'What a
country, where knaves grow rich and honest men are ruined!'
Montcalm wrote home to his family by every ship. He might
not have long to do so. Just after Ticonderoga he wrote
to his wife: 'Thank God! it is all over now until the
beginning of May. We shall have desperate work in the
next campaign. The enemy will have 50,000 men in the
field, all together; and we, how many? I dare not tell
it. Adieu, my heart, I long for peace and you. When shall
I see my Candiac again?' On November 21, 1758, the last
ship left for France. He wrote to his old mother, to whom
he had always told the story of his wars, from the time
when, thirty-one years before, as a stripling of fifteen,
he had joined his father's regiment in the very year that
Wolfe was born: 'You will be glad to hear from me up to
the last moment and know, for the hundredth time, that
I am always thinking of you all at home, in spite of the
fate of New France and my duty with the army and the
state. We did our best these last three years; and so,
God helping us, we shall in 1759--unless you can make a
peace for us in Europe.'
The wretched winter dragged on. The French were on half
rations, the Canadians worse off still. In January Montcalm
wrote in his diary: 'terrible distress round Quebec.
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