I wish you all comfort, and to be happily extricated
from your present perplexities." Nevertheless he thought to the last
of those who had been under his command, and sent the following note
to Brigadier Townshend: "Monsieur, the humanity of the English sets
my mind at peace concerning the fate of the French prisoners and the
Canadians. Feel towards them as they have caused me to feel. Do not
let them perceive that they have changed masters. Be their protector
as I have been their father."[793]
[Footnote 793: I am indebted to Abbe Bois for a copy of this note. The
last words of Montcalm, as above, are reported partly by Johnstone,
and partly by Knox.]
Bishop Pontbriand, himself fast sinking with mortal disease,
attended his deathbed and administered the last sacraments.
He died peacefully at four o'clock on the morning of the
fourteenth. He was in his forty-eighth year.
In the confusion of the time no workman could be found
to make a coffin, and an old servant of the Ursulines, known
as Bonhomme Michel, gathered a few boards and nailed them together
so as to form a rough box. In it was laid the body of the dead
soldier; and late in the evening of the same day he was carried
to his rest. There was no tolling of bells or firing of cannon.
The officers of the garrison followed the bier, and some of the
populace, including women and children, joined the procession as
it moved in dreary silence along the dusky street, shattered with
cannon-ball and bomb, to the chapel of the Ursuline convent.
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