University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
THE ALARM.

After the fall of the chivalrous Montcalm before
the walls of Quebec, and the subsequent surrender
of that city to the British troops, the fate of the
French dominion in the Canadas was virtually decided.
Nevertheless, the French entertained hopes
of reversing this decision by recapturing Quebec.
The Chevalier de Levi, at that period, was an intrepid
and experienced soldier in the prime of life,
and distinguished as a leader. He had been trained
in the European wars, was a Canadian by birth,
and a zealous and enthusiastic patriot. After the
death of Montcalm he assembled the remnant of
the Canadian forces, and in a few weeks collected
an army, composed of regular soldiers and armed
peasantry, amounting, in all, to nearly twelve thousand
men. With this formidable force he marched
upon Quebec, but was encountered a few miles
from its gates, on the twentieth of April, seventeen
hundred and sixty, by the British general Murray,

who, learning his intentions, had issued from the
fortress with three thousand troops to offer him
battle.

The hostile armies met within a few miles of
Quebec, and furiously engaged. The battle was
contested with the utmost obstinacy for two hours,
the chevalier himself mingling in the thickest of the
fight, and performing deeds of valour not unworthy
a brave knight of ancient romance. General Murray
was at length compelled to retire upon Quebec,
with the loss of more than one thousand men,
killed, wounded, and taken prisoners, leaving all his
baggage and field-artillery to the victors. The loss
in the chevalier's army was nearly twenty-five hundred
men. Animated with his success, he followed
the defeated Murray with spirit, and laid siege to
the city, within which he had withdrawn. It was
on the point of capitulating, when the garrison was
relieved by the arrival of a fleet bringing a detachment
of British soldiers. The chevalier, with an
undisciplined army, was unable to contend successfully
against fresh troops, and, raising the siege,
made a precipitate retreat. His followers dispersed,
and the fallen chief found himself at sunset
deserted by every one save a single attendant, already
introduced to the reader as the porter Homfroy.

Despairing of any present means of expelling
the conquerors of his native country, the Chevalier
de Levi retired into the monastery of St. Claude,
then a thriving community, although, at the period
of the disguised young officer's visit to the Father
Etienne, the name assumed by the military recluse,
it was only a ruined asylum for a few aged priests.
Were we to weigh carefully the motives that induced
the unsuccessful soldier to take this pious
step, we should, perhaps, find them composed, in

part, of a desire to bury his own disgrace from the
world; in part of a morbid melancholy, the consequence
of his defeat and disappointment, a disposition
of the mind which often drives men both to
the church and the cloister; but we should also
find that he was governed by a deeper feeling than
either of these. Aware that the priesthood were
generally disaffected with the existing government,
his main object was to attach himself to this body,
that, by the aid of so vast an engine of political
power, and under the cover of a monastic life, he
might combine a conspiracy against the new government,
and, when it should become fully matured,
apply the torch to the train he had laid, and spread
a revolutionary flame like wildfire throughout the
territory.

Such were the motives which converted the Chevalier
de Levi into Father Etienne. His schemes,
however, never ripened into maturity; and, though
always planning and plotting with a perseverance
and secrecy not unworthy of Lucius Catiline, and
constantly corresponding with the disaffected in
every quarter of Canada, and even with ambitious
individuals in the British colonies, among
whom, as has already been intimated, was the
leader of the eastern division of the invading army,
yet, on the day we intruded into his retirement, he
was as remote from his object, so far as the restoration
of the French dominion was concerned, as
on the first day he assumed the religious habit.
By long devotion to one sole object, from which
nothing could make him swerve, aided by an active
imagination and a sanguine temperament, the
chevalier had become transformed from a calm and
dispassionate patriot, devoting himself to his country,
into a settled monomaniac. To such a mind,
therefore, the threatened invasion, although it did

not embrace its long-cherished and favourite project,
was, nevertheless, welcome intelligence, inasmuch
as it would be, at least, the instrument of
overthrowing the government of his conquerors.
This object effected, the restoration of the old Canadian
régime, he was willing to confide to the course
of events.

