I then set out with him and his regiment, following those before us as the other posts to our left followed us, without any other guides, orders or instructions with regard to the roads we should take, or where we should go to; this was left to chance, or at least was a secret which M. de Vaudreuil kept to himself _in petto_. It was a march entirely in the Indian manner; not a retreat, but a horrid, abominable flight, a thousand times worse than that in the morning upon the heights of Abraham, with such disorder and confusion that, had the English known it, three hundred men sent after us would have been sufficient to destroy and cut all our army to pieces. Except the regiment Royal Roussillon, which Poularies, always a rigid and severe disciplinarian, kept together in order, there were not to be seen thirty soldiers together of any other regiment. They were all mixed, scattered, dispersed, and running as hard as they could, as if the English army was at their heels. There never was a more favourable position to make a beautiful, well-combined retreat, in bright day, and in sight of the English Army looking at us, without having the smallest reason to fear anything within their power to oppose it, as I had obtained a perfect knowledge of the _locale_ from Beauport to the Sault de Montmorency during some months that I was there constantly with M. de Levis and M. de Montcalm. I thought myself in a position to foretell to Poularies the probable order of retreat, and the route which would be assigned to each regiment for their march to the Lorette village. I was greatly deceived, and indeed could never have foreseen the route which our entire army followed to reach Lorette, and which prolonged our march prodigiously for the centre of our army, and still more for our left at the Sault de Montmorency. There is a highway in a straight line from the Sault de Montmorency to Lorette, which makes a side of a triangle formed by another highway from the Sault to Quebec, and by another road from Lorette to the hornwork, which formed the base. In the highway from the Sault to the hornwork there are eight or nine cross roads of communication from it to the road from the Sault to Lorette, which are shorter as they approach to the point of the angle at the Sault. Thus it was natural to believe that our army, being encamped all along the road from the Sault to the hornwork, each regiment would have taken one of these cross roads, the nearest to his encampment, in order to take the straight road from the Sault to Lorette, instead of coming to the hornwork to take there the road from Quebec to Lorette, by which the left had double the distance to march, besides being more liable by approaching the hornwork so near to the English, to make them discover the retreat.