A few shots were heard. The outposts came back to the
trenches. French officers on the look-out spied the blue
rangers coming towards the far side of the clearings and
spreading out cautiously to right and left. Then, in the
centre, a mass of moving red and the fitful glitter of
steel told Montcalm that his supreme moment had come at
last. He raised his hand above his head. An officer,
posted in the rear, made a signal to the fort half a mile
farther back. A single cannon fired one shot; and every
soldier laid down his tools and took up his musket. In
five minutes a line three-deep had been formed behind
the zigzag stockade, which looked almost like the front
half of a square. The face towards the enemy was about
five hundred yards long. The left face was about two
hundred yards, and the right, overlooking the low ground,
ran back quite three hundred. Levis had charge of the
right, Bourlamaque of the left. Montcalm himself took
the centre, straight in the enemy's way. As he looked
round, for the last time, and saw how steadily that long,
white, three-deep, zigzag line was standing at its post
of danger, with the blue Royal Roussillon in the middle,
and the grenadiers drawn up in handy bodies just behind,
ready to rush to the first weak spot, he thrilled with
the pride of the soldier born who has an army fit to
follow him.
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