Lawrence below Three Rivers; forVaudreuil had ordered
the militia captains to join his standard, with all their followers,
armed and equipped, on pain of death.[828] These accessions appear
to have raised his force to between eight and nine thousand.
[Footnote 827: __Vaudreuil au Ministre, 23 Avril, 1760_.]
[Footnote 828: _Vaudreuil aux Capitaines de Milice, 16 Avril, 1760_. I am
indebted to Abbe H.R. Casgrain for a copy of this letter.]
The ice still clung to the river banks, the weather was bad,
and the navigation difficult; but on the twenty-sixth the army
landed at St. Augustin, crossed the river of Cap-Rouge on
bridges of their own making, and moved upon the English outpost
at Old Lorette. The English abandoned it and fell backto Ste.-Foy.
Levis followed. Night came on, with a gale from the southeast, a
driving rain, and violent thunder, unusual at that season. The road,
a bad and broken one, led through themarsh called La Suede. Causeways
and bridges broke down under the weight of the marching columns and
plunged the men into water, mud, and half-thawed ice. "It was a
frightful night," says Levis; "so dark that but for the flashes of
lightning we should have been forced to stop." The break of day found
the vanguard at the edge of the woods bordering the farther
side of the marsh. The storm had abated; and they saw before
them, a few hundred yards distant, through the misty air, a
ridge of rising ground on which stood the parish church of
Ste.
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