By the end of November most of the exiles had reached
home. Varying receptions awaited them. Levis, who took back the
army, was soon again, by consent of the British government, in
active service. Fortune smiled on him to the end. He died a great
noble and Marshal of France just before the Revolution of 1789;
but in that awful upheaval his widow and his two daughters
perished on the scaffold. Vaudreuil's shallow and vain
incompetence did not go unpunished. He was put on trial, accused
of a share in the black frauds which had helped to ruin Canada.
The trial was his punishment. He was acquitted of taking any
share of the plunder and so drops out of history. Bigot and his
gang, on the other hand, were found guilty of vast depredations.
The former Intendant was for a time in the Bastille and in the
end was banished from France, after being forced to repay great
sums. We find echoes of the luxury of Quebec in the sale in
France of the rich plate which the rascal had acquired. There
were, however, other and even worse plunderers. They were tried
and condemned chiefly to return what they had stolen.
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