O SPREY Fortress PUBLISHING French Fortresses in North America 1535-1763 Q uebec, Montreal, Louisbourg and New Orleans Rene Chartrand • Illustrated by Donato Spedaliere 1 First published in 2005 by Osprey Publishing Artist’s note Midland House. West Way, Botley. Oxford OX2 OPH, UK 443 Park Avenue South, New York. NY 10016, USA Our sincere thanks to all who have helped in the preparation of this Email: [email protected] book. We would like to dedicate this book to our dearest daughter Alina. © 2005 Osprey Publishing Ltd. Readers may care to note that the original paintings from which the colour plates in this book were prepared are available for private All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study. research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and sale. All reproduction copyright whatsoever is retained by the Patents Act. 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a Publishers. All enquiries should be addressed to : retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be addressed to Sarah Sulemsohn the Publishers. Tel-Fax: 00 39 0575 692210 [email protected] ISBN I 84176 814 X [email protected] Editorial by llios Publishing Ltd (www.iliospublishng.com) www.alinaillustrazioni.com Design: Ken Vail Graphic Design, Cambridge, UK Index by Alison Worthington The Publishers regret that they can enter into no correspondence Maps by The Map Studio Ltd upon this matter. Originated by The Electronic Page Company, Cwmbran, UK Printed in China through World Print Ltd. Author's Note 05 06 07 08 09 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library "In the new colonies, the Spanish start by building a church, the English a tavern and the French a fort." There was some truth in FOR A CATALOGUE OF ALL BOOKS PUBLISHED BY OSPREY MILITARY AND AVIATION this tongue-in-cheek remark by the great French author Rene de PLEASE CONTACT: Chateaubriand (1768-1848); New France eventually had a North NORTH AMERICA American network of numerous forts, big and small, extending from Osprey Direct, 2427 Bond Street, University Park, IL 60466. USA the Gulf of St_ Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico and west into the E-mail: [email protected] present-day Canadian and American prairies. There were also fortresses, the subject of this study, as the main towns were ALL OTHER REGIONS fortified. Fortresses such as Louisbourg and Quebec have been Osprey Direct UK. P.O. Box 140 Wellingborough. Northants. NN8 2FA, UK rightly famed for their extensive fortifications, Quebec having the E-mail: [email protected] advantage of a formidable natural site. However, few people today would guess that Montreal and New Orleans could also be termed www.ospreypublishing.com fortresses, for they were once enclosed by bastioned walls and moats. Although their fortifications were relatively modest and The Fortress Study Group (FSG) meant to deter raiders rather than fully fledged armies, both cities were surrounded by numerous outlying forts. These provided early The object of the FSG is to advance the education of the public the warning and acted as an outer buffer, a feature peculiar to the study of all aspects of fortifications and their armaments, especially fortress cities situated at the hub of great North American rivers. works constructed to mount or resist artillery. The F holds an annual conference in September over a long weekend with visits and Measures evening lectures, an annual tour abroad lasting about eight days, and an annual Members' Day . These have varied over the centuries and varied from one nation to another. In New France, weights and measures were those used by The FSG journal FORT is published annually, and its newsletter the mother country. It is most important to note that the French foot, Casemate is published three times a year. Membership is used in New France, was longer (12.789 inches) than the British international. For further details, please contact: foot (12 inches). The official French measures from 1668 to 1840 were: The Secretary, c/o 6 Lanark Race, London W9 IBS, UK 2 miles = 1 Lieue = 3.898 kilometers Aknowledgments 1,000 Toises = I mile = 1.949 kilometers (British =1.61 kilometers) The author is grateful to his many colleagues at Parks Canada, 6 feet = 1 Toise = 1.949 meters notably those at Fortress Louisbourg. the Fortifications of Quebec (British Fathom = 1.83 meters) and at the national HQ in Ottawa. Also Claire Mousseau, chief 12 inches = I foot = 32.484 centimeters archaeologist of the City of Montreal, the staff of the National (British = 30.48 centimeters) Archives and Library of Canada and of the Archives Nationales in 12 lines = I inch = 2.707 centimeters France. (British = 2.54 centimeters) 2 Contents Introduction 4 Chronology 7 The King's Engineers 8 Quebec 11 The mightiest site on the continent • The 1690 siege • Improvements • The 1759 siege • The 1760 sie ge Trois-Rivieres 16 Montreal 32 Palisades and ramparts • Montreal island's outlying forts • The 1760 capitulation Louisbourg 45 Building the fortress • The 1745 siege • Returned to French possession • The 1758 siege New Orleans 52 Outlying forts and batteries • Ramparts and batteries The sites today 60 Select bibliography 61 Glossary 62 Index 64 3 Introduction Following the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492, European colonists built their style of fortification in the New World in an attempt to ensure their safety and consolidate their conquests. The Spanish and Portuguese were the first to build sizeable forts, some of which evolved into fortified towns - fortresses - as their settlements grew. San Juan (Puerto Rico), Havana (Cuba), Cartagena de Indias (Colombia) and several others in the "Spanish Main" and South America were already renowned by the 17th century. The French and the British came later to North America and thus the establishment of their sizeable permanent settlements only got under way during the 17th century. The British colonists rapidly outgrew their small stockaded settlements along the North American coastline but did not build elaborate fortifications to protect their towns. Their French neighbors did. From the early 17th century until the end of the Seven Years War in 1763, the greater part of North America came under the French realm and much of it was called La Nouvelle-France (New France). Thanks to relentless explorers and traders, the land mass of New France was enormous, extending from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Rocky Mountains in the west and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. But as impressive as it may have looked on a map, New France remained a weak colony in terms of population, which was sparse and scattered. It had only about 500 French inhabitants in 1641, some 14,000 in 1689 and perhaps 80,000 of French origin by the 1750s. In the early 17th century, New France was divided into two administrative entities. The largest and most important was the colony of Canada, which included the settled areas in the St. Lawrence Valley with the three towns of Montreal, Trois-Rivieres and Quebec. It also extended into the western wilderness as far as it had been explored, an ongoing process. On the Atlantic seaboard was the small colony of Acadia whose settlements were spread in parts of present-day Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Maine. On the island of Newfoundland was the port of Placentia that formed a small colony. Following the cession of Acadia and Placentia to Britain by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the garrisons and some of the settlers were moved to Cape Breton Island, subsequently renamed Isle Royale, where, from 1720, the fortress of Louisbourg was built. Further south, the French had reached the Gulf of Mexico in 1682 by coming down the Mississippi River and, from 1699, settlements were established on the coast to make up the third entity, the colony of Louisiana, in the present-day states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Today a relatively small American state, Louisiana in the 18th century covered an enormous territory extending from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana's population was modest and its settlements were concentrated on the Gulf Coast and in Les Illinois (also called Upper Louisiana), in the general area of present-day St. Louis. The government of New France was patterned after that of a French province. The governor-general of New France, who resided in Quebec, had overall authority and was commander-in-chief. He was assisted by the intendant in financial and civic matters and the bishop in religious issues, their respective powers being devolved to local governors, commissaries and senior priests. In Canada, there were local governors in Montreal and Quebec. Isle Royale's governor was in Louisbourg and Louisiana's governor was in New Orleans. Although nominally subordinate to the governor-general in Quebec, 4 Detail of a map of French claims to North America following Robert Cavelier de La Salle's explorations (dotted line) from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. It formed a great arc enclosing the British coastal colonies. Starting in the northeast (top right corner) with Cape Breton Island, where Fortress Louisbourg was built from 1720, it extended west along the St. Lawrence River, passing the fortresses of Quebec and Montreal