' This scene
was in presence of eight officers, three of them belonging to the colony
troops; and a pretty story they will make of it."
These letters to Bourlamaque, in their detestable handwriting, small,
cramped, confused, without stops, and sometimes almost indecipherable,
betray the writer's state of mind. "I should like as well as anybody to
be Marshal of France; but to buy the honor with the life I am leading
here would be too much." He recounts the last news from Fort Duquesne,
just before its fall. "Mutiny among the Canadians, who want to come
home; the officers busy with making money, and stealing like mandarins.
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