Inspired, therefore, with renewed ardour in the
cause to which he had devoted his life, by these
tidings of invasion, with his eyes sparkling and his
hands trembling with excitement, he seated himself
at the table as the young soldier threw himself
upon the floor to sleep, and soon became involved
in a manifold correspondence. His arguments
were skilfully adapted to the circumstances
and prejudices of those to whom his letters were
addressed. To the disaffected priest, and there
were many such throughout the Canadas, he held
out the restoration of the Roman Catholic ascendency
and the return of the golden days of papal regality.
Before the imaginations of those Canadian
gentlemen who desired a change of government,
he displayed gorgeous pictures of titles and dignities,
and predicted the restitution of their alienated
privileges and honours; while the eyes of one individual,
of high birth and once in power, were
dazzled with the glitter of a vice-regal crown. No
scheme, however wild, seemed impracticable to the
mind of this visionary enthusiast. Finally, in addressing
a distinguished primate, whose good sense,
he was sufficiently aware, would not be blinded
either by his sophistry or arguments, however plausible,
and who, he was convinced, would withhold
his name and influence until there remained no
doubt of the re-establishment of the Catholic, or,
which was virtually the same thing, the Canadian
ascendency, he hinted that the American army was

but a few thousand strong; that they should be
supported by an active co-operation on the part of
the Canadians until they had captured Quebec;
“Then, if the partisan leaders are alive to their
own interests, which,” he continued, “I myself
will undertake to be the active instrument in awakening,
in the unguarded moment of victory, and by
the aid of superior numbers, we can snatch the
citadel from their grasp, and, please God, the flag
of France will once more float above its towers.”
The crafty politician facetiously closed his diplomatic
letter by relating the fable of the “Monkey
and Cat's-paw.”

He had folded, and was preparing to seal his
letters, when the deep silence of the apartment,
which, for the last half hour, had only been interrupted
by the busy scratching of his pen and the
light breathing of the sleeper, was broken by a loud
and lamentable wail from the river, accompanied
by the baying and howling of a dog. The next
moment it was repeated still more appallingly, and
soon after answered by a voice beneath the tower.
The cry was a third time heard, and the voice below
again answered it back, but now in a loud
key of surprise and alarm, so wild and shrill that
it chilled the blood of the chevalier, and started
the sleeper to his feet; at the same time the bell
in the turret above their heads began to ring, breaking
upon the stillness of the night with its untimely
clamour.

“God of heaven! what means this alarm?”
cried the youth, laying his hand on his sword-hilt
as he sprung to his feet.

“By the mass! I know not,” replied the chevalier,
disengaging the lamp from the chain by which
it hung, and taking a rapier from behind his bookcase;
“one would think the Philistines were
upon us.”

“List!” said the young soldier, as the cry was
repeated in a fainter key, “there is a man drowning
in the river. Hasten to his rescue.”

The impatient youth seized the lamp in the
hands of the chevalier, and, closely followed by
him, darted through the gallery, and descended
into the hall beneath. Here he was met by an old
monk, one of the chevalier's household, his eyes
starting from their sockets, his whole frame shaking
with terror, and his pale lips trembling with
a scarcely articulate exorcism.

“The matter! the cry! what means it?” almost
fiercely interrogated the youth, grasping him by
the shoulder.

“Salve Domine! Oh! oh! (in profundis) I had
been talking a little gossip with good Homfroy, and
sipping a little posset for my old body's sake; and
while we were sitting there, as innocent as two young
virgins, what should we hear but a cry from the
water. Oh Lord! oh! I looked out, and there was
the old enemy, black as pitch, with horns, and hoofs,
and tail (salve Domine) and I shrieked with fear,
and would have fallen into a swoon, but—”

“Haste ye! haste ye, reverend fathers, there is
life and death in thy speed,” shouted Homfroy, as
the impatient young man flung the old monk from
him; “a perishing creature is struggling in the ice,
midway the river.”

“The ice, Homfroy!” repeated the chevalier, as
he waited for him to undo the bolt.

“The ice is as thick as this bar. I looked from
my window to answer the call, and saw the moon
glistening on it as if 'twere polished steel.”

