The public auction, heralded by drum rolls and conducted with loud announcements and competitive bidding, frequently enlivened the streets of Louisbourg. Held at a variety of locations around the town, but always outdoors for at least part of the time, auctions might last half an hour or run for days. To attract as large a crowd as possible, the seller used a variety of publicity measures and as much of the law's pomp and ceremony as he could afford. Consequently the public auction in Louisbourg's streets was at once a legal procedure, an economic transaction and a community gathering.

History Of The Judicial Auction 

The public auctions of Louisbourg are another example of the way in which French law was applied to Ile Royale, slightly modified to fit local circumstances. The basic laws on judicial auctions were contained in the Coutume de Paris (the body of law covering private property and  its disposal, used in the colonies as well as in parts of France) and the 1551 Edit des Criées of King Henri II .... The laws spelled out the procedure by which a debtor's goods could be seized and sold fort he benefit of his creditors.

This procedure was simple. Once a creditor had gained a conviction for non-payment in his local court, he could ask the huissier  ... of the court to secure payment. This official would visit the debtor and command payment. If the debtor refused to pay, the huissier could seize goods, and real estate if necessary, and proceed with an auction which would earn the amount of the debt.

Once this administrative system was established to organize and conduct auctions in debt cases, a demand arose for the courts to perform a similar service, that of auctioning goods at the owner's request. Eventually anyone who wished to dispose of some property and was willing to pay the fees could ask local court officials to manage a public auction for him. In Louisbourg requested sales were far more common than ones following conviction and seizure.

The Local Context

In Ile Royale the court principally responsible for public auctions was the Bailliage, the rough equivalent of the local courts specified in the French laws. In cases involving ships, seagoing accessories or seamen's possessions, however, the Bailliage yielded to the, Louisbourg Admiralty. Since the Bailliage was not created until 1734, (the Admiralty had existed since 1717), the Superior Council served as the basic court until that time, but it left routine functions such as most auctions to the ordonnateur, the chief civil administrator whose responsibilities included the administration of justice .... The bailli or judge and the Lieutenant General of the Admiralty each had the authority and the supporting staff to order and administer judicial auctions. Each held regular sittings in his own home, where there was little room for an audience other than court officials, the disputing parties and others with a direct interest in the case at hand. It was this lack of suitable public meeting rooms that led to official sanction for outdoor auctions.

In 1736, Jean de Lasson had the misfortune to be the  first property  owner to have his land seized and sold by the Bailliage. He was convicted of debt, he failed to pay and his north shore fishing property was seized., auctioned and sold for 2500 livres. Lasson could not object to his conviction, but he claimed that 2500 livres was a poor price and insufficient to cover his debt. The small room in which the bailli had auctioned the property was too small for a large crowd and a vigorous auction. Consequently, Lasson asked that the sale be repeated, this time outdoors and with adequate publicity. The law did not demand such procedures, he admitted, but both at Plaisance and at Ile Royale, the colonists had become accustomed to outdoor auctions. Lasson asked that the sale of seized properties be handled by the same customary usage. 

The new bailli consulted the Superior Council, which accepted Lasson's request. The law was not to be changed, but greater efforts could be made to ensure a successful auction. Henceforth all public sales, including those of seized goods, could be held where a crowd could be gathered, preferable "la place du Quay", after the huissier Had publicized the auction ....  In acknowledging the inadequacy of the bailli's quarters as an auction site, the council formalized the existing local procedure: for a public auction, the bailli would leave his small courtroom and travel with his officials to the Quay while the huissier went out to drum up a crowd of bidders.

The sale of Lasson's property was neither the first public auction nor the first outdoor auction in Louisbourg. Its interest is as a judicially-ordered, involuntary sale. By requiring that such sales be held  outdoors and with adequate publicity, the administration of Ile Royale gave official sanction to the already standard practice used for voluntary sales. The 1736 ruling on auctions of seized goods in effect borrowed the established local custom for use in judicially-ordered sales.

