In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

2 FortsontheFrontier Adapting European Military Engineering to North America James L. Hart In 1879, Francis Parkman discovered a remarkable document during the course of archival research in French Canada (Wade 1947:577, 676). This “copious journal, full of curious observation” (Parkman 1995:314) was the record of a French military engineer’s tour of Canada in 1752 and 1753. Louis Franquet had been sent by the French court to inspect the defenses of New France in anticipation of another war with Great Britain and the British American colonies. The journal records Franquet’s tour from Québec to Trois Rivières, Montréal, and the forts along Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River. It also includes descriptions of the Native American mission settlements at Sault St. Louis (Kahnawake), the Lake of the Two Mountains, St. François, Bécancour, and Lorette. Franquet’s interests were too broad to confine his journal entries narrowly to his military assignment. Indeed, Parkman and other historians since his time have found Franquet’s observations and comments on nonmilitary matters too interesting to pay much attention to Franquet the military engineer. Parkman himself drew on Franquet’s journal for its “bright glimpses” of “Canadian society in the upper or official class” (Parkman 1995:314). More recently, John Demos relied on Franquet for significant details of life at the Iroquois Christian mission settlement of Sault St. Louis, where Eunice Williams spent eighty years after her capture at Deerfield in 1704 (Demos 1994:144–49). However, Franquet’s formal reports provide a remarkably comprehensive account of the defenses of French Canada on the eve of its final military struggle. They also offer a working example of how a professional military engineer applied and adapted the standard principles of eighteenth-century military engineering and fortification de- 18 · James L. Hart sign to conditions very different from the European context in which those principles had been developed. Louis Franquet was born at Condé, France, in 1697, the son of an engineer . He was commissioned in the army at the age of 12 and served in infantry regiments from 1709 to 1720. In 1720, he was admitted to the engineering corps, and he served as a military engineer in Europe for the next 30 years. During that time, he participated in campaigns in Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. He was awarded the Cross of Saint-Louis in 1741 and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1747. While serving as chief engineer at Saint-Omer, he was asked to go to Isle Royale (Cape Breton Island) to inspect the defenses of the colony and to develop plans to put the fortresses at Louisbourg and other places in a state of readiness (Thorpe 1974:228–32). After arriving at Louisbourg in August 1750, Franquet examined its buildings and fortifications and conducted tests to determine the causes of structural deterioration. He developed voluminous maps, plans, and sections detailing the existing structures and recommendations for repairs and improvements. In 1751 he toured the remainder of Isle Royale as well as Isle Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island), Baie Verte, and Fort Beauséjour (in present-day New Brunswick). The next year, his assignment was expanded to include inspection of fortifications in the St. Lawrence and Richelieu valleys (Thorpe 1974:229, 231; Franquet 1924). French military engineering enjoyed great prestige during the eighteenth century, due in large part to the achievements of Marshal Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban (1633-1707). Building on innovations in Italy, the Netherlands, and France during the preceding centuries in response to the development of effective artillery, Vauban achieved an impressive record both in the conduct of sieges and in the design and defense of fortifications. He conducted many of the major sieges during the wars of Louis XIV and built a chain of fortresses to guard the frontiers of the kingdom (Rothrock 1968:v–xi, 1–16; Charbonneau 1982:85–109; Fry 1984:1:37–45; Cowley and Parker 1996:486–87). Vauban was much more a practitioner than a theorist. He insisted that defensive works must suit local conditions. With few exceptions, he avoided any discussion of his “system” of fortification. He also insisted that there was no such thing as an impregnable fortification, and he devoted his published works to siegecraft and the attack of fortifications (Rothrock 1968:viii, 178; Fry 1984:1:41–42). In fact, his greatest innovations may have been in siegecraft rather than in the design and construction of fortifications (Duffy 1985:78ff.). [18...

Share