_Vae victis!_ says the wisdom of the nations. Woe to the conquered!--not only because of the ruin which follows defeat, but because the vanquished are always in the wrong. They suffer materially, they suffer in their wounded self-love, they suffer in their reputation as soldiers. Let them have fought one against twenty, let them have performed prodigies of heroism, they are nevertheless and always the vanquished. Even their fellow-countrymen forgive them hardly. History records but their defeat. Here and there they get a word of approval from some writer of their race; but the praise is almost always mixed with reproach. Pen and compass in hand, we fight the battle over again. We teach the generals, whose bodies rest on the well-fought field, how they might have managed affairs much better. Seated in a well-stuffed arm-chair, we proudly demonstrate the skillful man[oe]uvres by which they might have snatched the victory; and bitterly we reproach them with their defeat. They have deserved a more generous treatment. A great general, who has equaled in our own day the exploits of Alexander and of Cæsar, has said: "Who is he that has never made a mistake in battle?" _Vae victis!_ It was the 13th day of September, 1759, a day accursed in the annals of France. The English army, under General Wolfe, after having eluded the vigilance of the French sentinels and surprised the pickets under cover of the darkness, were discovered at daybreak on the Plains of Abraham, where they were beginning to entrench themselves. Montcalm was either carried away by his chivalrous courage, or he concluded that the work of entrenchment had to be at once interrupted; for he attacked the English with only a portion of his troops, and was defeated, as he might have foreseen, by the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. On this memorable battle field both generals laid down their lives--Wolfe bestowing upon his country a colony half as large as Europe, Montcalm losing to France a vast territory which the King and his improvident ministers knew not how to appreciate. Woe to the vanquished! Had Montcalm been victorious he would have been lauded to the skies, instead of being heaped with reproaches for not awaiting the re-enforcements which would have come from De Vaudreuil and De Bougainville. We would have praised his tactics in hurling himself upon the enemy before the latter had had time to establish himself. We would have said that a hundred men behind cover were equal to a thousand in the open. We would never have imputed to General Montcalm any jealous and unworthy motives. His shining laurels, gained on so many glorious fields, would have shielded him from any such suspicions.