Montreal, the military heart of Canada, was in the past winter its social centre also, where were gathered conspicuous representatives both of Old France and of New; not men only, but women.  It was a sparkling fragment of the reign of Louis XV. dropped into the American wilderness.  Montcalm was here with his staff and his chief officers, now pondering schemes of war, and now turning in thought to his beloved Chateau of Candiac, his mother, children, and wife, to whom he sent letters with every opportunity.  To his wife he writes:  “Think of me affectionately; give love to my girls.  I hope next year I may be with you all.  I love you tenderly, dearest.”  He says that he has sent her a packet of marten-skins for a muff, “and another time I shall send some to our daughter; but I should like better to bring them myself.”  Of this eldest daughter he writes in reply to a letter of domestic news from Madame de Montcalm:  “The new gown with blonde trimmings must be becoming, for she is pretty.”  Again, “There is not an hour in the day when I do not think of you, my mother and my children.”  He had the tastes of a country gentleman, and was eager to know all that was passing on his estate.  Before leaving home he had set up a mill to grind olives for oil, and was well pleased to hear of its prosperity.  “It seems to be a good thing, which pleases me very much.  Bougainville and I talk a great deal about the oil-mill.”  Some time after, when the King sent him the coveted decoration of the cordon rouge, he informed Madame de Montcalm of the honor done him, and added:  “But I think I am better pleased with what you tell me of the success of my oil-mill.”

To his mother he writes of his absorbing occupations, and says:  “You can tell my dearest that I have no time to occupy myself with the ladies, even if I wished to.”  Nevertheless he now and then found leisure for some little solace in his banishment; for he writes to Bourlamaque, whom he had left at Quebec, after a visit which he had himself made there early in the winter:  “I am glad you sometimes speak of me to the three ladies in the Rue du Parloir; and I am flattered by their remembrance, especially by that of one of them, in whom I find at certain moments too much wit and too many charms for my tranquillity.”  These ladies of the Rue du Parloir are several times mentioned in his familiar correspondence with Bourlamaque.

His station obliged him to maintain a high standard of living, to his great financial detriment, for Canadian prices were inordinate.  “I must live creditably, and so I do; sixteen persons at table every day.  Once a fortnight I dine with the Governor-General and with the Chevalier de Levis, who lives well too.  He has given three grand balls.  As for me, up to Lent I gave, besides dinners, great suppers, with ladies, three times a week.  They lasted till two in the morning; and then there was dancing, to which company came uninvited, but sure of a welcome