and continuing to the Great Lakes: then south on the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico where New Orleans, also eventually enclosed by walls, would be built. The forts shown along the Mississippi River were mostly the early ones built by La Salle. the governors of Isle Royale and Louisiana were independent as they reported directly to the minister responsible for naval and colonial affairs in Versailles. Canada, the Atlantic seaboard colonies and Louisiana each had their respective garrisons of colonial troops. The fortresses of New France studied in this book - that is to say, substantial towns and cities enclosed by protective walls - were extraordinary in their variety. (The term place forte rather than forteresse was generally used by the French to denote a town surrounded by fortifications until the 1870s.) Quebec was a formidable natural fortress; the defenses of Louisbourg were almost transposed from Vauban's textbooks; Montreal had a substantial wall and New Orleans was eventually also protected by moats and redoubts. Although quite different in fortification style and extent, Quebec, Montreal, Louisbourg and New Orleans all had one thing in common: their strategic importance was tremendous and the fall of any one of them practically ensured the fall of their entire area. Except for New Orleans, all were besieged during the 17th and 18th centuries. Quebec resisted in 1690 but fell in 1759; its henceforth British garrison would resist in 1760, and again (against the Americans) in 1775-76. Louisbourg fell twice, in 1745 and 1758, after great sieges. Montreal held the last French army in Canada when it surrendered to three British armies in September 1760. Only New Orleans escaped being besieged although treaties signed in Europe passed it from France to Spain in 1763, to France again in 1802 and finally to the United States of America in 1803 . One town that never quite made it as a fortress was Trois-Rivieres, although it was enclosed by a palisade wall. Founded in 1634, it quickly lost its strategic and economic importance after Montreal was settled in 1642. As will be seen 5 later, its meager defenses had become useless by the middle of the 18th century. Each major town was capital to an area. Quebec was simultaneously the capital of New France, the colony of Canada and the district of Quebec. Trois-Rivieres and Montreal were respectively the capitals of their districts of Trois-Rivieres and Montreal. Louisbourg was the capital of the colony of Isle Royale (Cape Breton Island) and New Orleans was the capital of Louisiana. Within the French colonial administrative system, these towns - Quebec, Trois-Rivieres, Montreal, Louisbourg and New Orleans - were the seats of governors and their retinues of garrison staff officers. Principal among these were the Lieutenant du Roi (King's Lieutenant, in effect the lieutenant governor), the Major de Plece (Town Major, often assisted by an assistant major) and, in major cities, a Capitaine des Pirtes (Captain of the Gates, a medieval title to denote the officer in charge of The Coat of Arms of France, c. security). In the case of Quebec, the governor-general of New France resided 1725-60. Traditionally, the royal there and was also the town's governor. His prestige was of the highest order coat of arms was put up above and some of the honor due to him equaled that of marshals in France. Drum the gates of fortifications. In New rolls greeted him when he came into or out cf his chateau; he was allowed an France, this was not always the escort of his own guards; he enjoyed cannon salutes when arriving in towns case and. according to Chief and he would be addressed as Monseigneur (My Lord). He had a staff of Engineer Chaussegros de Lery. they were nowhere to be seen "in several officers including the senior lngenieur du Roi(King's Engineer) in the this colony." In 1725. he had colony and the captain of his guards acted as an aide-de-camp . royal coats of arms made and put Next in line to the governor-general was the intendant, the most important up at all government buildings, civil official, who also resided in Quebec City. By protocol a sibordinate to the forts, gates, courtrooms and governor-general, the intendant was his equal regarding financial management jails; and all new government (including military budgets), legal matters and commerce, all of which were buildings would have them his responsibility. His subalterns, the Commissaire-ordonnateur, were to be henceforth (AC.CI IA.47).This particular example was once found in all fortress towns except Trois-Rivieres. The intendant and a colony's displayed over the gates of Commissaire-ordonnateur ranked as high civil officials and enjoyed an escort Quebec and may have been the of an Archer (police constable) on formal occasions. work of Pierre-Noel Levasseur. It is now in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. A similar example is at the Musee de la Civilisation in Quebec. (Author's photograph) 6 Chronology 1534 Explorer Jacques Carrier takes possession of Canada for France The area is named New France. 