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The Passing of New France : a Chronicle of Montcalm

Chapter 20: BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
By William Wood
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About This Book

A military chronicle follows the career of a commander who led forces in North America during the mid‑eighteenth‑century colonial wars. It interweaves narrative accounts of key operations at frontier posts and major sieges with discussions of strategy, supply difficulties, and the rivalries and corruption among colonial officials that undermined defensive efforts. Portraits of leaders, descriptions of battlefield engagements, and analysis of administrative failures combine to show how leadership choices, logistical strain, and political friction contributed to the eventual collapse of the French position in the region.

   'Sir, being obliged to surrender Quebec to your arms
   I have the honour to recommend our sick and wounded
   to Your Excellency's kindness, and to ask you to carry
   out the exchange of prisoners, as agreed upon between
   His Most Christian Majesty and His Britannic Majesty.
   I beg Your Excellency to rest assured of the high
   esteem and great respect with which I have the honour
   to be your most humble and obedient servant,

   MONTCALM.'

And then, his public duty over, he sent a message to each member of his family at Candiac, including 'poor Mirete,' for not a word had come from France since the British fleet had sealed up the St Lawrence, and he did not yet know which of his daughters had died.

Having remembered his family he gave the rest of his thoughts to his God and to that other world he was so soon to enter. All night long his lips were seen to move in prayer. And, just as the dreary dawn was breaking; he breathed his last.

'War is the grave of the Montcalms.'







BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Montcalm is, of course, a very prominent character in every history of New France. Parkman ('Montcalm and Wolfe') tried to be just, but the facts were not all before him when he wrote. The Abbe Casgrain ('Guerre du Canada, 1756-1760: Montcalm et Levis') was unfortunately too prejudiced in favour of Vaudreuil and Levis to be just, much less generous, towards Montcalm; but the Honourable Thomas Chapais's work ('Le Marquis de Montcalm, 1712-1759') based on much more nearly complete materials, does honour both to Montcalm and to French-Canadian scholarship. Captain Sautai's monograph on Ticonderoga ('Montcalm au Combat de Carillon') is the best military study yet published. An elaborate bibliography of works connected with Montcalm's Quebec campaign is to be found in volume vi of Doughty's 'Siege of Quebec'. The present work seems to be the only life of Montcalm written by an English-speaking author with access to all the original data, naval as well as military.

See also in this Series: 'The Winning of Canada'; 'The Great Fortress'; 'The Acadian Exiles'.

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