Authorization For Public Auctions 

One did not need the bailli's permission to sell one's goods. If he could find customers an individual could sell a. whole cargo from a newly arrived ship or hawk a few small items in. the street. However, the officially-sanctioned public auction was attractive for several reasons. The auction sale appealed as a way to dispose of goods rapidly and conveniently and perhaps even at a good price. The auctioning system offered by the courts was attractive to those not used to marketing by themselves, because it provided official sanction, recognized rules of procedure and even an auctioneer. Finally, the authorities' ability to publicize and promote a sale was greater than the individual's, particularly when the sale was a single event rather then part of a selling career. All these factors drew individuals into the Bailliage or Admiralty courtroom to request that judicial auctions be arranged for them. Such auctions initiated by owners or their heirs were much more common than the involuntary sales that followed conviction for debt and the seizure of goods.

People requesting judicial auctions had a variety of motives. One man stated "that having the intention to return to France to live there in retirement from this colony, he desires that the judicia1 sale of his goods be proceeded with ....A large merchant firm requested an auction of a collection of goods left with them which otherwise "they could only dispose of very slowly" ... A more common reason for an auction was a death and the consequent need to proceed with the distribution of an estate among its heirs. Whatever the cause, the auction sale disposed of unneeded belongings, raised money to pay creditors, or simply converted the assets of an estate into a form more easy to distribute among its owners. No case is known of a judge refusing a request for a judicial auction, though in cases of debt, the debtor, if convicted, could appeal and other means prevent or delay sale. In cases where an estate was left without heirs or executors or where the courts were already. directly involved, it was the officials themselves (specifically the Procureur du roi) who initiated the request for a sale, but the procedure was simple in all requests for auction. One appeared before the bailli or Lieutenant-General  (usually at their regular court sittings, but in an emergency a ruling could be secured at any time), made one's request and received permission. Even if a sale resulted from a conviction in the Superior Council, it was the lower courts which conducted the auction.

Organization And Publicity 

Once the bailli authorized an auction. much of the organization was left to the huissier. The huissier, least senior of the court officials, was responsible for preparing the auction, publicizing it and probably even for calling out the items to the bidders. In ordering an auction, the bailli consulted with the interested parties, for the procedure to be followed was flexible. A small auction could be arranged on shirt notice with the minimum of publicity. At the other extreme, months could pass between authorization and sale. A major auction might be heralded by extensive publicity spread over several weeks.

The nature of the sale and the wishes of the parties determined the amount of publicity. The Bailliage and the Admiralty charged fees for all of their services, so the owners, creditors or court officials had to balance the expenses of organization against the potential revenues from a well attended sale. The simplest of preliminaries was merely a few drum rolls and a loud announcement to attract some attention. Alternately, an auction could be "cried" at the end of three Sunday masses, proclaimed by regularly posted placards and verbal announcements all over town, and started with the procession of the huissier and a drummer all through the town.

Some Auctions 

Since the form of each auction was determined by its particular circumstances, it is worthwhile to describe several different auctions roughly typical of the variety encountered at Louisbourg. 

1. Sale of a chest of clothes 13 September 1753 

The sale was undertaken at the request of a visiting merchant, Tanquay Mervin of Saint-Malo. At his regular Friday afternoon sitting on 6 March 1753, bailli Laurens de Domingé Meyracq granted Mervin's request for the sale of a chest full of clothes. The following Friday, after the two p.m. sitting, the bailli, his greffier (the clerk who recorded the Bailliage's sittings - in this case probably Antoine Lartigue) and the huissier (Franqois Merard) proceeded to the Quay. There a drummer of the Compagnies Franches beat the drum to attract a crowd. The goods were displayed and sold for cash in a few minutes. The procedure was simple and brief and the record of the sale fills only a few lines in the Bailliage registers.

Sales of this type were not uncommon. They were often requested by an employer or the procureur du roi as the simplest way to dispose of the belongings of a transient worker who died while in the colony. However, since the Admiralty had jurisdiction over the succession of fishermen and sailors who died at sea, many of these small sales involved not the Bailliage officials but the Lieutenant -General of the Admiralty and his procureur du roi, greffier and huissier. Their procedures were not significantly different from those of the Bailliage ...

2. Sale of a house, 10 November 1741.

At the death of Pierre Mons and his wife Marie Monier,, their three children were left a house, property and garden on Rue d'Orléans. Evidently they disposed of most of the estate's goods between themselves, but on Monday, 2 October, 1741, one of the heirs, Hugues Mons (acting for himself and his younger brother François) and François Riché (acting for the third heir, his wife Françoise Mons) requested bailli Joseph Lartigue to authorize the judicial auction of their house. Since the sale of the house was important to Mons and Riché, they were willing to pay for a full publicity campaign and to wait several- weeks for the auction.

