And though the country is on verge of ruin, though poor people of the three towns are rioting in the streets for food, old women cursing the little wizened Intendant with his pimpled face as he rolls past resplendent in carriage with horses whose harness is a blaze of silver, the troops threatening to mutiny because they are compelled to use horse flesh,--though New France is hovering over a volcano of disaster, they dance to their death, thoughtless as butterflies, gay as children, these manikin imitators of the French court, who are ruining New France that they may copy the vices of an Old World playing at kingcraft. The regular troops are uniformed in white with facings of blue and red and gold and violet, three-cornered hat, and leather leggings to knee. What with chapel bells ringing and ringing, and bugle {245} call and counter call echoing back from Cape Diamond; what with Monsieur Bigot's prancing horses and Madame Péan's flashy carriage,--Madame Péan of whom Bigot is so enamored he has sent her husband to some far western post and passes each evening at her gay receptions,--what with the grounding of the sentry's arms and the parade of troops, Quebec is a gay place these years of black ruin, and the gossips have all they can do to keep track of the amours and the duels and the high personages cultivating Madame Péan; for cultivated she must be by all who covet place or power. A word from Madame Péan to Bigot is of more value than a bribe. Even Montcalm and De Lévis attend her revels. [Illustration: RUINS OF CHÂTEAU BIGOT] Twenty people sup with Monsieur Bigot each night, either at the Intendant's palace down by Charles River, or nine miles out towards Beauport, where he has built himself the Forest Hermitage, now known as Château Bigot,--a magnificent country manor house of red brick, hidden away among the hills with the gay shrubberies of French gardens set down in an American wilderness. Supper over by seven, the guests sit down to play, and the amount a man may gamble is his social barometer, whether {246} he lose or win, cheat or steal. If dancing follows gambling, the rout will not disperse till seven in the morning. What time is left of the twenty-four hours in a day will be devoted to public affairs. Montcalm's salary is only 25,000 francs, or $5,000. To maintain the dignity of the King, the commander in chief must keep the pace, and he too gives weekly suppers, with places set for forty people, "whom I don't know," he writes dejectedly to his wife, "and don't want to know; and wish that I might spend the evenings quietly in my own chamber." To Montcalm, who was of noble birth with no shamming, this lowbred pretense and play at courtcraft became a bore; to his staff of officers, a source of continual amusement; but De Lévis presently falls victim to a pair of fine eyes possessed by the wife of another man.