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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

PARAGRAPH G:

REPAIRS AND ADDITIONS. 1734 - 1745

The first need for repairs was expressed in 1734 by the Engineer Verrier on behalf of the freestone tablets which topped the parapets of the bastion and horseshoe battery. Though held fast with lead-sealed crampons, from the time they were installed in 1729,these stone tablets were gradually displaced by successive winters of water seeping into the mortar and freezing followed by the spring thaws. 

In 1736 Verrier wrote as well of the deterioration of the freestone quoins and the firing steps of the banquettes. In 1735, the court had approved the remedial measures suggested by Verrier for this and for the parapets: to top the masonry and stone works with 1 and 1/2 to 2 pieds of sod.

The action of  action of water penetrating into the mortar, freezing there and later thawing, also affected in the first instance the mortar lying among and behind the revêtement stones of the masonry surface. Thus in 3 or 4 years these stones had seen both their mortar binding and their lead seals deteriorate. This occasioned every spring whole sections of escarp to fall into the ditch. To counteract this particular phenomenon Verrier recommended rough-casting, or the plaster-like application of lime mortar to the revêtement. This had to be done early in a season, to make sure the application dried well before winter set in. Verrier warned that both the bastion and horseshoe battery would have to be thus treated, lest they both fall to ruin in very little time.

It was not until the New Englanders occupied Louisbourg that plank revêtements served to protect the walls from the elements, though in the Saint Lawrence valley this had very widespread usage in domestic architecture. Returning to Louisbourg in 1749 the French retained the practice and even extended it to some area not undertaken by the English.

As for roughcasting, the inclement weather prevented undertaking the job before mid-summer of 1737. The same applied for laying sod atop the parapets; this also had to await mid-summer, until the grass was fully grown. In 1751 Franquet was to write the following about topping the works with sods:

Le gazon qu'on emploie aux ouvrages de cette place se coupe sur les terres de la premiere qualité, de 2 pouces d'epaisseur, plat et long de 12 a 15 pouces, étant mis en oeuvre avec un pouce de terre entre deux; il se soutient mieux que le gazon a queue (1751, Franquet).

By the end of October 1737 only the parapet of the curtain had yet to be sodded. All the exposed walls and revêtements had been roughcast. This was expected to protect the"parrements" from the elements "for some years". As for the sod, it was recognized, reluctantly, there being no alternative, that this would have to be renewed somewhat more frequently. Sodding, besides helping to protect the stone surfaces, which are brittle, from the effects of extreme cold weather, would very effectively collect and cushion the besiegers' cannonballs.

The sub-engineer Boucher wrote in 1743 that in that year he had roughcast the face of the bastion. This presumably was a second operation, following the original application of 1737. For 1745, repair of the covering on the flank was planned, but the siege of that year interrupted those plans.

Two other objects of renewal were the gun platforms, originally projected for 1730, mounted on the bastion and the battery, and the wooden gun carriages dating from 1730. These latter had been tarred only in 1733, the year the guns were fitted onto them and put in place at the bastion.

In 1740, arrangements were concluded to stockpile the lumber required to rebuild the platforms of the battery and the bastion. This work was done in 1742 and was either a work of repair or of total replacement. It involved as well the gun carriages which had been built 11 years previously.

This is the extent to which repairs have revealed themselves to us for the Dauphin bastion front up to the siege of 1745.

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