As Homfroy spoke the last word and drew back
his last bolt, they rushed past him and hastened
to the shore, followed at a more moderate rate by the
less agile porter and his gossip the monk, whose

terrors could neither keep him within the convent
nor paralyze his tongue when without. The atmosphere
was still intensely cold, but the moon
had risen, and now shed her clear light over forest
and river, while the dewy particles upon the grass,
crystallized by the frost, reflected her beams, and
gave to the sward the appearance of glittering with
myriads of minute diamonds. From shore to shore
the river was bound in a transparent sheet of ice,
and, under the action of the sharp air, the process
of congelation was going forward with a celerity
to be accredited only by those who have sailed
upon a lake at sunset, and crossed it the succeeding
sunrise in a carriole.

On arriving at the beach, the attention of the
party was directed to a man, whose outline was
distinctly visible by the light of the moon, sitting
in a boat, which appeared to be fast bound in the ice
in the middle of the river, and feebly shouting for
aid; while beside him, with his fore paws upon his
breast, stood a large dog, whose howls rose above
the faint cries of the man.

“It is François,” cried the young soldier.

He had scarcely spoken when a shriek from the
opposite shore fell piercingly on his ear.

“The saints have mercy!” ejaculated the chevalier,
“there is Jaquette's voice. François! poor
François!”

“'Tis two good hours since François left,” said
Homfroy, who now joined the group, puffing and
blowing with such unusual exertion, for Homfroy's
figure was of Falstaffian dimensions; “it cannot
be François; he is in bed long since.”

But the reiterated shrieks from the mainland, and
the thrilling repetition of the name of François in
a voice of agony, sufficiently betrayed the sufferer,
whose shouts, growing feebler every moment, had
now died away into an occasional moan.

“Poor François!” said the chevalier, “he has
got benumbed and frozen up in crossing, and is
now past exerting himself farther. Before the ice
will be strong enough to bear a man's weight he
will be beyond all human aid. Something must be
done, please God, and that quickly. By the mass!
I haven't felt such an air since the winter of fifty-five,
when I was in the Russian wars! How is
the ice?”

The young stranger, who had been actively proving
its strength with Homfroy's staff, replied despondingly,

“Frail enough;” and, pressing upon it with his
foot, he added, “it will not bear my own light
weight; but he must not perish while there exists
any means of saving him. Have you a boat on the
island?”

“Malheur! a boat? No, no,” replied old Homfroy,
shaking his head, “a boat can do no good.”

“Not a board—a plank—a fragment of anything?”
he continued, traversing the bank in search
of something to aid his philanthropic exertions,
and maddened by the shrieks of Jaquette.

“There are some remains of an old boat on the
bank above,” cried the chevalier, eagerly. “Haste
and bring them, all of ye,” he added, to Homfroy
and three or four monks whom the alarm had
drawn from their cells. “Ca, courage! my son,”
he shouted to the sufferer, whose moans had now entirely
ceased, “thou shalt yet lift thy voice in many
a merry stave.”

The young stranger, assisted by the chevalier
and his companions, soon collected on the verge of
the ice several broken planks from the wreck, and,
with skill and celerity, he set about constructing a
square frame or hurdle, strengthening it by transverse
pieces well secured with cords, which the

mother-wit of Homfroy instructed him to draw from
a bedstead in one of the deserted cells of the monastery.
With the united efforts of the whole
party, some minutes were required to complete it.
Launching it on the ice, the youth, with a long pole
in his hand, placed himself fearlessly but cautiously
upon it, and, to the surprise of the monks, by this
application of a simple principle in philosophy, of
increasing the surface of the weight to be supported,
he was sustained where otherwise he would have
broken through. With gentle force he pushed
from the bank, amid the mingled blessings and
prayers of the monks, and the encouraging exhortations
of the chevalier.

The undulation of the ice at first filled them with
apprehensions for the safety of the intrepid youth.
With his person erect and immoveable, he struck
out with his pole alternately on each side, changing
it from hand to hand with surprising dexterity,
aware that his safety and success depended upon
the velocity with which he glided over the surface
of the ice, and that the briefest pause thereon or
the least obstruction, would be fatal both to himself
and the individual for whom, with such presence of
mind and insensibility to danger, he had perilled
his life. The cries of the sufferer had ceased for
several minutes before he left the shore, and the
shrieks of Jaquette, whom he could distinguish on
the bank wringing her hands and surrounded by
her children and neighbours, had subsided into a
low wailing. Apprehensive that his aid would arrive
too late, he exerted himself to such good purpose,
that, in a few seconds after leaving the land,
he came swiftly alongside of the boat, into which
he leaped with the glad shouts of the spectators on
the island ringing in his ears, while a cry of joy
from the mainland assured him that his motions

were not unwatched by one who felt no common
interest in his success; and the passing reflection
rewarded him for all he had done.

