On the night of September 12th, Wolfe made his last reconnaissance, and, haunted, it may be, by presentiments of his swiftly approaching death, repeated to his attendant officers some verses of Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard,” an incident that has seemed the more worthy of note because the young general’s own path of glory led so speedily to the grave. [Illustration: Old drawing of a Calèche.] [Illustration: French Soldier.] Wolfe well knew the desperate nature of his plan. From the opposite shore he had seen the white tents of the troops who were on guard above the Anse-au-Foulon, where he proposed to land; and he did not know that the post was commanded by the heedless coward Vergor, who had only escaped well-merited disgrace by the interposition of Bigot and Vaudreuil. [Illustration: Wolfe and Montcalm Monument.] When, an hour before sunrise on the fateful morning of September 13th, Wolfe led his forlorn hope to the spot where the ascent was to be made, he did not guess that the guards above slept at their post; and his heart was heavy with misgivings. The little path had been rendered impassable by obstructions, and the men had to clamber up the face of the rugged cliff, tree-covered then as it is to-day, whilst, below, the general waited in agonizing suspense till a ringing cheer told him that the guard was overpowered. Then the rough track was cleared, and, before day dawned grey and cloudy over the fortress, Wolfe’s little army of four thousand men (sadly small for the work in hand) had gained the top of the cliff, where now lies a sweet old-fashioned garden spread to the sun. [Illustration: General Montcalm’s Headquarters.] [Illustration: Mortar.] [Illustration: A British Soldier.] [Illustration: Water Sluice.] But Wolfe chose his battle-ground nearer the town, on the world-famous Plains of Abraham. There he drew up his men “in the first of all thin red lines”; there the French, forced to fight at last, made their gallant charge; there “fell Wolfe victorious”; there noble Montcalm received his mortal wound; and there was sounded the death-knell of the dominion of France in North America. But “the dramatic ending of the old order blessed the birth of the new.” It has been well said that “in a sense, which it is easier to feel than to express—two rival races, under two rival leaders, unconsciously joined hands on the Plains of Abraham.” [Illustration: Old St. Louis Gate.] Not yet, however, would all the French admit that their cause was irretrievably lost. Though Montcalm lay under the Ursuline Chapel, in “his soldier’s grave dug for him, while yet alive, by the bursting of a shell”; though Governor de Vaudreuil had fled and Quebec had opened her gates to the foe, the gallant De Lévis had no thought of acquiescing in the passing of New France.