[Footnote 704:  Vaudreuil au Ministre, 28 Mai, 1759.]

Five battalions from France, nearly all the colony troops, and the militia from every part of Canada poured into Quebec, along with a thousand or more Indians, who, at the call of Vaudreuil, came to lend their scalping-knives to the defence.  Such was the ardor of the people that boys of fifteen and men of eighty were to be seen in the camp.  Isle-aux-Coudres and Isle d’Orleans were ordered to be evacuated, and an excited crowd on the rock of Quebec watched hourly for the approaching fleet.  Days passed and weeks passed, yet it did not appear.  Meanwhile Vaudreuil held council after council to settle a plan of defence, They were strange scenes:  a crowd of officers of every rank, mixed pell-mell in a small room, pushing, shouting, elbowing each other, interrupting each other; till Montcalm in despair, took each aside after the meeting was over, and made him give his opinion in writing.[705]

[Footnote 705:  Journal du Siege de Quebec depose a la Bibliotheque de Hartwell, en Angleterre. (Printed at Quebec, 1836.)]

He himself had at first proposed to encamp the army on the plains of Abraham and the meadows of the St. Charles, making that river his line of defence;[706] but he changed his plan, and, with the concurrence of Vaudreuil, resolved to post his whole force on the St. Lawrence below the city, with his right resting on the St. Charles, and his left on the Montmorenci.  Here, accordingly, the troops and militia were stationed as they arrived.  Early in June, standing at the northeastern brink of the rock of Quebec, one could have seen the whole position at a glance.  On the curving shore from the St. Charles to the rocky gorge of the Montmorenci, a distance of seven or eight miles, the whitewashed dwellings of the parish of Beauport stretched down the road in a double chain, and the fields on both sides were studded with tents, huts, and Indian wigwams.  Along the borders of the St. Lawrence, as far as the eye could distinguish them, gangs of men were throwing up redoubts, batteries, and lines of intrenchment.  About midway between the two extremities of the encampment ran the little river of Beauport; and on the rising ground just beyond it stood a large stone house, round which the tents were thickly clustered; for here Montcalm had made his headquarters.

[Footnote 706:  Livre d’Ordres, Disposition pour s’opposer a la Descente.]

A boom of logs chained together was drawn across the mouth of the St. Charles, which was further guarded by two hulks mounted with cannon.  The bridge of boats that crossed the stream nearly a mile above, formed the chief communication between the city and the camp.  Its head towards Beauport was protected by a strong and extensive earthwork; and the banks of the stream on the Quebec side were also intrenched, to form a second line of defence in case the position at Beauport should be forced.