Marquis de Montcalm

Montcalm arrives in the narrative as the polished foil to Munro: a European commander whose manners and courage are beyond question, and whose authority over his Native allies is the fragile thing on which everything depends. Cooper treats him as a study in the gap between personal honor and command responsibility, a man whose courtesy cannot undo what happens when restraint fails. His decisions in the siege chapters determine the fate of the fort and set the moral weather for everything that follows.