On the other side, the distress of the French grew greater every day.  Their army was on short rations.  The operations of the English above the town filled the camp of Beauport with dismay, for troops and Canadians alike dreaded the cutting off of their supplies.  These were all drawn from the districts of Three Rivers and Montreal; and, at best, they were in great danger, since when brought down in boats at night they were apt to be intercepted, while the difficulty of bringing them by land was extreme, through scarcity of cattle and horses.  Discipline was relaxed, disorder and pillage were rife, and the Canadians deserted so fast, that towards the end of August two hundred of them, it is said, would sometimes go off in one night.  Early in the month the disheartening news came of the loss of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, the retreat of Bourlamaque, the fall of Niagara, and the expected advance of Amherst on Montreal.  It was then that Levis was despatched to the scene of danger; and Quebec was deplorably weakened by his absence.  About this time the Lower Town was again set on fire by the English batteries, and a hundred and sixty-seven houses were burned in a night.  In the front of the Upper Town nearly every building was a ruin.  At the General Hospital, which was remote enough to be safe from the bombardment, every barn, shed, and garret, and even the chapel itself, were crowded with sick and wounded, with women and children from the town, and the nuns of the Ursulines and the Hotel-Dieu, driven thither for refuge.  Bishop Pontbriand, though suffering from a mortal disease, came almost daily to visit and console them from his lodging in the house of the cure at Charlesbourg.

Towards the end of August the sky brightened again.  It became known that Amherst was not moving on Montreal, and Bourlamaque wrote that his position at Isle-aux-Noix was impregnable.  On the twenty-seventh a deserter from Wolfe’s army brought the welcome assurance that the invaders despaired of success, and would soon sail for home; while there were movements in the English camps and fleet that seemed to confirm what he said.  Vaudreuil breathed more freely, and renewed hope and confidence visited the army of Beauport.

Meanwhile a deep cloud fell on the English.  Since the siege began, Wolfe had passed with ceaseless energy from camp to camp, animating the troops, observing everything, and directing everything; but now the pale face and tall lean form were seen no more, and the rumor spread that the General was dangerously ill.  He had in fact been seized by an access of the disease that had tortured him for some time past; and fever had followed.  His quarters were at a French farmhouse in the camp at Montmorenci; and here, as he lay in an upper chamber, helpless in bed, his singular and most unmilitary features haggard with disease and drawn with pain, no man could less have looked the hero.  But as the needle, though quivering, points always