Publicity began on October 7, a Sunday. The Bailliage huissier, Jean-Jacques Chantrel, announced the sale to people leaving the Sunday mass at the chapel of the King's Bastion barracks. Then, accompanied by a drummer, he read and posted placards about the auction at several locations around the town. A second announcement and placarding took place the following Sunday and a third on Sunday, November 4. The location of the placards is not given in the records of this case, except for the general reference "at the normal and customary places." Fortunately records of other sales specify notice sites. Potential sites include: by the main doors of the church, at the entrance of the Bailliage or Admiralty courtroom, at the Magasin du Roi, at the passage across the barachois outside the Porte Dauphine, on the Beauséjour house or other buildings along the quay, and on the house, boat or piece of property to be sold. Not more than five of these sites would have been used, perhaps only two or three ...  [I have seen no evidence that any of these court officials wore robes or other particular costume, either during their court sittings or while proceeding with auctions or other outdoor functions, Though they earned fees, the officials' basic salaries were low, and neither the records of their appointment nor the accounts of royal expenses mention judicial robes.] For a well publicized sale such as this one, the placards could be re-read and replaced twice before the sale.

A few days after each public announcement, the Bailliage sat to accept bids from potential buyers who had inspected the house. After the first publicity,, François Riché, husband of one of the heirs, entered the first bid, 900 livres, probably just to set a minimum for other bidders. No other bids were received after the second announcement.

The third receiving bids, the auction itself, began at two p.m. on Friday, 10 November 1741. First, huissier Chantrel was dispatched with a drummer from the town garrison literally to drum up a crowd. With drums beating, they went to "the corners and crossroads of the town and all along the Quay", periodically announcing the sale in a loud voice. At the eastern end of the Quay, they joined bailli Lartigue, procureur Antoine Sabatier and greffier Laurens Domingé Meyracq. In a "loud and intelligible voice", Chantrel announced the auction rules. These were principally a statement of the time period allowed  for payment and a reminder that any bids accepted became legally binding on the bidder. Then the sale began, with shopkeeper Quintin Lelievre offering 950 livres. Louis Vallée, the government surveyor, bid 1000 livres and merchant Julien Fizel said 1100 livres. Vallée responded with 1150 livres, countered by Fizel's 1200 livres. Bids apparently ceased at 1200 livres but the auction was not over. The final bid was publicized until five p.m., probably by another circuit of the town by Chantrel and the drummer. At five, the officials and interested bidders gathered again (probably in the Bailliage rooms of Lartigue's house this time) for another round of bidding.

The final part of the bidding was enlivened by the imposition of a time limit. When bidding was reopened, the officials lit a tiny piece of candle ("un retit bout de bougie") and announced that the successful bid would be the highest offered before the candle burned out. This stimulated a flurry of new bids. Vallée offered 1225 livres. A new merchant Antoine Morin., offered 1250 livres, promptly met by Vallée's 1300 livres. Fizel re-entered the bidding at 1325 livres, at which point the huissier, Jean-Jacques Chantrel, offered a bid himself of 1350 livres. But Vallée cries 1400 livres just as the candle went out and got the house.

The cost of organizing the sale is not specified, but the normal fees of the officials are known. The bailli charged 8 livres for his presence at the sale while the procureur du roi got 6 livres. The greffier was paid 4 livres, the huissier and the drummer 2 livres each, but all three probably got equivalent amounts for each time they prepared and posted the placards announcing the sale. In total there may have been 50 livres of costs to be paid. Valiée had to pay this sum over and above his bid of 1400 livres, for the sale of a boat or a house differed from multi-item auctions in requiring that the sole buyer pay the costs rather than deducting the costs from the total revenues of the auction ...

3. Auction of farm animals, 24 March 1735.

When Judith Pansart dit LaBretonnière was convicted for her part in a robbery, the Superior Council ordered that she be banished from the colony and that her goods be sold to pay court costs and her fine. In one of the most quickly arranged auctions on record, the Bailliage completed the first sale three days later, on 24 March 1735. The previous day, a Wednesday, huissier Louis Adam and a drummer had publicized the sale by reading and posting notices which announced the sale of seven goats, four kid goats and some poultry which Pansart had been raising on her north shore property.

