Montcalm had with him a capable staff and a goodly number of
young officers, gay, debonair, thinking not of great political
designs about America but chiefly of their own future careers in
France, and facing death lightheartedly enough. Next to Montcalm
in command was the Chevalier de Uvis, a member of a great French
family and himself destined to attain the high rank of Marshal of
France, and a capable though not a brilliant soldier, whose chief
gift was tact and the art of managing men. Third in command was
the Chevalier de Bourlamaque, a quiet, reserved man, with no
striking social gifts and in consequence not likely at first to
make a good impression, though Montcalm, who was at the beginning
a little doubtful of his quality, came in the end to rely upon
him fully. The most brilliant man in that company was the young
Colonel de Bougainville, Montcalm's chief aide-de-camp. Though
only twenty-seven years old he was already famous in the world of
science and was destined to be still more famous as a great
navigator, to live through the whole period of the French
Revolution, and to die only on the eve of the fall of Napoleon.
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