of a woman's considerations
rather than upholding the glory of France.

"Among them are many troops who fought us at Fontenoy. I learned the
fact from an English prisoner whom our Indians brought in from Fort
Lydius," replied the Count de Lusignan.

"Well, the more of them the merrier," laughed La Corne St. Luc. "The
bigger the prize, the richer they who take it. The treasure-chests of
the English will make up for the beggarly packs of the New Englanders.
Dried stock fish, and eel-skin garters to drive away the rheumatism,
were the usual prizes we got from them down in Acadia!"

"The English of Fontenoy are not such despicable foes," remarked
the Chevalier de Lery; "they sufficed to take Louisbourg, and if we
discontinue our walls, will suffice to take Quebec."

"Louisbourg was not taken by THEM, but fell through the mutiny of the
base Swiss!" replied Bigot, touched sharply by any allusion to that
fortress where he had figured so discreditably. "The vile hirelings
demanded money of their commander when they should have drawn the blood
of the enemy!" added he, angrily.

"Satan is bold, but he would blush in the presence of Bigot," remarked
La Corne St. Luc to an Acadian officer seated next him. "Bigot kept
the King's treasure, and defrauded the soldiers of their pay: hence the
mutiny and the fall of Louisbourg."

"It is what the whole army knows," replied the officer. "But hark! the
Abbe Piquet is going to speak. It is a new thing to see clergy in a
Council of War!"

"No one has a better right to speak here than the Abbe Piquet," replied
La Corne. "No one has sent more Indian allies into the field to fight
for New France than the patriotic Abbe."

Other officers did not share the generous sentiments of La Corne St.
Luc. They thought it derogatory to pure military men to listen to a
priest on the affairs of the war.

"The Marshal de Belleisle would not permit even Cardinal de Fleury to
put his red stockings beneath his council-table," remarked a strict
martinet of La Serre; "and here we have a whole flock of black gowns
darkening our regimentals! What would Voltaire say?"

"He would say that when priests turn soldiers it is time for soldiers
to turn tinkers and mend holes in pots, instead of making holes in our
enemies," replied his companion, a fashionable freethinker of the day.

"Well, I am ready to turn pedlar any day! The King's army will go to the
dogs fast enough since the Governor commissions Recolle