1535 Cartier and his men build a small fort in the area of Quebec. 1541-43 Carter and the Sieur de Roberval build several forts in the Quebec area. but the colony is abandoned in 1543. 1608 Samuel de Champlain, explorer and first governor-general of New France, founds Quebec and has the first of several forts built. 1620 Fort built on Cape Diamond at Quebec. It eventually becomes the residence of the governor-general of New France. 1642 Montreal, originally called Ville-Marie, is founded 1682 Explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle descends the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico, takes possession of the Mississippi Valley for France and names it Louisiana. 1660s-90s String of outlying forts built in the Montreal area. 1687-89 Palisade built around Montreal. 1690 Quebec is enclosed by a stockade with small bastions. A New England fleet and soldiers, led by Sir William Phips, are repulsed after a short siege in October. 1693 Ramparts with large bastions replace the stockade at Quebec. Several inconclusive attempts to make better ramparts in following decades. 1699 First permanent French settlements established in Louisiana. 1717 Work commences on reveted rampart to enclose Montreal. The work goes on until 1744. 1720 Foundation stone is bid at Louisbourg and extensive fortifications are built there until 1743. 1722 New Orleans becomes the capital of Louisiana. 1730 Work commences on rampart at New Orleans, but it is left unfinished . 1745 Louisbourg falls to a New England army. Reveted walls are built to enclose the landward side of Quebec. 1749 Louisbourg is returned to the French. 1758 Louisbourg falls to British army and fleet: its fortifications are blown up two years later and the remnants of the town are abandoned in the late 1760s. 1759 Fortifications of Quebec are improved, notably artillery batteries and a series of redoubts built on the Beauport shore area up to the Montmorency River. After a summer-long siege by British forces and the French army's defeat on the Plains of Abraham, the city surrenders. 1760 French siege to retake Quebec fails. Last French army in Canada surrenders at Montreal in September. 1760-61 Fortifications enclosing New Orleans are built and completed . 1763 Treaty of Paris: France cedes Canada, Isle Royale and Louisiana on east side of the Mississippi River to Britain; the rest of Louisiana is ceded to Spain. 7 The King's Engineers The theoretical education of French engineers in the age of Louis XIV (1643- 1715) and Louis XV (1715-74) was remarkably good by the standards of the day and covered aspects of engineering, tactics, architecture, fine arts and town planning. Geometry was the main element of European military architecture since the end of the Middle Ages and the introduction of artillery in siege warfare. The large castles with high walls and turrets were obsolete as they could be demolished by cannonballs. New ways had to be found to protect strongholds; obviously, the walls and towers would have to be lower and wider, made of stone frames filled with earth, so as to accommodate artillery for the defenders while making it much more difficult for the besieger to breech the walls. By the 1480s, Italian military engineers had conceived the corner bastion that became, quite literally, the cornerstone of fortifications for centuries to come. Renaissance engineers in Italy published a multitude of geometric designs with bastions and moats at all angles to enclose a city with fortifications as well as laying out city streets and squares in an orderly fashion. Some were fanciful but, on the whole, they offered effective ways to defend a city in a European military context. From the late 16th century and during the 17th century, major wars were often fought in mostly flat terrain of Flanders where geometric designs could be built almost flawlessly. The Dutch engineers now became leaders in military architecture, devising enormous earthworks that were surrounded by large water-filled moats thanks to the high water table of that area. Menno van Coehorn (1641-1704) was the leading Dutch engineer whose intricate fortification designs and the use of water as an obstacle were much admired . The French were also keenly interested in fortifications and had, since the