When Rigaud was about to march with his detachment against Fort William Henry, Montcalm went over to La Prairie to see them.  “I reviewed them,” he writes to Bourlamaque, “and gave the officers a dinner, which, if anybody else had given it, I should have said was a grand affair.  There were two tables, for thirty-six persons in all.  On Wednesday there was an Assembly at Madame Varin’s; on Friday the Chevalier de Levis gave a ball.  He invited sixty-five ladies, and got only thirty, with a great crowd of men.  Rooms well lighted, excellent order, excellent service, plenty of refreshments of every sort all through the night; and the company stayed till seven in the morning.  As for me, I went to bed early.  I had had that day eight ladies at a supper given to Madame Varin.  To-morrow I shall have half-a-dozen at another supper, given to I don’t know whom, but incline to think it will be La Roche Beaucour.  The gallant Chevalier is to give us still another ball.”

Lent put a check on these festivities.  “To-morrow,” he tells Bourlamaque, “I shall throw myself into devotion with might and main (a corps perdu).  It will be easier for me to detach myself from the world and turn heavenward here at Montreal than it would be at Quebec.”  And, some time after, “Bougainville spent Monday delightfully at Isle Ste. Helene, and Tuesday devoutly with the Sulpitian Fathers at the Mountain.  I was there myself at four o’clock, and did them the civility to sup in their refectory at a quarter before six.”

In May there was a complete revival of social pleasures, and Montcalm wrote to Bourlamaque:  “Madame de Beaubassin’s supper was very gay.  There were toasts to the Rue du Parloir and to the General.  To-day I must give a dinner to Madame de Saint-Ours, which will be a little more serious.  Pean is gone to establish himself at La Chine, and will come back with La Barolon, who goes thither with a husband of hers, bound to the Ohio with Villejoin and Louvigny.  The Chevalier de Levis amuses himself very much here.  He and his friends spend all their time with Madame de Lenisse.”

Under these gayeties and gallantries there were bitter heart-burnings.  Montcalm hints at some of them in a letter to Bourlamaque, written at the time of the expedition to Fort William Henry, which, in the words of Montcalm, who would have preferred another commander, the Governor had ordered to march “under the banners of brother Rigaud.”  “After he got my letter on Sunday evening,” says the disappointed General, “Monsieur de Vaudreuil sent me his secretary with the instructions he had given his brother,” which he had hitherto withheld.  “This gave rise after dinner to a long conversation with him; and I hope for the good of the service that his future conduct will prove the truth of his words.  I spoke to him with frankness and firmness of the necessity I was under of communicating to him my reflections; but I did not name any of the persons who, to gain