Nature had furnished a noble setting for the drama now to be enacted.Quebec stands on a bold semicircular rock on the north shore of the St.Lawrence.At the foot of the rock sweeps the mighty river, here at the least breadth in its whole course, but still a flood nearly a mile wide, deep and strong.Its currents change ceaselessly with the ebb and flow of the tide which rises a dozen feet, though the open sea is eight hundred miles away.
Behind the rock of Quebec the small stream of the St.Charles furnishes a protection on the landward side.Below the fortress, the great river expands into a broad basin with the outflow divided by the Island of Orleans.In every direction there are cliffs and precipices and rising ground.From the north shore of the great basin the land slopes gradually into a remote blue of wooded mountains.The assailant of Quebec must land on low ground commanded everywhere from heights for seven or eight miles on the east and as many on the west.At both ends of this long front are further natural defenses--at the east the gorge of the Montmorency River, at the west that of the Cap Rouge River.
Wolfe's desire was to land his army on the Beauport shore at some point between Quebec and Montmorency.But Montcalm's fortified posts, behind which lay his army, stretched along the shore for six miles, all the way from the Montmorency to the St.Charles.
Wolfe had a great contempt for Montcalm's army--"five feeble French battalions mixed with undisciplined peasants." If only he could get to close quarters with the "wily and cautious old fox,"as he called Montcalm! Already the British had done what the French had thought impossible.Without pilots they had steered their ships through treacherous channels in the river and through the dangerous "Traverse" near Cap Tourmente.Captain Cook, destined to be a famous navigator, was there to survey and mark the difficult places, and British skippers laughed at the forecasts of disaster made by the pilots whom they had captured on the river.The French were confident that the British would not dare to take their ships farther up the river past the cannonade of the guns in Quebec, though this the British accomplished almost without loss.
Wolfe landed a force upon the lower side of the gorge at Montmorency and another at the head of the Island of Orleans.He planted batteries at Point Levis across the river from Quebec, and from there he battered the city.The pleasant houses in the Rue du Parloir which Montcalm knew so well were knocked into rubbish, and its fascinating ladies were driven desolate from the capital.But this bombardment brought Wolfe no nearer his goal.
On the 31st of July he made a frontal attack on the flats at Beauport and failed disastrously with a loss of four hundred men.
Time was fighting for Montcalm.
By the 1st of September Wolfe's one hope was in a surprise by which he could land an army above Quebec, the nearer to the fortress the better.Its feeble walls on the landward side could not hold out against artillery.But Bougainville guarded the high shore and marched his men incessantly up and down to meet threatened attacks.On the heights, the battalion of Guienne was encamped on the Plains of Abraham to guard the Foulon.This was a cove on the river bank from which there was a path, much used by the French for dragging up provisions, leading to the top of the cliff at a point little more than a mile from the walls of the city.On the 6th of September the battalion of Guienne was sent back to the Beauport lines by order of Vaudreuil.Montcalm countermanded the order, but was not obeyed, and Wolfe saw his chance.For days he threatened a landing, above and below Quebec, now at one point, now at another, until the French were both mystified and worn out with incessant alarms.Then, early on the morning of the 13th of September, came Wolfe's master-stroke.His men embarked in boats from the warships lying some miles above Quebec, dropped silently down the river, close to the north shore, made sentries believe that they were French boats carrying provisions to the Foulon, landed at the appointed spot, climbed up the cliff, and overpowered the sleeping guard.A little after daylight Wolfe had nearly five thousand soldiers, a "thin red line," busy preparing a strong position on the Plains of Abraham, while the fleet was landing cannon, to be dragged up the steep hill to bombard the fortress on its weakest side.
Montcalm had spent many anxious days.He had been incessantly on the move, examining for himself over and over again every point, Cap Rouge, Beauport, Montmorency, reviewing the militia of which he felt uncertain, inspecting the artillery, the commissariat, everything that mattered.At three o'clock in the morning of one of these days he wrote to Bourlamaque, at Lake Champlain, noting the dark night, the rain, his men awake and dressed in their tents, everyone alert."I am booted and my horses are saddled, which is in truth my usual way of spending the night.I have not undressed since the twenty-third of June." On the evening of the 12th of September the batteries at Point Levis kept up a furious fire on Quebec.There was much activity on board the British war-ships lying below the town.Boats filled with men rowed towards Beauport as if to attempt a landing during the night.