Renaissance, applied the "Italian tracing" to their fortress designs while adding features of their own. The French approach was more systematic than elsewhere and, as early as 1604, a nationwide administrative regulation concerning fortifications was put in place. This brought an increasing professionalization of military engineering, which coincided with the advent of Sebastien Le Preste de Vauban (1633-1707), one of the greatest engineers in military history. Part of Vauban's remarkable success was due to his pragmatic approach; he was not merely a theoretician with skills in geometry, he was also a veteran military engineer in the field who conducted some 48 sieges during his career. Vauban's elaborate systems of fortifications thus combined and enhanced designs proven effective in actual siege warfare, hence their renown. Louis XIV, recognizing Vauban's great talent, made him national superintendent of fortifications and tasked him with building or repairing a multitude of forts and fortresses all over France, but especially in Flanders, where the king wanted a line of fortresses built to prevent enemy incursions. This vast public works project, which went on for decades, required numbers of qualified engineers. Previously, more or less gifted amateurs had been somewhat self-proclaimed "engineers" who largely acquired their knowledge from engineering books published mostly in Italy and in Holland. Louis XIV felt that military engineering was a state secret and that Vauban's manuals on fortifications, on the ways to attack and defend fortresses should not be published. Thus, those selected to be military engineers had no printed manuals from Vauban; instead part of their training was to make a manuscript copy of Vauban's treatises, which they would keep as their main reference work afterwards. 8 In France, the men responsible for designing and building fortifications were the "King's Engineers" {Ingenieurs du Roi). These were highly skilled and educated individuals who held royal commissions - hence being called the "King's" - to practice their art in government service. They combined the present-day skills of architecture, military and civil engineering, and urban planning. While primarily concerned with fortifications, they could also be called upon to design churches, windmills, warehouses, etc. The King's Engineers also had military officers' commissions to provide them with a rank, usually that of captain, within the military structure. They were employed as staff officers and would also be found in the entourage of a colonial governor or governor-general. Under Marshal Vauban's leadership, the King's Engineers formed a sort of small independent ministry whose staff was spread all over France and its colonies. This state of affairs continued following Vauban's death. The Marquis d'Asfeld, his successor, was a skilled soldier and courtier who, during his lifetime, managed to keep the engineers from being amalgamated. In 1732, he introduced a colorful uniform for the King's Engineers consisting of a scarlet coat with blue cuffs, scarlet waistcoat and breeches, gilt buttons set in pairs, a dress that certainly distinguished them from most officers in the armed forces. In March 1743, the Marquis d'Asfeld passed away and the engineers' independence came to an end. Most were absorbed into the army in France with others going to the navy. As the navy was responsible for the colonies in America, there were hardly any changes for the engineers posted to the various towns who continued to be called the King's Engineers and wear their scarlet uniforms. From the time of the Seven Years War, metropolitan army engineers were sent to Canada and other colonies and served mostly in the field as with Montcalm's army. The colonial King's Engineers continued to be mostly preoccupied by fortifications, sometimes quite far into the wilderness interior of the continent. Engineers were active in Canada from the early decades of the 17th century, most notably Jacques Bourdon, who was active in Quebec from 1634 to 1668. A regular establishment of engineers under a chief engineer was set up in the late 17th century. Robert de Villeneuve first had the post from 1685 to 1693. Jacques Levasseur de Nere was named to succeed him but only arrived from France in 1694. In the meantime, Captain Josue Berthelot de Beaucours, an infantry officer with engineering talent, had filled in and supervised the construction of Quebec's first line of ramparts. Both engineers were kept busy in the next decades with de Beaucours succeeding Levasseur de Nere as chief engineer of Canada in 1712 until transferred to Louisbourg in 1715. Two sub-engineers had been added from 1712. Gaspard