How did Montcalm come to be the French commander in Canada? What had prepared him for this position?

Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de
Saint-Veran (1712-1759), was the commander of French forces during the
French and Indian War (aka Seven Years' War). Montcalm was a French nobleman who had
fought in Poland and Austria, where he was made a brigadier general. Promoting Montcalm
to major general, King Louis XV ordered him to Canada in 1756 to lead the French forces
during their war against the British. He won victories at Fort Oswego in 1756 and Fort
William Henry in 1757, but he was disgraced following the latter battle when his
Algonquin Indian allies massacred the surrendered British troops as they marched from
the fort--an act that repulsed him and which he did not order. (This was the basis for a
major section of James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the
Mohicans.)

Montcalm won his greatest victory
when, outnumbered four-to-one, he defeated a British army at the Battle of Carillon in
1758. However, continuing disagreements with the local governor mixed with a lack of
military and financial support from France--and vastly increased support by the British
government--eventually led to his downfall. Montcalm was eventually defeated and
mortally wounded after a long siege at Quebec in
1759.

Although Montcalm tended to support old-style
European battle tactics, rather than the hit-and-run style that proved successful in the
Canadian forests (and, later, in the American Revolutionary War), his background and
resulting successes made him a more-than-qualified candidate for his position. Had the
French government provided him with the troops, equipment and supplies necessary to
properly sustain the war against the British, the results at Quebec may have been
different.