Dear Canada: A step back in time

From Geneviève's diary:

le 16 juillet 1759

A note came from Mère Esther. Mme Claire wept aloud as she read that Mère Charlotte and Mère Jeryan had both died at Hôtel-Dieu the night of the bombing and had been buried in the garden cemetery of the hospital.

The poor, poor sisters, to have died away from their home.

A flag of truce was raised by our French army today, so that a message could be sent to the British. It was made clear that we will never cease fighting or surrender. We will never give up Québec.

le 17 juillet 1759

Chegual and Étienne have returned unharmed. They were part of a war party — how hard that is to write — of Abenaki warriors who took three British prisoners who are now in the custody of our French officers.

The British prisoners said that Wolfe's army has not more than nine or ten thousand men in it and that he will not try a frontal attack, Étienne told us as they ate in the kitchen.

"And might you believe this?" he went on, his mouth full of bread and cheese. "An old man and woman are bringing refreshments to the British daily. Traitors!" His table manners have never been courtly, but I was so pleased to see him that he could have stuffed the entire loaf in his mouth and I would not have cared.

I said they must be lies, and asked whether he expected the truth from the British.

The firing has slackened on both sides now, which makes it easier to think. What if those old people are giving aid to the enemy? They are traitors, but what sort of things must have happened to them that would let them give comfort to the British?

From Dear Canada: The Death of My Country, copyright © 2005 by Maxine Trottier.