Vaudreuil was always full of grand, swelling words, and boasts of his great deeds and devotion; but men were beginning to note that when face to face with real peril he lost his nerve and self confidence, and had to depend upon others.
It was thus that he opposed Montcalm (of whose superior genius and popularity he was bitterly jealous) at every turn when danger was still distant, but turned to him in a fluster of dismay when the hour of immediate peril had come, and had been made more perilous by his own lack of perception and forethought whilst things were less imminent.
"Yet look at our lines of defence!" he exclaimed, after he had finished all the survey he could make of the distant sails crowded about the Isle of Orleans.

"Where could any army hope to land along this northern shore?
Let them fire as they like from their ships; that will not hurt us.

And we can answer back in a fashion that must soon silence them.

The heights are ours; the town is safely guarded.

The summer is half spent already.