In the afternoon a company of artillerymen with a field-piece entered the town, and marched to the place of arms, followed by a body of infantry.  Detachments took post at all the gates.  The British flag was raised on the heights near the top of Mountain Street, and the capital of New France passed into the hands of its hereditary foes.  The question remained, should they keep, or destroy it?  It was resolved to keep it at every risk.  The marines, the grenadiers from Louisbourg, and some of the rangers were to reimbark in the fleet; while the ten battalions, with the artillery and one company of rangers, were to remain behind, bide the Canadian winter, and defend the ruins of Quebec against the efforts of Levis.  Monckton, the oldest brigadier, was disabled by his wound, and could not stay; while Townshend returned home, to parade his laurels and claim more than his share of the honors of victory.[807] The command, therefore, rested with Murray.

[Footnote 807:  Letter to an Honourable Brigadier-General [Townshend], printed in 1760.  A Refutation soon after appeared, angry, but not conclusive.  Other replies will be found in the Imperial Magazine for 1760.]

The troops were not idle.  Levelling their own field-works, repairing the defences of the town, storing provisions sent ashore from the fleet, making fascines, and cutting firewood, busied them through the autumn days bright with sunshine, or dark and chill with premonition of the bitter months to come.  Admiral Saunders put off his departure longer than he had once thought possible; and it was past the middle of October when he fired a parting salute, and sailed down the river with his fleet.  In it was the ship “Royal William,” carrying the embalmed remains of Wolfe.

Montcalm lay in his soldier’s grave before the humble altar of the Ursulines, never more to see the home for which he yearned, the wife, mother, and children whom he loved, the olive-trees and chestnut-groves of his beloved Candiac.  He slept in peace among triumphant enemies, who respected his memory, though they hardly knew his resting-place.  It was left for a fellow-countryman—­a colleague and a brother-in-arms—­to belittle his achievements and blacken his name.  The jealous spite of Vaudreuil pursued him even in death.  Leaving Levis to command at Jacques-Cartier, whither the army had again withdrawn, the Governor retired to Montreal, whence he wrote a series of despatches to justify himself at the expense of others, and above all of the slain general, against whom his accusations were never so bitter as now, when the lips were cold that could have answered them.  First, he threw on Ramesay all the blame of the surrender of Quebec.  Then he addressed himself to his chief task, the defamation of his unconscious rival.  “The letter that you wrote in cipher, on the tenth of February, to Monsieur the Marquis of Montcalm and me, in common,[808] flattered his self-love to