For the defence of the city, when every able-bodied militia-man had been called out, nearly sixteen thousand troops of all arms would be available. About the disposition of these and the plan of defence there was much discussion. Montcalm himself was for a long time undecided. The alternative plans do not concern us here; the one finally adopted is alone to the point. Everyone knows that the ancient capital of Canada is one of the most proudly placed among the cities of the earth. But it may be well to remind those who have not seen it, that it occupies the point of a lofty ridge, forming the apex of the angle made by the confluence of the St. Charles River and the St. Lawrence. Westward from the city this ridge falls so nearly sheer into the St. Lawrence for several miles that, watched by a mere handful of men, it was impregnable. Moreover, the river suddenly narrows to a breadth of three-quarters of a mile opposite the town, whose batteries were regarded as being fatal to any attempt of an enemy to run past them. On the other side of the town the St. Charles River, coming in from the northwest immediately below its walls, formed a secure protection. Montcalm, however, decided to leave only a small garrison in the city itself and go outside it for his main defence. Now, from the eastern bank of the mouth of the St. Charles, just below the city, there extends in an almost straight line along the northern shore of the St. Lawrence a continuous ridge, the brink, in fact, of a plateau, at no point far removed from the water's edge. Six miles away this abruptly terminates in the gorge of the Montmorency River, which, rushing tumultuously toward the St. Lawrence, makes that final plunge on to its shore level which is one of the most beautiful objects in a landscape teeming with natural and human interest. Along the crown of this six-mile ridge, known in history as "the Beauport lines," Montcalm decided to make his stand. So, throughout the long days of May and June the French devoted themselves to rendering impregnable from the front a position singularly strong in itself, while the Montmorency and its rugged valley protected the only flank which was exposed to attack. Below him spread the river, here over two miles in width from shore to shore, with the western point of the island of Orleans overlapping his left flank. Above the woods of this long, fertile island, then the garden of Canada, the French, upon June 27th, first caught sight of the pennons flying from the topmasts of the English battle-ships, and before evening they witnessed the strange sight of red-coated infantry swarming over its well-tilled fields.