[687] All that could be obtained was between three and four
hundred recruits for the regulars, sixty engineers, sappers, and
artillerymen, and gunpowder, arms, and provisions sufficient, along with
the supplies brought over by the contractor, Cadet, to carry the colony
through the next campaign.[688]
[Footnote 686: _Memoire remis au Ministre par M. de Bougainville,
Decembre, 1758_.]
[Footnote 687: _Le Ministre a Montcalm, 3 Fev. 1759_.]
[Footnote 688: _Ordres du Roy et Depeches des Ministres, Fevrier,
1759_.]
Montcalm had intrusted Bougainville with another mission, widely
different. This was no less than the negotiating of suitable marriages
for the eldest son and daughter of his commander, with whom, in the
confidence of friendship, he had had many conversations on the matter.
"He and I," Montcalm wrote to his mother, Madame de Saint-Veran, "have
two ideas touching these marriages,--the first, romantic and chimerical;
the second, good, practicable."[689] Bougainville, invoking the aid of a
lady of rank, a friend of the family, acquitted himself well of his
delicate task. Before he embarked for Canada, in early spring, a treaty
was on foot for the marriage of the young Comte de Montcalm to an
heiress of sixteen; while Mademoiselle de Montcalm had already become
Madame d'Espineuse. "Her father will be delighted," says the successful
negotiator.[690]
[Footnote 689: _Montcalm a Madame de Saint-Veran, 24 Sept.
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