1759.] ASSAULT AT MONTMORENCI. 129 



impetuosity proved the ruin of the plan. Without 

 waiting to receive their orders or form their ranks, 

 they ran, pell-mell, across the level ground, and 

 with loud shouts began, each man for himself, to 

 scale the heights which rose in front, crested with 

 intrenchments and bristling with hostile arms. The 

 French at the top threw volley after volley among 

 the hot-headed assailants. The slopes were soon 

 covered with the fallen ; and at that instant a 

 storm, which had long been threatening, burst with 

 sudden fury, drenched the combatants on both sides 

 with a deluge of rain, extinguished for a moment 

 the fire of the French, and at the same time made 

 the steeps so slippery that the grenadiers fell repeat- 

 edly in their vain attempts to climb. Night was 

 coming on with double darkness. The retreat was 

 sounded, and, as the English re-embarked, troops of 

 Indians came whooping down the heights, and hov- 

 ered about their rear, to murder the stragglers and 

 the wounded ; while exulting cries of Vive le roi, 

 from the crowded summits, proclaimed the triumph 

 of the enemy. 



With bitter agony of mind, Wolfe beheld the 

 headlong folly of his men, and saw more than four 

 hundred of the flower of his army fall a useless 

 sacrifice.^ The anxieties of the siege had told 

 severely upon his slender constitution ; and not 

 long after this disaster, he felt the first symptoms 

 of a fever, which soon confined him to his couch. 

 Still his mind never wavered from its purpose ; 

 and it was while lying helpless in the chamber of a 



1 Knox, Journals, I. 358. 

 9 



