[wood] an UKSULINE epic S9 



confused noise of hand-to-hand fighting, yells that might have come from 

 Iroquois, followed immediately by loud, exultant British cheers, and, 

 as they strained their eyes to see if tlieir ears deceived them, the fore- 

 boded truth struck them to the heart when a mob of white and blue and 

 grey fugitives fled in mad haste for the bridge of boats leading back to 

 tlie French entrenchments. Even as they watched they heard of another 

 di*^aster from the street beside them. Montcalm had just ridden through 

 St. Louis' Ga,te, mortally woundetl — and this news touched the quick 

 of anguish. Some terrified Vvomen, seeing him pass by between two 

 Grenadiers, who supported him in the saddle, had shrieked out : '* Oh, 

 Mon Dieu — le Marquis est tué !" And he had tried to reassure them by 

 replying : " Ce n est rien ! Xe vous affligez pas pouj moi, mes bonnes 

 amies !" The surgeon told him he had only a few hours to live : — " So 

 nuch the better. 1 shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." But 

 he attended to the last details of his public duty before he let his memory 

 turn to his beloved family circle among the happy olive groves of his 

 home at Candiac. He sent a farewell message to every member; and 

 then, as his life was ebbing fast away, he made his final peace with God. 

 Often, in tha4: dreadful night, he was heard praying and rendering 

 thanks for the consolations of the Catholic faith. Just as the dreary 

 day was breaking he ^breathed his last. 



\Yhat desolation met the eyes of the nuns that morning! The 

 seven miles of French defences stretched as usual along the Beauport 

 shore to the heights of Montmorency; but no one manned them. The 

 guns were dumb and deserted. Tjhere was no stir of life aboujt the 

 empty tents. Nothing moved along the road which had so lately bristled 

 with ten thousand bayonets. The houses were as desolate as the camp. 

 Death had struck peace as well as war. 



Bad news kept coming in all day long. All the other French 

 generals had fallen in the battle, with no one knew how many officers 

 whose daughters were pupils of the convent. In the afternoon the death 

 of two Ursulincs was reported from the (general Hospital. One was La 

 Mère Charlotte de Muy de Ste. Hélène, daughter of a Governor of 

 Ijouisiana. She was the convent annalist who lived Just long enough to 

 see the fulfilment of her foreboding entry for the 26th of June: " The 

 colony is los|t." By a strange coincidence the other was Mary Jordan, 

 a Puritan, whose former compatriots were represented by the American 

 Eangers in Wolfe's triumphant army. But she was " La Mère de St. 

 Joseph," heart and soul, when the battle was joined the day before, and 

 she died, just after Montcalm, as French, as patriotic, and more intensely 

 Eoman Catholic than he. 



