He lived in a house on the ramparts of Quebec
and visited constantly the salons of his neighbor in the Rue du
Parloir, the beautiful and witty Madame de la Naudiere. In two or
three other households he was also intimate and the Bishop was a
sympathetic friend. His own tastes were those of the scholar, and
more and more, during the long Canadian winters, he enjoyed
evenings of quiet reading. The elder Mirabeau, father of the
revolutionary leader of 1789, had just published his "Ami des
Hommes " and this we find Montcalm studying. But above all he
reads the great encyclopaedia of Diderot. By 1759 seven of the
huge volumes had been issued. They startled the intellectual
world of the time and Montcalm set out to read them, omitting the
articles which had no interest for him or which he could not
understand. C is a copious letter in an encyclopaedia, and
Montcalm found excellent the articles on Christianity, College,
Comedy, Comet, Commerce, Council, and so on. Wolfe--soon to be
his opponent--had the same taste for letters. The two men, unlike
in body, for Wolfe was tall and Montcalm the opposite, were alike
in spirit, painstaking students as well as men of action.
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