Chaussegros de Lery arrived in 1716 to fill the post of chief engineer, which he had until his death in 1756. He was succeeded by Nicolas Sarrebrousse de Pontleroy . The first chief engineer in Isle Royale was Jacques de Lhermitte, who was succeeded by de Beaucours in 1715. However, Joseph-Francois du Verger de Verville drafted the initial plans of the new fortress, followed by Etienne Verrier, chief engineer at Louisbourg from 1725 to 1745. Louis Franquet took on the post in 1750 as well as that of Inspector of Fortifications in Canada (which was done in 1752-53); he was an experienced engineer with the rank of colonel in 1751 and brigadier in 1754, the highest ranking engineer in New France. He served in Louisbourg until the fortress fell in 1758 . The early engineers in Louisiana were Paul de Perrier, Pinel de Boispinel, Jacques Le Blond de La Tour and Adrien de Pauge who all arrived in 1718 sponsored by the "Occident" monopoly company that then ruled the colony. In 1731, the French crown took over the administration and Broutin became Chief Engineer in Louisiana. He designed the first fortifications for New Orleans in the early 1730s but it was only in 1760 that the city was finally enclosed by a rampart laid out by Chief Engineer Verges. 9 A French military engineer landing in New France came with an education suitable for siege warfare in Europe. He was now faced with a "New World" offering very different strategic and geographic conditions into which he simply had to adapt. A good example was Chief Engineer Chaussegros de Lery. A veteran of European campaigns during the War of the Spanish Succession, he landed at Quebec in 1716 with a complete knowledge of Vauban's system and, in his baggage, his own multi-volume manuscript treatise on fortifications and architecture. This remarkable work, which has survived the ravages of time and is now preserved in the National Archives of Canada, shows the considerable extent of knowledge a senior military engineer would have arriving in a colonial setting. In a site such as Louisbourg, local topography allowed an engineer such as Verrier the building of Vauban- style fortifications. But in Canada, as de Lery quickly perceived, many elements rendered Vauban's system questionable. Distance and a sparse population meant that military forces would move by water rather than by land and that manpower to build enormous bastions and glacis was not available. Thus, his first major work, the design to enclose Montreal with a reveted rampart, was a radical departure from the ideal star- shaped fortress in Flanders and resembled far more an early 17th- century fortress without the extensive outworks. De Lery's plans to enclose the landward sides of Quebec were in the typical Vauban style and built from 1745. The planned moats and glacis were only completed facing the Saint-Jean Bastion, no doubt due to labor and money shortages and perhaps to doubts as to the pertinence of having such works on the heights of Cape Diamond. On the other hand, New Orleans had the flat terrain and high water table ideal for a city surrounded by water-filled moats and large bastions. But, as Chief Engineer Broutin soon found, he was not dealing with calm waters as in Flanders but with the mighty Mississippi River and its tons of silt that might wash fortifications away and fill moats with silt. And New An Ingenieur du Roi (King's Orleans did not have sufficient labor to build such large works in the first Engineer) c.1740. They were place, although a good solution to the city's defenses was eventually put up by assigned a uniform from February Engineer de Verges. 25, 1732, consisting of a scarlet Besides fortresses, as plans in the archives and remaining vestiges show, coat with scarlet lining, waistcoat, French engineers in North America had to alter their notion of what an breeches and stockings, blue outlying stone fort should be like. From the 17th until the mid-18th century, cuffs, gold buttons (four set in pairs on cuffs), gold hat lace and, the main threat came from enemy Indian raids. Thus, stone forts more initially, a white plume border (not reminiscent of small medieval castles (see pages 38-39) were built near mentioned from the later 1730s Montreal and also at Chambly and, as a huge tower, at Saint-Frederic (Crown onward). Colonial engineers Point, NY). Thereafter, with an Anglo-American enemy looming, the more continued to wear this uniform usual square plan with bastions, already common in wooden forts, was used until the end of the Seven Years for stone-walled strongholds such as Fort de Chartres (Illinois) and Fort War in 1763. (Reconstruction by Michel Petard; Parks Canada) Carillon (Ticonderoga, NY). 10