from those who had been at supper.  It is very expensive, not very amusing, and often tedious.  At Quebec, where we spent a month, I gave receptions or parties, often at the Intendant’s house.  I like my gallant Chevalier de Levis very much.  Bourlamaque was a good choice; he is steady and cool, with good parts.  Bougainville has talent, a warm head, and warm heart; he will ripen in time.  Write to Madame Cornier that I like her husband; he is perfectly well, and as impatient for peace as I am.  Love to my daughters, and all affection and respect to my mother.  I live only in the hope of joining you all again.  Nevertheless, Montreal is as good a place as Alais even in time of peace, and better now, because the Government is here; for the Marquis de Vaudreuil, like me, spent only a month at Quebec.  As for Quebec, it is as good as the best cities of France, except ten or so.  Clear sky, bright sun; neither spring nor autumn, only summer and winter.  July, August, and September, hot as in Languedoc:  winter insupportable; one must keep always indoors.  The ladies spirituelles, galantes, devotes.  Gambling at Quebec, dancing and conversation at Montreal.  My friends the Indians, who are often unbearable, and whom I treat with perfect tranquillity and patience, are fond of me.  If I were not a sort of general, though very subordinate to the Governor, I could gossip about the plans of the campaign, which it is likely will begin on the tenth or fifteenth of May.  I worked at the plan of the last affair [Rigaud’s expedition to Fort William Henry], which might have turned out better, though good as it was.  I wanted only eight hundred men.  If I had had my way, Monsieur de Levis or Monsieur de Bougainville would have had charge of it.  However, the thing was all right, and in good hands.  The Governor, who is extremely civil to me, gave it to his brother; he thought him more used to winter marches.  Adieu, my heart; I adore and love you!”

To meet his manifold social needs, he sends to his wife orders for prunes, olives, anchovies, muscat wine, capers, sausages, confectionery, cloth for liveries, and many other such items; also for scent-bags of two kinds, and perfumed pomatum for presents; closing in postscript with an injunction not to forget a dozen pint-bottles of English lavender.  Some months after, he writes to Madame de Saint-Veran:  “I have got everything that was sent me from Montpellier except the sausages.  I have lost a third of what was sent from Bordeaux.  The English captured it on board the ship called ‘La Superbe;’ and I have reason to fear that everything sent from Paris is lost on board ‘La Liberte.’  I am running into debt here.  Pshaw!  I must live.  I do not worry myself.  Best love to you, my mother.”