Within this city Vaudreuil, its bombastic, corrupt governor, and his gang of unscrupulous officials kept up a feeble imitation of the luxurious court of France. They robbed the king, their master, and they robbed the Canadians committed to their protection. “Are the walls of Quebec made of gold?” asked Lewis when official after official returned to France bloated with wealth. New France was honeycombed with peculation and fraud, and there was but one honest, incorruptible man amongst the greedy horde. He was Lewis Joseph, Marquis of Montcalm, a soldier of unblemished repute and no mean scholar. His life was one long struggle with the governor, who thwarted him in every possible way, and arrogated to himself all the credit and honour which his noble colleague managed to win. Montcalm had early news of Wolfe’s errand, and he hastily collected every able-bodied man and every boy who could hold a gun within the walls of the town. “Never,” said he, “was Canada in a state so critical and full of peril.” Quebec was already strong by nature, and Montcalm proceeded to make it stronger still by art. Redoubts, batteries, and lines of entrenchment were thrown up along the lofty, curving shores from the St. Charles River to the Montmorency, and a boom of logs and hulks mounted with cannon barricaded the former river. Fourteen thousand men lined the earthworks, and one or two thousand more manned the guns of the fortress. When Wolfe arrived on the 21st of June, Quebec was well-nigh impregnable. Wolfe landed his men on the Isle of Orleans, and soon realized the desperate character of the task which he had undertaken. To take Quebec seemed impossible. The cliffs to his left were edged with palisades and capped with redoubts, while on his right was a far-extended line of entrenchments, ending at the foaming cataract of Montmorency. There seemed to be no chink in the wall of defence. For weeks Wolfe lay inactive, wearing himself to a shadow in the attempt to find a weak spot against which he might hurl his army. He seized Point Levis, and from it bombarded the city, only a mile away. Fierce as his fire was, it did nothing to help him to capture the place. At length, tired of inactivity, he attempted on the 31st of July to gain a footing on the north shore of the St. Lawrence by landing his men at the Montmorency Falls and climbing to the plateau above. In this he was successful; but though his guns now played on the flank of Montcalm’s entrenchments, the city of his desire was as far off as ever. “You may demolish the town,” said the bearer of a flag of truce, “but you shall never get inside it.” “I will take Quebec,” replied Wolfe, “if I stay here until November.”