Preparations were urged on with the utmost energy.  Provisions, camp equipage, ammunition, cannon, and bateaux were dragged by gangs of men up the road from the camp of Levis to the head of the rapids.  The work went on through heat and rain, by day and night, till, at the end of July, all was done.  Now, on the eve of departure, Montcalm, anxious for harmony among his red allies, called them to a grand council near the camp of Rigaud.  Forty-one tribes and sub-tribes, Christian and heathen, from the east and from the west, were represented in it.  Here were the mission savages,—­Iroquois of Caughnawaga, Two Mountains, and La Presentation; Hurons of Lorette and Detroit; Nipissings of Lake Nipissing; Abenakis of St. Francis, Becancour, Missisqui, and the Penobscot; Algonkins of Three Rivers and Two Mountains; Micmacs and Malecites from Acadia:  in all eight hundred chiefs and warriors.  With these came the heathen of the west,—­Ottawas of seven distinct bands; Ojibwas from Lake Superior, and Mississagas from the region of Lakes Erie and Huron; Pottawattamies and Menomonies from Lake Michigan; Sacs, Foxes, and Winnebagoes from Wisconsin; Miamis from the prairies of Illinois, and Iowas from the banks of the Des Moines:  nine hundred and seventy-nine chiefs and warriors, men of the forests and men of the plains, hunters of the moose and hunters of the buffalo, bearers of steel hatchets and stone war-clubs, of French guns and of flint-headed arrows.  All sat in silence, decked with ceremonial paint, scalp-locks, eagle plumes, or horns of buffalo; and the dark and wild assemblage was edged with white uniforms of officers from France, who came in numbers to the spectacle.  Other officers were also here, all belonging to the colony.  They had been appointed to the command of the Indian allies, over whom, however, they had little or no real authority.  First among them was the bold and hardy Saint-Luc de la Corne, who was called general of the Indians; and under him were others, each assigned to some tribe or group of tribes,—­the intrepid Marin; Charles Langlade, who had left his squaw wife at Michillimackinac to join the war; Niverville, Langis, La Plante, Hertel, Longueuil, Herbin, Lorimier, Sabrevois, and Fleurimont; men familiar from childhood with forests and savages.  Each tribe had its interpreter, often as lawless as those with whom he had spent his life; and for the converted tribes there were three missionaries,—­Piquet for the Iroquois, Mathevet for the Nipissings, who were half heathen, and Roubaud for the Abenakis.[500]

[Footnote 500:  The above is chiefly from Tableau des Sauvages qui se trouvent a l’Armee du Marquis de Montcalm, le 28 Juillet, 1757.  Forty-one tribes and sub-tribes are here named, some, however, represented by only three or four warriors.  Besides those set down under the head of Christians, it is stated that a few of the Ottawas of Detroit and Michillimackinac still retained the faith.]

There was some complaint among the Indians because they were crowded upon by the officers who came as spectators.  This difficulty being removed, the council opened, Montcalm having already explained his plans to the chiefs and told them the part he expected them to play.