He had a
prodigious memory and had read widely. His letters, written amid
the trying conditions of war, are nervous, direct, pregnant with
meaning, the notes of a penetrating intelligence. He had deep
family affection. "Adieu, my heart, I believe that I love you
more than ever I did before"; these were the last words of what
he did not know was to be his last letter to his wife. In the
midst of a gay scene at Montreal, in the spring of 1759, he
writes to Bourlamaque, then at Lake Champlain, with acute longing
for the south of France in the spring. For six or seven months in
the year he could receive no letters and always the British
command of the sea made their expected arrival uncertain. "When
shall I be again at the Chateau of Candiac, with my plantations,
my oaks, my oil mill, my mulberry trees? O good God." He lays
bare his spirit especially to Bourlamaque, a quiet, efficient,
thoughtful man, like himself, and enjoins him to burn the
letters--which he does not, happily for posterity. Scandal does
not touch him but, like most Frenchmen, he is dependent on the
society of women.
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