Montreuil told them that "a fortification such as the hornwork was not to be taken so easily." In short, there arose a general cry in the hornwork to cut the bridge of boats.[R] It is worthy of remark, that not a fourth of our army had yet arrived at it, and the remainder, by cutting the bridge, would have been left on the other side of the river as victims to the victors. The regiment 'Royal Roussillon' was at that moment at the distance of a musket shot from the hornwork, approaching to pass the bridge. As I had already been in such adventures, I did not lose my presence of mind, and having still a shadow remaining of that regard, which the army accorded me on account of the esteem and confidence which M. de Levis and M. de Montcalm had always shown me publicly, I called to M. Hugon, who commanded, for a pass in the hornwork, and begged of him to accompany me to the bridge. We ran there, and without asking who had given the order to cut it, we chased away the soldiers with their uplifted axes ready to execute that extravagant and wicked operation. M. de Vaudreuil was closeted in a house in the inside of the hornwork with the Intendant and with some other persons. I suspected they were busy drafting the articles for a general capitulation, and I entered the house, where I had only time to see the Intendant with a pen in his hand writing upon a sheet of paper, when M. de Vaudreuil told me I had no business there. Having answered him that what he said was true, I retired immediately, in wrath, to see them intent on giving up so scandalously a dependency for the preservation of which so much blood and treasure had been expended. On leaving the house, I met M. Dalquier, an old, brave, downright honest man, commander of the regiment of Bearn, with the true character of a good officer--the marks of Mars all over his body. I told him it was being debated within the house, to give up Canada to the English by a capitulation, and I hurried him in to stand up for the King's cause, and advocate the welfare of his country. I then quitted the hornwork to join Poularies at the Ravine[S] of Beauport; but having met him about three or four hundred paces from the hornwork, on his way to it, I told him what was being discussed there. He answered me, that sooner than consent to a capitulation, he would shed the last drop of his blood. He told me to look on his table and house as my own, advised me to go there directly to repose myself, and clapping spurs to his horse, he flew like lightning to the hornwork.