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PRELIMINARY REPORT ON DAUPHIN BASTION

BY

BERNARD POTHIER

September 9, 1964

(Fortress of Louisbourg Report H B 8)

NOTE:
Presently, the bibliography is not included here.
For these, please consult the original report in the archives of the Fortress of Louisbourg

PARAGRAPE B: 

TERRAIN

Reasonably informed opinion on the physical aspect of Ile Royale was constant in that for Louisbourg the terrain, as far as the requirement of fortifications were concerned, was qualified "bad". In 1713, the author of the '"mémoire sur l'ile royale,", Lhermitte presmably, reported "le terrain de ce port est mauvais" (1713, AC / C11B / 1 / 12- ). Forty-five years later M. de la Houllière, who commanded the regular infantry at Ile Royale, wrote after the final fall of Louisbourg in 1758:

La terre (n'est) à Louisbourg que de la tourbe sans consistance et (n'a) pas plus de corps que de la cendrre (6 août 1758, Journal, Guerre / A1 / 2499 / 13). 

Then there was also the uninformed opinion which in considerable quantity found its way back to Versailles. An instance of this was the contention of M. de Pontchartrain, Louis XIV's last Minister of Marine, that the solid construction of Louisbourg ought to have been an easy task, in view of the predominance of
common stone right on the site. To this Lhermitte answered the following:

[61] ... ceux qui ont informé Votre Grandeur de cela ne scavent pas distinguer la propriété des matériaux, parce qu'ila voient des roches ils les mettent a tout usage. J'ay expliqué a Votre Grandeur l'année dernière la qualité de chaque pierre que jay trouvé dans chaque havre. Je n'ay pas encore
trouvé de propre à tailler. Toute celle que jay veu depuis le Port Dauphin jusqu'au passage de Canseau ne peut servir que de moilon.On en tirera quelque gros moilon esbruty grossièrement. Je ne m'en suis pas rapporté à moi même [62] Depuis que l'appareilleur est ici avec le platre je les
ay envoié jusqu'au Port Dauphin. Ils n'ont rien trouvé. Je ne dis pas que dans la suitte il ne s'en trouve mais il faut travailler à ouvrir des carrière en plusieurs endroits ... (25 août 1714, Lhermitte, AC/C11B / 1 / 47-66v.)

Most of the information we have on the terrain is very general.  It would seem that in 1713 the fortress site enjoyed very little forestation. The Lhermitte memoir of that year tells us that wood for building purposes was not to be found within five or six lieues of Louisbourg. The Plan 1717-2 shows some very limited shrubbery at the bottom of the hill on which the Dauphin Bastion was to be built, directly forward of where the face would later stand. In front of the future flanked angle and along the harbour side several habitations are shown and the land about them appears to have been cleared. Lhermitte's memoir was upheld by another of 1716 which informs us that at Louisbourg the soil was nothing but

 ... grosses roches avec de la mousse dessus, et de, l'eau partout entre ces roches, ce qui cause beaucoup de boues dans les chemins qui sont un peu éloignée de la grave. (1716, (anonyme), AC / C11B/ 1 / 309). 

This moss-covered blanket of fieldstone, good only for rubble work of the poorest quality rendered the task of fortifying such a site very difficult. This on the other hand played both ways: the engineer Louis Franquet, describing the terrain beyond the glacis of the landward front, wrote in 1750: 

... le terrain... est composé de roc, et de marais d'une nature à former des difficultés quasi-insurmontables au cheminement d'une tranchée" (13 octobre 1750, Génie / Mss. R.205b / 11-10. 

At any rate, despite the obvious difficulties involved, the enemy in both 1745 and 1758 of necessity depended upon the several trenches they managed to put down in laying siege to the French stronghold on the landward front. 

Specific reference to the Dauphin bastion area are rare indeed. Not only this front but also the whole of the landward fortifications were ringed by a series of hillocks whose heights commanded the fortress - at least the covert way, if not always the rampart - to a degree that sealed the fate of Louisbourg in 1745, and again in 1758. It is with some surprise, then, that one reads Franquet writing to the Minister in October 1750 of "fortifications bien dirigées, suivant le sistème de Vauban, and "L'on n'a vu aucune (ouvrages) de commandés, que quelqies parties du chemin couvert" (Idem.) 

The following year, in 1751, Franquet in describing the area in front ot the tenaille of the Dauphin gate, wrote: 

Le terrain d'entre ce front et la hauteur AA (that is the "hauteur de Francoeur", or the "hauteur du four a chaux", in front of the Dauphin gate) est dure, traversé de blocs de roches, partput difficile à ouvrir; d'un côté il est borné à la mer, de l'autre à un marais" (20 nov. 1751, C11A / 126 / 91).

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