impossibilities of us, we must perform them! That is the old
spirit! If the skies fall upon our heads, we must, like true Gauls,
hold them up on the points of our lances! What say you, Rigaud de
Vaudreuil? Cannot one Canadian surround ten New Englanders?" The
Governor alluded to an exploit of the gallant officer whom he turned
to address.

"Probatum est, your Excellency! I once with six hundred Canadians
surrounded all New England. Prayers were put up in all the churches
of Boston for deliverance when we swept the Connecticut from end to
end with a broom of fire."

"Brave Rigaud! France has too few like you!" remarked the Governor
with a look of admiration.

Rigaud bowed, and shook his head modestly. "I trust she has ten
thousand better;" but added, pointing at his fellow-officers who
stood conversing at a short distance, "Marshal de Saxe has few the
equals of these in his camp, my Lord Count!" And well was the
compliment deserved: they were gallant men, intelligent in looks,
polished in manners, and brave to a fault, and all full of that
natural gaiety that sits so gracefully on a French soldier.

Most of them wore the laced coat and waistcoat, chapeau, boots, lace
ruffles, sash, and rapier of the period--a martial costume befitting
brave and handsome men. Their names were household words in every
cottage in New France, and many of them as frequently spoken of in
the English Colonies as in the streets of Quebec.

There stood the Chevalier de Beaujeu, a gentleman of Norman family,