Belatedly, Montcalm's bones will be buried with the bones of his troops

National Post July 12, 2001

The religious order that has safeguarded the Marquis de Montcalm's remains since he died during Britain's 1759 conquest of New France confirmed yesterday that the general will be moved to a previously obscure cemetery holding more than 1,000 soldiers in mass graves.

"I spoke to a military chaplain who told me that a general belongs with his troops, dead or alive," said Sister Michelle Leblanc, chairwoman of the board for the Ursulines of Quebec.

"I think the government's idea of a memorial is a very good one," Sister Michelle said in an interview.

She said Montcalm's descendants have already been contacted in France and are enthusiastic about the plan. "They expressed thanks to the Ursulines for having conserved the mortal remains of Marquis de Montcalm. They are happy to learn the general will be reunited with his troops after 242 years," she said.

Montcalm's remains, which an exhumation in the 1800s revealed consisted of his skull and part of a leg bone, will be moved to the cemetery of the Quebec General Hospital, where hundreds of soldiers were buried after being brought for care by Augustine nuns.

Those buried in the cemetery include both French soldiers who died under Montcalm's command and British soldiers, whom the nuns accepted into their hospital. The hospital received 1,100 patients in the hours after the British attacked on Sept. 13, 1759. Those who could not be saved were buried in the adjacent cemetery.

Over the centuries, the cemetery was largely forgotten, despite the fact the nuns had kept precise records of everyone interred there. Jean-Yves Bronze, a Montreal historian, led a campaign to bring attention to the site, the oldest remaining war cemetery in the country. More than 1,200 victims of the Seven Years War between Britain and France are buried there.

"Despite Quebec's motto, Je me souviens [I remember], Quebecers forgot for more than two centuries the victims of the war of the Conquest who died in the Quebec General Hospital and were buried in this cemetery," Mr. Bronze writes in a new book. "English Canada is scarcely better, failing to remember those who for the glory of King George II took up arms to give him a country, and who also lie here in large numbers."

Known locally as "the cemetery of heroes," it was declared a national historic site two years ago. But it remains the property of the Augustines and is closed to the public.

There is no plaque to indicate its historical significance and the graves of the soldiers are unmarked.

Plans conceived by the provincial government's National Capital Commission and the municipal government would see the site opened as early as this September, to mark the anniversary of Montcalm's death. Granite markers will have the names of the soldiers inscribed, organized by year of death and regiment. A large sculpture will be erected in the middle.

Sister Michelle said the plan to move Montcalm's remains still requires the approval of Church authorities, but she does not anticipate any opposition. "It will be a real war memorial, even more so than the Plains of Abraham because there will be something tangible," she said.

Montcalm was shot while trying to rally troops near the St. Louis Gate into the old city. Supported in the saddle by two soldiers, he rode through the gates to a surgeon, who told him he had only hours to live. "So much the better," he is said to have replied. "I shall not see the surrender of Quebec."

He was buried the night of Sept. 14 beneath the Ursuline chapel, which was nearby. Though his body was later exhumed and placed in a crypt, it was never placed on public display.