The boat was firmly bound in the ice, which had
been broken up about the bow and stern, but the
fragments had again united, and showed that the
sufferer had for some time ceased his exertions to
extricate himself. François, for it was the lighthearted
peasant, was seated on the bow-thwart of
his boat, with one arm round the neck of his faithful
dog, and with his face turned towards his cottage,
as if he sought to die with his last look upon
his beloved home, his last gaze upon the partner
of his bosom and his sweet babes: alas! the home
whose threshold he was never to cross more, the
wife and babes he was never again to embrace!
The young stranger placed his hand on his heart
and temples. The pulse of life had for ever ceased
to vibrate; his eyes were closed, his head rested
upon one shoulder, and his countenance was as
calm and peaceful as if he only slept; he seemed
to have passed without pain from the sleep of the
living into the deep sleep of the dead.

“Can this be death? so calm, so placid! like
one in pleasant and quiet slumber!” thought the
young man as he gazed upon his serene countenance
by the clear light of the moon; “desirable,
indeed, must be that mode of death which leaves
the dead so like the living!”

For a few seconds he gazed on the placid face
of the dead François, lost in these reflections, and
forgetting for a moment the circumstances in which
he was placed, when a shout from the chevalier,
asking if François was alive, aroused him.

He cast his eyes, without replying, towards the
spot where stood Jaquette awaiting the result in
deathlike silence Unused to death in any shape,

and shocked at the fearful end of his late host,
whose lot a brief while before he had compared
with his own and envied, he uttered an impatient
imprecation against the wretchedness so profusely
mingled in the cup of life; and then, overcome
with emotion as he thought of the blow about to
fall upon the unprotected family, he remained for
several seconds incapable of speaking. This tribute
to his heart and to human nature was, however,
but momentary.

“Hola, brave youth!” again shouted the chevalier,
“how fares it with worthy François? Haste
with him to the shore, or thou wilt need aid also.”

“François is well,” replied the young officer,
evasively.

At a loss whether to convey the corpse directly
to the island, and, until morning, conceal his death
from Jaquette, or at once let her know the full extent
of her loss, he briefly considered the two
modes, and finally decided on removing him immediately
to the shore, and placing the body in her
charge. He therefore transferred the corpse, now
become rigid as marble, to the hurdle, and pushed
towards the bank. He moved with difficulty, for
his body was already penetrated by the insinuating
frost; his hands were nearly deprived of all
sensibility, and an oppressive drowsiness, to which
he knew it would be fatal to yield, had seized him.
As the hurdle touched the bank before her cottage,
Jaquette rushed forward and fell lifeless upon the
icy body of her husband.

A number of peasants, alarmed by the shouting
and the ringing of the convent bell, had already
collected on the shore; these he directed to convey
the body to the cottage. Several females took
charge of the insensible Jaquette, and, bearing her
to her dwelling, carried her into an inner room.

The young soldier followed them to the cottage
and remained in the outer apartment, where, the
evening before, he had supped with the happy family
under circumstances so opposite to the present,
and superintended the laying out of the body. He
gave, in a tone of authority, such directions as the
event rendered necessary to the neighbours of Fran
çois, who had assembled at the house of mourning
until the room was filled with a wondering and horror-stricken
crowd.

Although his instructions were obeyed with alacrity,
they served to draw the attention of the peasants
to the speaker, of whose intrepidity several of
them had been witnesses. At length he observed
that they whispered apart together, and that the
eyes of one or two, of rougher exterior and more
reckless bearing than their fellows, were directed
towards him with glances of suspicion; at the
same moment he discovered that his disguise,
which he had hastily resumed on starting from
sleep, was disarranged, and that a portion of his
military dress and the butt of a pistol were visible
through its folds.