The sale began at nine the next morning, heralded by the usual procession of Adam and the drummer through the corners and crossroads of the town to the Quay. They evidently attracted a good crowd, for the record states that several bids were made for at least some of the items. The buyers were Swiss sergeant Yodocus Koller (three goats two of them younger ones 60 livres), Sergeant Dubois (a goat and its kid, 26 livres), the widow Perré (a goat and two kids, 30 livres), butcher Pierre Santier (a goat and two kids, 41 livres), Sieur Morel (five turkey hens, 37 livres) and the wife of innkeeper Grandchamps (12 chickens, a cock and two ducks, 41 livres). For their work, the huissier received 10 livres, "a boy who helped tend the goats" was given 2 livres, and the drummer received  4 livres. The other officials presumably received the usual fees, for a total of 34 livres to be deducted from the total revenue of the sale ....

4. Sale of the estate of Anne Guyon Despres, 17-22 March 1745.

The largest auction were those which. sold the goods of an estate so that the proceeds could be divided evenly among the heirs of the late owner, after all the debts of the estate had been paid. The great range of goods sold at these auctions, which could include real estate, furniture, house wares, clothes, boats, slaves, animals and any other form of property, can be seen from the inventories and sale records analysed in Blaine Adam's report Domestic Furnishings. The routines of auction procedure in these cases can be found in a description of 1745 example, the sale of the goods of Anne Guyon Despres, widow of François Chevalier ...

The widow Chevalier died on 4 August, 1744, in the Rue du Quay house of her son Pierre Belair. At five-thirty p.m., within an hour of her death, procureur du roi Antoine Sabatier visited Michel Hertel de Cournoyer, the acting bailli, and asked that the house be sealed in readiness for an inventory of the widow's property, because one of the principal heirs, a daughter, was living in France and could not be present to defend her interests in the succession. Cournoyer ordered that these procedures begin. Eventually an inventory was made, the daughter was consulted and it was decided that the widow's belongings would be sold. 

The sale was scheduled for 17 March, 1745. The records say nothing about prior publicity. It is possible that the routines of announcement and placarding by the huissier were observed. However, Pierre Belair and- Guillaume Delort, the representative of the absent daughter, were probably able to publicize the sale without official assistance in the months between the inventory and the sale, for the auction would dispose of the entire estate of a long time resident of the town. If no official publicity was arranged for the weeks before the sale, then the standard circuit of the town made by huissier Joseph-Felix Chesnay and drummer would have been the beginning of official participation in the sale procedure. Chesnay, the drummer, and the crowds they had gathered joined Cournoyer, Sabatier and Meyracq, the greffier, at the widow's former home on the corner lot of the Ile du Quay ay two p.m. on March 17.

The auction proceeded according to form. First the preliminary announcements of binding obligation and of the time period allowed for payment were read. Then either the bailli or the huissier called out and displayed each item for bidding. Once the highest bid was found, the greffier recorded the name of the bidder and his price and made arrangements to receive payment from him. Some bidders paid cash, but for this sale the preliminary announcement had specified that payment could be delayed, until the end of September, so most bidders simply promised future payment for their purchase. Meanwhile the next item was being prepared for presentation to the crowd.

The Chevalier auction lasted three days. It began at two p.m. on March 17 and ran until five. It resumed at nine the next morning, paused at noon, and ran again from two to five. The final session was held at two p.m. on March 22, when a female slave was sold. Each session of the auction was proceeded by drumming, the announcement of the terms of payment and a reminder of the contractual obligation of any accepted bid.

Though the names of all successful bidders are given the records make no estimate of the total size of the crowd, which was probably gathered at the door of the house or in a main room. Nine hours were required for the sale of 72 items, for an average of seven or eight minutes per item, so even sizeable delays in moving and presenting sale goods would still have permitted time for some vigorous bidding. The crowd changed, of course, with each session. Only Pierre Belair and Chesnay the huissier bought an item at each of the three main sessions. Many of the buyers in the first afternoon session were neighbours, people from the Ile du Quay or Block Four houses, such as Blaise Cassaignolles and Madame Santier. The morning session brought some young women of social prominence, Mlles Henriette DuChambon and Josette de Cournoyer, accomanied by the latter's mother. The third session attrateted a new crowd: merchant Claude Perrin, merchant artisan Jean Claparede, fisherman Jean-Baptiste Hiriart and a visitor from Quebec, Pierre Angers. Few items sold  for less than 5 or 6 livres and the buyers were mostly householders of the town, rather than the fishermen, soldiers and sailors who participated in some of the smaller sales.

