This cup reputedly belonged to Louis Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm de Saint-Véran (1712-1759). A lieutenant-general in the king's army, he led the French troops in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (1759) against Major-General James Wolfe. Some hold Montcalm responsible for France's defeat by British troops in the Seven Years War and the subsequent loss of the French colonial empire in North America.