ful cost to the State. Under assumed names
the ring sold to the King, of whose interests they were the guardians,
supplies at a profit of a hundred or a hundred and fifty per cent. They
made vast sums out of transport. They drew pay for feeding hundreds of
men who were not in the King's service. They received money for great
bills of merchandise never delivered and repeated the process over and
over again. To keep the Indians friendly the King sent presents of guns,
ammunition, and blankets. These were stolen and sold. Even the bodies of
Acadians were sold. They were hired out for their keep to a contractor
who allowed them to die of cold and hunger. Hundreds of the poor
exiles perished. The nemesis of a despotic system is that, however
well-intentioned it may be, its officials are not controlled by an alert
public opinion and yet must be trusted by their master. France meant
well by her colony but the colony, unlike the English colonies, was not
taught to look after itself. While nearly every one in Canada understood
what was going on, it was another thing to inform those in control in
France. La Porte, the secretary of the colonial minister, was in the
service of the ring. He intercepted letters which should have made
exposures. Until found out, he had the ear of the minister and echoed
the tone of lofty patriotism which Bigot assumed in his letters to his
superiors.

History has made Montcalm one of its heroes--and with justice. He was a
remarkable man, who would have won fame as a scholar had he not followed
the long family tradition of a soldier's career. Bougainville once said
that the highest literary distinction of a Frenchman, a chair in the
Academy, might be within reach of Montcalm as well as the baton of a
Marshal of France. He had a prodigious memory and had read widely. His
letters, written amid the trying conditions of war, are nervous, direct,
pregnant with meaning, the notes of a penetrating intelligence. He had
deep family affection. "Adieu, my heart, I believe that I love you more
than ever I did before"; these were the last words of what he did not
know was to be his last letter to his wife. In the midst of a gay scene
at Montreal, in the spring of 1759, he writes to Bourlamaque, then
at Lake Champlain, with acute longing for the south of France in the
spring. For six or seven months in the year he could receive no letters
and always the British command of the sea made their expected arrival
uncertai