In all, 20 individuals or families made purchases worth a total of 1453 livres 7 sols. Pierre Belair, son of the late owner and still resident in the house from which her possessions were being sold, was the most active bidder, buying 27 items worth roughly half the total value of the sale. The next most active bidder bought only six items.

After the sale ended, the heirs and the Bailliage officials began to collect payments and pay debts. The funeral, the sale, the inventory and other matters cost 340 livres, and at least one bad debt had to be accepted. Pierre Angers, who owed 70 livres 10 sols for his auction purchases had died a few weeks later resisting the New England landings on 11 April 1745 ...

Despite the siege and capture of Louisbourg, the heirs and the greffier continued to meet to complete the succession. On. July 7, probably shortly before his departure for France, Pierre Belair, acting for his sister as well as himself, received 1041 livres 2 sols in cash and un-expired IOUs from the greffier. The IOUs did not fall due until September, but if Belair managed to collect payment for all of them, he and his sister would have received about 520 livres each as the net proceeds of the auction. In a sense, collection of the debts would have been fairly easy, for most of the IOUs were signed by Belair himself, who owed the succession more than 700 livres for his auction purchases.

For an estate the Chevalier sale not unusually large or long. The sale of Governor DuQuesnells estate in October and November, 1744, took 20 sessions of three hours each and raised over 20,000 livres. In that case, the four Bailliage officials and their drummers  had charged 440 livres for the sale alone .... Auctions running through many sessions and earning several thousand livres from the bidders were normal, since the estates of many people more prosperous than the widow Chevalier were liquidated by auction.

That the widow Chevalier lived by the Quay, site of public auctions, was a coincidence. Though the Baillage and the Admiralty officials specified the Quay if the choice of a site was left to them, estate sales were routinely held in or front of the home of the deceased owners, surely a great convenience when a entire household was being sold. Consequently any house in or around Louisbourg could be an auction site. However, one large auction, which resulted from the business collapse of shopkeeper Jacques-François Rolland in 1743, was moved from the house of his mother-in-law, the widow Cruchon de la Tour, to an Ile du Quay house rented by Leger Lucas, a major creditor. Lucas and other creditors had requested the change because the other house was too far off to attract large crowds and active bidding .... Similarly, François Lessenne moved the sale of some ship accessories to a Quayside storehouse because he found it difficult to draw a good crowd to his own property by the barachois .... The Quay' s location and its association with public auctions and other community events evidently made it a popular sale site. A few auction records specify the eastern end of the Quay, as do the Rolland and Lessenne auctions mentioned above, but some of the Admiralty auctions refer to the Quay de la Marine, which may mean the small Block Three square adjacent, to the Marine offices in the ordonnateur's building.

Roles, Texts And Formalities 

Bailli or Lieutenant-General 

The judges were men of some standing in the community. They authorized auctions in their courtrooms, and at the specified time went with their officials to the auction site.

Since the judge directed the auction, he may have participated actively in auctioning the sale items, though it seems more likely that they left such functions to the lower officials. If the judge did participate actively, some of the duties attributed to the huissier below would pass to him. Otherwise, he presumably stood by supervising.

Procureur du Roi

See the general description of his role in Crowley, Government and Interests, p. 336-341. As legal counsel to the court, he represented the law and the Crown's interests in all court matters. He advised on auction rulings when some point of law was involved and could request the judge to order an auction when the law required one. The Bailliage and the Admiralty each had a procureur.

The procureur accompanied the judge to most auctions, but had no active role in the sale and was not always present.

Greffier 

As clerk to the court, he always accompanied the judge to record proceedings. For small auctions he retained only a summary record of events. For a major auction he kept a lengthy transcript, listing each item, the name of the successful bidder, and the price. Examples of these can be studied in the documentation cited above.

As court treasurer, he also received payment from each purchaser. The buyer either paid him with cash or a cash substitute or signed the record where his debt was noted. After the auction, the greffier itemized the costs, finalized the accounts and paid the net earnings to the owner(s) or heir(s).

