pleasure in it,” he writes from Lyons to his mother; “he gives a pleasant account of Quebec.  But be comforted; I shall always be glad to come home.”  At Paris he writes again:  “Don’t expect any long letter from me before the first of March; all my business will be done by that time, and I shall begin to breathe again.  I have not yet seen the Chevalier de Montcalm [his son].  Last night I came from Versailles, and am going back to-morrow.  The King gives me twenty-five thousand francs a year, as he did to M. Dieskau, besides twelve thousand for my equipment, which will cost me above a thousand crowns more; but I cannot stop for that.  I embrace my dearest and all the family.”  A few days later his son joined him.  “He is as thin and delicate as ever, but grows prodigiously tall.”

On the second of March he informs his mother, “My affairs begin to get on.  A good part of the baggage went off the day before yesterday in the King’s wagons; an assistant-cook and two liverymen yesterday.  I have got a good cook.  Esteve, my secretary, will go on the eighth; Joseph and Dejean will follow me.  To-morrow evening I go to Versailles till Sunday, and will write from there to Madame de Montcalm [his wife].  I have three aides-de-camp; one of them, Bougainville, a man of parts, pleasant company.  Madame Mazade was happily delivered on Wednesday; in extremity on Friday with a malignant fever; Saturday and yesterday, reports favorable.  I go there twice a day, and am just going now.  She has a girl.  I embrace you all.”  Again, on the fifteenth:  “In a few hours I set out for Brest.  Yesterday I presented my son, with whom I am well pleased, to all the royal family.  I shall have a secretary at Brest, and will write more at length.”  On the eighteenth he writes from Rennes to his wife:  “I arrived, dearest, this morning, and stay here all day.  I shall be at Brest on the twenty-first.  Everything will be on board on the twenty-sixth.  My son has been here since yesterday for me to coach him and get him a uniform made, in which he will give thanks for his regiment at the same time that I take leave in my embroidered coat.  Perhaps I shall leave debts behind.  I wait impatiently for the bills.  You have my will; I wish you would get it copied, and send it to me before I sail.”

Reaching Brest, the place of embarkation, he writes to his mother:  “I have business on hand still.  My health is good, and the passage will be a time of rest.  I embrace you, and my dearest, and my daughters.  Love to all the family.  I shall write up to the last moment.”

No translation can give an idea of the rapid, abrupt, elliptical style of this familiar correspondence, where the meaning is sometimes suggested by a single word, unintelligible to any but those for whom it is written.