"Monsieur the Marquis of Montcalm," he
says, "unfortunately made his attack before I had joined
him."[784] His joining him could have done no good; for though
he had at last brought with him the rest of the militia from
the Beauport camp, they had come no farther than the bridge
over the St. Charles, having, as he alleges, been kept there by
an unauthorized order from the chief of staff, Montreuil.[785]
He declares that the regulars were in such a fright that he
could not stop them; but that the Canadians listened to his
voice, and that it was he who rallied them at the Cote Ste.-Genevieve.
Of this the evidence is his own word. From other accounts it would
appear that the Canadians rallied themselves. Vaudreuil lost no time
in recrossing the bridge and joining the militia in the redoubt at
the farther end, where a crowd of fugitives soon poured in after him.

[Footnote 784: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 21 Sept. 1759_.]

[Footnote 785: _Ibid., 5 Oct. 1759_.]

The aide-de-camp Johnstone, mounted on horseback, had
stopped for a moment in what is now the suburb of St. John
to encourage some soldiers who were trying to save a cannon
that had stuck fast in a marshy hollow; when, on spurring
his horse to the higher ground, he saw within musket-shot
a long line of British troops, who immediately fired upon him.
The bullets whistled about his ears, tore his clothes, and
wounded his horse; which, however, carried him along the
edge of the declivity to a windmill, near which was a roadway
to a bakehouse on the meadow below. He descended, crossed the
meadow, reached the bridge, and rode over it to the great redoubt
or hornwork that guarded its head.

The place was full of troops and Canadians in a wild panic.
"It is impossible," says Johnstone, "to imagine the disorder
and confusion I found in the hornwork. Consternation was
general. M. de Vaudreuil listened to everybody, and was always
of the opinion of him who spoke last. On the appearance
of the English troops on the plain by the bakehouse,
Montguet and La Motte, two old captains in the regiment of
Bearn, cried out with vehemence to M. de Vaudreuil 'that
the hornwork would be taken in an instant by assault, sword
in hand; that we all should be cut to pieces without quarter;
and that nothing would save us but an immediate and general
capitulation of Canada, giving it up to the English.'"[786] Yet
the river was wide and deep, and the hornwork was protected
on the water side by