" Some of the Canadian officers,
praised by Vaudreuil, he had tried and found wanting. "Don't
forget," he wrote to Levis, "that Mercier is a feeble ignoramus,
Saint Luc a prattling boaster, Montigny excellent but a drunkard.
The others are not worth speaking of, including my first
lieutenant-general Rigaud." This Rigaud was the brother of
Vaudreuil. When the Governor wrote to the minister, he, for his
part, said that the success of the expedition was wholly due to
his own vigilance and firmness, aided chiefly by this brother,
"mon frere," and Le Mercier, both of whom Montcalm describes as
inept. Vaudreuil adds that only his own tact kept the Indian
allies from going home because Montcalm would not let them have
the plunder which they desired.
Montcalm struck his next blow at the English on Lake Champlain.
In July, 1757, he had eight thousand men at Ticonderoga, at the
northern end of Lake George. Two thousand of these were savages
drawn from more than forty different tribes--a lawless horde whom
the French could not control. A Jesuit priest saw a party of them
squatting round a fire in the French camp roasting meat on the
end of sticks and found that the meat was the flesh of an
Englishman.
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