He therefore waited for an opportunity to withdraw
from the room and cottage unobserved, when,
nastening to the shore, he recrossed the ice, now
firm enough to bear his footsteps, and returned to
the monastery, where he found the chevalier with
his companions congregated in Homfroy's well-warmed
room, impatiently awaiting tidings from
the shore.

On being once more alone with the chevalier in
his closet, he informed him of the death of Fran
çois, and of the unlucky exposure of his profession
before the peasants, and insisted on taking his leave
immediately, as the appearance of an officer disguised
as a monk would be food for gossip, and, perhaps,

ultimately lead to unpleasant consequences,
particularly if by any means it should be rumoured
that an American army was approaching.

The chevalier approved of his plan; and taking
from the table the letters he had written during the
night, they left the monastery together, and, crossing
to the mainland, proceeded towards the cottage
of the deceased François.

“Remain without until I come forth,” said the
chevalier to his companion, placing his hand upon
the latch of the door as he spoke.

In a few minutes he came out, followed by an
awkward, ungainly clown, stoutly built, with square
shoulders, a stolid look, and a skulking air like
that of a whipped schoolboy. He appeared to be
about twenty-six years of age, and was dressed in
the usual garb of his class; his clothes, nevertheless,
were much too small for him, and his bonnet
much too large.

“Here is the guide who will direct you to the
house of the vicaire Ducosse, ten leagues down the
valley, to whom you will bear a letter. There,”
added the chevalier, in a lower tone, “you will obtain
another guide. The vicaire you may safely
trust. Jacques, conduct the reverend father to thy
cottage, and with all diligence saddle thy two horses
and mount, and, by the mass! see that thou spare
neither hide nor spur. I have told thee wherefore
he travels, and it is a matter on thy conscience that
thou doest my bidding. So haste and make ready
for thy speedy journey. Young sir,” he added,
addressing the disguised soldier, “I have, for the
present, hushed all suspicion among the peasants
within the cottage. All will now depend upon
your caution. Here are certain despatches, which
I pray you to place with all safety into the hands
of the Father Guise, who resides at the last post

on your route; you will reach it with hard riding by
sunset the day after to-morrow. He will attend to
their delivery according to their several superscriptions.
In this paper you will find directions for
your route, and here is an epistle introductory to
brother vicaire Ducosse. Farewell, my young
friend; God and the saints guide you on your way.
Be wise, and you will be successful. Your guide,
Jacques, who is a mere animal, you may always
trust. His dread of the pains of purgatory, with
which, as Father Etienne, I have threatened him
if he be faithless or lacking in his duty, is a better
guarantee for his honesty than if he were your
sworn friend and brother. So good-night, for, peradventure,
you are the messenger of a nation's fate.”
Thus speaking, and warmly grasping his hand, he
separated from him and re-entered the cottage.

The monk, as we shall once more term the disguised
soldier, followed his guide at a rapid pace
along a narrow path which wound by the banks of
the river. After a walk of half a mile they stopped
before a cottage, resembling, but less picturesque,
that of the unfortunate François.

“Enter, father, and warm thy limbs by the embers,”
said the guide, opening its only door, “and
I'll get ready the nags.”

“I will help you,” replied the impatient traveller;
“we can both get warm enough riding; the sooner
we mount and are on our road, the better.”

He followed his guide through a rude gate into
a low stable constructed of logs, where stood two
small and spirited Canadian horses, of a breed remarkable
for their hardihood. They were soon
caparisoned and at the door. Before mounting the
peasant entered his cabin, and exchanged the bonnet
he wore for a cap of furs, enveloped his body
in a capote of fox-skins, and, drawing on a pair of

boots and then a pair of gloves, lined with dogskin,
with the fur on the outside, said he was ready to
ride; at the same time, he presented the monk with
similar garments as a necessary protection against
the severity of the cold. He gladly accepted and
enveloped himself in these comfortable Canadian
defences against the rigour of their climate, and,
drawing his priestly frock over all, mounted and
followed his guide, who, starting off at a gallop,
rode rapidly in a northernly direction, and along
a beaten path which led for many miles beside the
banks of the river.