Concerning his early years but few particulars have come down to us. He
seems to have entered the army before he had completed his fourteenth year,
and to have distinguished himself in various campaigns in Germany, Bohemia
and Italy during the war for the Austrian succession. At the disastrous
battle of Piacenza, in Italy, fought in the year 1746, he gained the
rank of colonel; and in 1749 he became a brigadier-general. Seven years
subsequent to the latter date he began to figure conspicuously in Canadian
history, and from that time forward we are able to trace his career
pretty closely. Early in 1756, having been elevated to the rank of a
Field-Marshal--thus verifying the prediction of his old tutor--he was
appointed successor to the Baron Dieskau in the chief command of the French
forces in this country. He sailed from France early in April, and arrived
at Quebec about a month afterwards. He was accompanied across the Atlantic
by a large reinforcement, consisting of nearly 14,000 regular troops, and
an ample supply of munitions of war. He at once began to set on foot those
active operations against the British in America which were followed
up with such unremitting vigilance throughout the greater part of the
following three years.

The state of affairs in Canada at this period may be briefly summarized
as follows:--The Government was administered by the Marquis de
Vaudreuil-Cavagnal, a man ill-fitted for so onerous a position in such
troublous times. The colony extended from the seaboard to the far west,
through the valley of the Ohio, and had a white population of about 80,000.
Previous to Montcalm's arrival there were 3,000 veteran French troops in
the country, in addition to a well-trained militia. The country, indeed,
was an essentially military settlement, and the people felt that they might
at any time be called upon to defend their frontiers. The countless tribes
and offshoots of the Huron-Algonquin Indians had cast in their lot with the
French, and were to contribute not a little to the success of many of their