It chanced that in the house where Coulon and his band sought shelter, 190 a wedding-feast was going on. The guests were much startled at this sudden irruption of armed men; but to the Canadians and their chief the festival was a stroke of amazing good luck, for most of the guests were inhabitants of Grand Pré, who knew perfectly the houses occupied by the English, and could tell with precision where the officers were quartered. This was a point of extreme importance. The English were distributed among twenty-four houses, scattered, as before mentioned, for the distance of a mile and a half.[213] The assailants were too few to attack all these houses at once; but if those where the chief officers lodged could be surprised and captured with their inmates, the rest could make little resistance. Hence it was that Coulon had divided his followers into ten parties, each with one or more chosen officers; these officers were now called together at the house of the interrupted festivity, and the late guests having given full information as to the position of the English quarters and the military quality of their inmates, a special object of attack was assigned to the officer of each party, with Acadian guides to conduct him to it. The principal party, consisting of fifty, or, as another account says, of seventy-five men, was led by Coulon himself, with Beaujeu, Desligneris, Mercier, Léry, and Lusignan as his officers. This party was to attack a stone house near the middle of the village, 191 where the main guard was stationed,--a building somewhat larger than the rest, and the only one at all suited for defence. The second party, of forty men, commanded by La Corne, with Rigauville, Lagny, and Villemont, was to attack a neighboring house, the quarters of Colonel Noble, his brother, Ensign Noble, and several other officers. The remaining parties, of twenty-five men each according to Beaujeu, or twenty-eight according to La Corne, were to make a dash, as nearly as possible at the same time, at other houses which it was thought most important to secure. All had Acadian guides, whose services in that capacity were invaluable; though Beaujeu complains that they were of no use in the attack. He says that the united force was about three hundred men, while the English Captain Goldthwait puts it, including Acadians and Indians, at from five to six hundred. That of the English was a little above five hundred in all. Every arrangement being made, and his part assigned to each officer, the whole body was drawn up in the storm, and the chaplain pronounced a general absolution. Then each of the ten parties, guided by one or more Acadians, took the path for its destination, every man on snow-shoes, with the lock of his gun well sheltered under his capote.