Since auctions and other events frequently required the greffier to work outside his office or courtroom, he may have had some sort of portable writing desk for his paper, pens and ink, and possibly also a small strongbox for cash and receipts.

Huissier

The huissier publicized auctions through posted notices and verbal announcements. Surviving copies of placards which the huissier posted suggest that they had a standard form similar to the following (Bracketed sections would vary for each auction) ...

De Par Le Roy

Le public est avertit que (pour satisfaire aux condemnations prononcés contre Judit de la Bretonniere) ... il sera (demain vingt quatre du courant sur les deux heures du relevée) ... procedé sur le quay de cette ville à la vente judiciare de (sept chevres quatre cabris, douse poules et un cocq, une canne et un canard et cinq dindes) lesquelles seront adjugés au plus offrant et dernier encherisseur (à la premiere criée) ... à la charge par l'adjudicataire de payer (comptant) ... le prix de son adjudication: sinon sera recriée à sa folle enchere ... à laquelle il demeura obligé par corps et biens comme depositaire de justice. Et à ce que personne n'en ignore j'ai (Louis Adam Huissier audiencier au Conseil Superieur et Bailliage royal de Louisbourg isle Royalle y demeurant Rue Royalle) ... lu, publiée et affiché copies du present aux lieux accoutumés de cette ville etant assisté dtun tambour: ce fait en presence des sieurs (prigent Lebris practicien, nicolas Taillefer au service du Sr Richart residents separement en cette ville) temains ... qui ont signé avec moi le dit Jour et an ...

(Lebris    N. Taillefer     Adam huissier)

The verbal announcement made by the huissier probably consisted of a reading "in a loud and intelligible voice" of all or a part of the text of the placard ...

At or just before the scheduled time for an auction, the huissier went out to attract a crowd. For a small auction, these announcements were only made on the Quay and perhaps first at the courtroom door, but a major sale involved a procession from the courtroom through the streets to make announcements at several corners. The last part of the route would frequently be eastward along the Quay to an auction site near the Ile du Quay.

At the auction, the huissier, under the bailli's supervision, announced the terms of the auction, probably by reading the relevant section of the placarded announcement, and then began auctioning the items. The huissier repeated his role at each session of a long auction

Drummer

In his Compagnies Franches drummer's uniform,, the drummer accompanied the huissier on all of the publicizing rounds. Auction records give no information about the type of drum carried or the beat used. Nor do they state whether he drummed continuously or only to herald the huissier's  street corner announcements.

Owner or Heir

The owner r heir of the goods to be sold usually initiated the sale by requesting the judge to authorize one. He had no prescribed role in the auction, but probably publicized the auction by word of mouth and, with his friends, servants or employees, assisted the huissier by preparing items for presentation and sale. He could enter the bidding if he found the prices too low or wished to keep a particular item that was being sold.

Bidders

Bidders came from all strata of society, though the type of goods sold and their value would affect the composition of the crowd and the diversity of the bidders. The crowd gathered at the auction site in response to the drumming and the huissier's announcements. The degree of showmanship displayed by the auctioneer is unknown, but bidding apparently meant calling out a figure: "qninze sols", "un livre" (=20 sols), "trois livres et demi", etc. Bidders had to be ready to pay cash or to accept a binding obligation to pay in future, depending on the announced terms of the auction.

Conclusion

Auctions have been explained in detail here because of their potential for occasional animation at the Fortress of Louisbourg. Apart from a few items for auction and a variety of costumes, restaging an auction would require little more than a group of well rehearsed, French-speaking animators. But the image of community activity which makes the public auction an attractive subject for animation also makes it an interesting point of social history. The auctions moved outdoors because there was not a single hall in Louisbourg adequate for public group activities, and that lack may be symptomatic of a general dearth of social structures and institutions to serve the Louisbourg community. In that context, the enthusiasm of a bidding crowd with the attendant procession, drumming and announcement is noteworthy as one of the few regular functions bringing together all the citizens of Louisbourg on a more or less equal footing. [Extract from Christopher Moore, "Public Auctions In Louisbourg" (February, 1977) in Second Draft Report, Contract Research 1977, Unpublished Report H F 39R (Fortress of Louisbourg, 1977), pp. 1-16.]