mmand, and sent the following note
to Brigadier Townshend: "Monsieur, the humanity of the English sets
my mind at peace concerning the fate of the French prisoners and the
Canadians. Feel towards them as they have caused me to feel. Do not
let them perceive that they have changed masters. Be their protector
as I have been their father."[793]

[Footnote 793: I am indebted to Abbe Bois for a copy of this note. The
last words of Montcalm, as above, are reported partly by Johnstone,
and partly by Knox.]

Bishop Pontbriand, himself fast sinking with mortal disease,
attended his deathbed and administered the last sacraments.
He died peacefully at four o'clock on the morning of the
fourteenth. He was in his forty-eighth year.

In the confusion of the time no workman could be found
to make a coffin, and an old servant of the Ursulines, known
as Bonhomme Michel, gathered a few boards and nailed them together
so as to form a rough box. In it was laid the body of the dead
soldier; and late in the evening of the same day he was carried
to his rest. There was no tolling of bells or firing of cannon.
The officers of the garrison followed the bier, and some of the
populace, including women and children, joined the procession as
it moved in dreary silence along the dusky street, shattered with
cannon-ball and bomb, to the chapel of the Ursuline convent. Here
a shell, bursting under the floor, had made a cavity which had been
hollowed into a grave. Three priests of the Cathedral, several nuns,
Ramesay with his officers, and a throng of townspeople were
present at the rite. After the service and the chant, the
body was lowered into the grave by the light of torches; and
then, says the chronicle, "the tears and sobs burst forth. It
seemed as if the last hope of the colony were buried with the
remains of the General."[794] In truth, the funeral of Montcalm
was the funeral of New France.[795]

[Footnote 794: _Ursulines de Quebec,_ III. 10.]

[Footnote 795: See Appendix J.]

It was no time for grief. The demands of the hour were
too exigent and stern. When, on the morning after the battle,
the people of Quebec saw the tents standing in the camp of
Beauport, they thought the army still there to defend them.[796]
Ramesay knew that the hope was vain. On the evening before,
Vaudreuil had sent two hasty notes to tell him of his flight.
"The position of the enemy," wrote the Governor, "becomes stronger
every instant; and this, with other