of Orleans, in full view of Quebec. The twenty days'
voyage from Louisbourg had ended and the twelve weeks'
siege had begun. At this point we must take the map and
never put it aside till the final battle is over. A whole
book could not possibly make Wolfe's work plain to any
one without the map. But with the map we can easily follow
every move in this, the greatest crisis in both Wolfe's
career and Canada's history.

What Wolfe saw and found out was enough to daunt any
general. He had a very good army, but it was small. He
could count upon the help of a mighty fleet, but even
British fleets cannot climb hills or make an enemy come
down and fight. Montcalm, however, was weakened by many
things. The governor, Vaudreuil, was a vain, fussy, and
spiteful fool, with power enough to thwart Montcalm at
every turn. The intendant, Bigot, was the greatest knave
ever seen in Canada, and the head of a gang of official
thieves who robbed the country and the wretched French
Canadians right and left. The French army, all together,
numbered nearly seventeen thousand, almost twice Wolfe's
own; but the bulk of it was militia, half starved and
badly armed. Both Vaudreuil and Bigot could and did
interfere disastrously with the five different forces
that should have been made into one army under Montcalm
alone--the French regulars, the Canadian regulars, the
Canadian militia, the French sailors ashore, and the
Indians. Montcalm had one great advantage over Wolfe. He
was not expected to fight or manoeuvre in the open field.
His duty was not to drive Wolfe away, or even to keep