This etext was produced by Gardner BuchananCHRONICLES OF CANADAEdited by George M Wrong and H H LangtonIn thirtytwo volumesVolume 10THE PASSING OF NEW FRANCEA Chronicle of MontcalmBy WILLIAM WOODTORONTO 1915CHAPTER IMONTCALM IN FRANCE17121756War is the grave of the Montcalms No one can tell howold this famous saying is Perhaps it is as old as Franceherself Certainly there never was a time when the menof the great family of MontcalmGozon were not ready tofight for their king and country and so Montcalm likeWolfe was a soldier bornEven in the Crusades his ancestors were famous all overEurope When the Christians of those brave days weretrying to drive the unbelievers out of Palestine theygladly followed leaders whom they thought saintly andheroic enough to be their champions against the dragonsof sultan satan and hell for people then believed thatdragons fought on the devils side and that only Christianknights like St George fighting on Gods side couldkill them The Christians banded themselves together inmany ways among others in the Order of the Knights ofSt John of Jerusalem taking an oath to be faithful untodeath They chose the best man among them to be theirGrand Master and so it could have been only after muchdevoted service that Deodat de Gozon became Grand Mastermore than five hundred years ago and was granted theright of bearing the conquered Dragon of Rhodes on thefamily coat of arms where it is still to be seen Howoften this glorious badge of victory reminded our ownMontcalm of noble deeds and noble men How often it nervedhim to uphold the family traditionThere are centuries of change between Crusaders andCanadians Yet the Montcalms can bridge them with theirhonour And among all the Montcalms who made their namemean soldiers honour in Eastern or European war nonehave given it so high a place in the worlds history asthe hero whose life and death in Canada made it immortalHe won the supreme glory for his name a glory so brightthat it shone even through the dust of death which shroudedthe France of the Revolution In 1790 when the NationalAssembly was suppressing pensions granted by the Crownit made a special exception in favour of Montcalmschildren As kings marquises heirs and pensions wereamong the things the Revolution hated most it is anotable tribute to our Marquis of Montcalm that therevolutionary parliament should have paid to his heirsthe pension granted by a king Nor has another centuryof change in France blotted out his name and fame TheMontcalm was the French flagship at the naval review heldin honour of the coronation of King Edward VII TheMontcalm took the President of France to greet his allythe Czar of Russia And but for a call of duty elsewhereat the time the Montcalm would have flown the Frenchadmirals flag in 1908 at the celebration of theTercentenary of the founding of Quebec when King GeorgeV led the French and Englishspeaking peoples of theworld in doing honour to the twin renown of Wolfe andMontcalm on the field where they won equal glory thoughunequal fortuneMontcalm was a leapyear baby having been born on February29 1712 in the family castle of Candiac near Nimesa very old city of the south of France a city with manyforts built by the Romans two thousand years ago He cameby almost as much good soldier blood on his mothers sideas on his fathers for she was one of the Castellaneswith numbers of heroic ancestors extending back to theFirst CrusadeThe Montcalms had never been rich They had many heroesbut no millionaires Yet they were well known and wellloved for their kindness to all the people on theirestates and so generous to every one in trouble and soready to spend their money as well as their lives forthe sake of king and country that they never could havemade great fortunes even had their estate been ten timesas large as it was Accordingly while they were famousand honoured all over France they had to be very carefulabout spending money on themselves They alland ourown Montcalm in particularspent much more in servingtheir country than their country ever spent in payingthem to serve itMontcalm was a delicate little boy of six when he firstwent to school He had many schoolboy faults He foundit hard to keep quiet or to pay attention to his teacherhe was backward in French grammar and he wrote a verybad hand Many a letter of complaint was sent to hisfather It seems to me writes the teacher that hishandwriting is getting worse than ever I show him againand again how to hold his pen but he will not do itproperly I think he ought to try to make up for his wantof cleverness by being more docile taking more painsand listening to my advice And then poor old Dumaswould end with an exclamation of despairWhat willbecome of himDumas had another pupil who was much more to his tasteThis was Montcalms younger brother Jean who knew hisletters before he was three read Latin when he was fiveand Greek and Hebrew when he was six Dumas was so proudof this infant prodigy that he took him to Paris andshowed him off to the learned men of the day who weredumbfounded at so much knowledge in so young a boy Allthis however was too much for a youthful brain andpoor Jean died at the age of sevenDumas then turned sadly to the elder boy who was in nodanger of being killed by too much study and soon renewedhis complaints At last Montcalm now sixteen and alreadyan officer could bear it no longer and wrote to hisfather telling him that in spite of his supposed stupidityhe had serious aims I want to be first a man ofhonour brave and a good Christian Secondly I want toread moderately to know as much Greek and Latin as othermen also arithmetic history geography literatureand some art and science Thirdly I want to be obedientto you and my dear mother and listen to Mr Dumassadvice Lastly I want to manage a horse and handle asword as well as ever I can