“The American Revolution was not a common event. Its effects and consequences have already been awful over a great part of the globe. _And when and where are they to cease?_”[380] The prophetic spirit which filled the “visions” of youth continued in the “dreams” of age. Especially was he constant in foreseeing the widening reach of the great Revolution he had helped at its beginning; and this arrested the attention of his eloquent eulogist at Faneuil Hall.[381] MARQUIS DE MONTCALM, 1758, 1759. If I enter the name of the Marquis de Montcalm on this list, it is because prophetic words have been attributed to him which at different periods have attracted no small attention. He was born near Nismes, in France, 1712, and died at Quebec, 14th September, 1759, being at the time commander of the French forces in Canada. As a soldier he was the peer of his opponent, Wolfe, who perished in the same battle, and they have since enjoyed a common fame. In 1777, amidst the heats of our Revolutionary contest, a publication was put forth by Almon, the pamphleteer, in French and English on opposite pages, entitled “Letters from the Marquis de Montcalm, Governor-General of Canada, to Messrs. De Berryer and De la Molé, in the Years 1757, 1758, and 1759,” and the soldier reappeared as prophet. The first letter is addressed to M. de Berryer, First Commissioner of the Marine of France, and purports to be dated at Montreal, 4th April, 1757. It contains the copy of an elaborate communication from “S. J.” of Boston, proposing a scheme for undermining the power of Great Britain in the Colonies by free trade with France through Canada, and predicting that “all our colonies in less than ten years will catch fire.”[382] In transmitting this letter Montcalm did little more than indorse its sentiments; but in his second letter to the same person, dated at Montreal, 1st October, 1758, he says:-- “All these informations, which I every day receive, confirm me in my opinion that _England will one day lose her colonies on the continent of America_; and if Canada should then be in the hands of an able governor who understands his business, he will have a thousand opportunities of hastening the event: this is the only advantage we can reap for all it has cost us.”[383] In the third letter, addressed to M. Molé, First President of the Parliament of Paris, and dated at the camp before Quebec, 24th August, 1759, on the eve of the fatal battle in which both commanders fell, Montcalm mounts the tripod:--