Death or Victory: The Battle for Quebec and the Birth of Empire. Dan Snow
dysfunctional hierarchy of the French government. Pompadour did, though, have a powerful voice in policymaking, in particular the appointment and dismissal of key officers in the army and the state. She kept up correspondences with many of the field commanders although the letters consisted mainly of encouragement and promises to look after any family members that wanted jobs.
Had Pompadour or any other strong figure emerged to usurp the power of the King, it may well have been better for France. Instead, half-hearted royal government staggered on. Louis’ great enemy, the energetic, commanding Frederick II, ‘Frederick the Great’, of Prussia wrote in his memoirs that his adversary’s ‘zeal was extinguished within a few days, and France was governed by four subaltern kings, each independent of the other’. France was ‘a vessel sailing without a compass on a stormy sea, simply following the impulsion of the wind’. A contemporary French historian famously commented that ministers changed ‘like scenery at the opera’. During the war France would get through four ministers of foreign affairs and five ministers of marine, who had responsibility for the colonies and the navy. Just before Bougainville’s visit in November 1758 Pompadour had secured the appointment of one of her favourites, Nicolas-René Berryer, as Minister of Marine; he was the fourth man to take the job. His qualifications for the position were dubious. He had been the Chief of Police of Paris and he treated his new job as an investigation into what would happen in Canada should it fall to the British rather than throwing himself into its defence.21
Bougainville quickly realized that Versailles was preparing itself for the worst in Canada. Attention was fixed on central Europe where Frederick II had inflicted a stunning series of defeats on the forces of Austria, Russia and France. The threat to the colonies could wait. The honour of France’s armies and the situation in Europe were more important. French policy for 1759 was to drive into western Germany to threaten King George II’s Electorate of Hanover and Frederick’s western front, while conserving its naval resources for an all-out invasion of Britain. King George’s government would be forced to negotiate. British subsidies which were the lifeblood of Frederick’s war effort would be cut off, and any losses overseas could be restored to Louis with the stroke of a pen. In the meantime Canada would have to look to her own defence. In the words of Berryer in his audience with Bougainville, ‘Sir, one does not try to save the stables when the house is on fire.’ Bougainville shot back bravely, ‘Well, sir, at least, they cannot say that you speak like a horse.’22 Meetings with Pompadour and other key figures proved just as fruitless. The pessimism seeping out of Montcalm’s and Bougainville’s own depositions only convinced government belief that the situation in Canada was hopeless. Montcalm’s one, rather odd request was that Canada could be saved by an amphibious assault on the Carolinas. The French fleet would meet no opposition since the British ships would be concentrating on northern waters. Montcalm informed Versailles that the Cherokee would join the French as would the German settlers throughout the central colonies. The Quakers of Pennsylvania would not fight and the huge slave populations would rise up and support the French, hoping for their freedom. Ministers praised the plan and shelved it.
A king in want of ships, guns, and men was generous with the one resource in which he was rich. Promotions, honours, and decorations flowed to the personnel in Canada. Bougainville was made a colonel, Montcalm, a lieutenant general, with a salary of 48,000 livres, and Vaudreuil received the Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Louis. The newly promoted Montcalm now outranked Vaudreuil. Rather than resolving the crisis of leadership, Versailles had exacerbated it. Over the winter the court seems to have wavered over a solution to this bitter quarrel. Ministerial minutes record that they were well aware of the problem, acknowledging that ‘the Marquis de Vaudreuil and the Marquis de Montcalm lived on such indifferent terms…This estrangement had exercised an influence over all minds.’23 They recognized that Montcalm wished to be brought home, especially now that it would be beneath the dignity of a lieutenant general to answer to a governor.
Montcalm’s second in command, who had also received a promotion, was the very able Maréchal de camp, François-Gaston de Lévis, who was on good terms with Vaudreuil and had in the past praised Canadian military commanders for their skill. He would have been an ideal candidate to succeed Montcalm in an attempt to reconcile the French army with the Canadian colonial soldiers and militiamen. Having discussed this plan the document ends with an entry on 28 December 1758 saying simply, ‘on mature reflection, this arrangement cannot take place, as M de Montcalm is necessary at this present conjuncture’. Montcalm would stay on; Vaudreuil would defer to him in decisions relating to the defence of the colony, although he would continue to command the colony’s militia.24 It was a disastrous compromise. Instead of a firm decision, the bickering over precedence was to continue. Montcalm was instructed to get along with Vaudreuil; meanwhile, ‘M. Berryer writes to the same effect to M. Vaudreuil and directs him to conduct himself with the greatest harmony towards you; you must both feel all its necessity and all its importance.’ Strategically at least the French court had sided unambiguously with Montcalm; the focus of operations was to defend the core of the colony, forces should be stationed so as to be ‘always enabled mutually to help one another, to communicate with and to support each other. However trifling the space you can preserve, it is of utmost importance to possess always a foothold in Canada, for should we once wholly lose that country, it would be quite impossible to enter it again.’ In conclusion Montcalm was told that, ‘the recollection of what you have achieved last year makes His Majesty hope that you will still find means to disconcert their projects. M Berryer will cause to be conveyed to you as much provisions and ammunition as possible; the rest depends on your wisdom and courage, and on the bravery of the troops.’25
Ships of the line would be hoarded in France to prepare to knock Britain out of the war by direct invasion. Instead, frigates were sent and fast private ships paid for at exorbitant rates to take supplies out to Canada. Bougainville travelled to Bordeaux where a flotilla of ships was being assembled. Even though France’s army was at least twice the size of that of Britain, no new units of regulars were sent out. There was a fear, partly thanks to Montcalm’s gloomy predictions, that they would be intercepted by the British. There was also the consideration that if they did arrive in Canada they would place too much strain on the colony’s limited food supply. Montcalm was informed that, ‘you must not expect to receive any military reinforcements’.26 Altogether around four hundred recruits, of mixed quality, were sent to bring the regular units up to strength together with sixty specialists such as engineers and sappers. Apart from the men, the ships carried food, gunpowder, and other provisions to Quebec. Bougainville boarded the frigate, La Chézine, and set sail on 20 March. A few ships crept out from other ports; in mid-March the Atalante, thirty-four guns, and the Pomone, thirty, left the Channel. All the captains hoped they would enter the gulf before the blockading squadron.
La Chézine sailed into the basin of Quebec on 10 May, the first of twenty-three supply ships from France to do so. Its arrival provoked a blizzard of rumours in a town cut off from supplies and news for months. Nearly all of the rest of the fleet trickled in over the next week. The vast majority of ships sent had beaten Durell’s British blockade. Montcalm’s pessimism had been misplaced. There was huge rejoicing by the townspeople who had been haunted by the prospect of starvation. One diarist, Jean-Claude Panet, who had arrived in New France as a 20-year-old soldier and was now approaching his fortieth birthday as a notary in a Quebec court, wrote that, ‘you cannot doubt the joy that this news gave to us’.27 Canada had been jolted by a series of poor harvests, partly caused by the inclement weather and partly by the absence of the farmers who had been called into the colony’s militia and sent to distant frontiers. To add to the discomfort of the Canadians, the winter had been awful. The same low temperatures suffered by the men at Halifax and Louisbourg had been felt right across Canada as well. ‘The winter has been one of the coldest…the ice has backed up to such an extraordinary degree and with such violence, as to throw down a house,’ wrote one