Discover our Acadia Resources: Technical drawings of Louis Franquet (Sep 23/24)
Today we are featuring the amazing technical drawings of French engineer and military commander Louis Franquet. You can see many of Franquet’s 1750s drawings of French fortifications in North America on our digital collections page, but today we are focussing on this beautiful drawing of Fort Beauséjour, built close to the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border in 1751 and the scene of critical events leading up to the deportation of the Acadians in 1755.
Louis Franquet (1697-1768) was born and died at Condé in France. Commissioned into the French army at the age of 12, Franquet served in many of the major 18th century European conflicts. From 1709-1720 he was a member of the infantry regiment, and from 1720-1750 part of the engineering corps, attaining the rank of lieutenant-colonel in 1747.
In August 1750, he was asked by the French government to go to Louisbourg to inspect and report on the state of the fortifications there, in anticipation of another attack by the British. The British had exploited weaknesses in the fort to take it in little over a month in 1747, though it was returned to the French as part of a treaty in 1748. After reporting on Louisbourg, Franquet toured Île Royale (Cape Breton), Île Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island), Baie-Verte, and Fort Beauséjour (N.B.) in 1751.
The building of Fort Beauséjour began in April 1751 in response to the burning of the large nearby Acadian village of Beaubassin, and the subsequent British construction of Fort Lawrence on its site in 1750. Franquet’s notes detail the burning of Beaubassin: “The inhabitants, informed that the English were intending to take possession of it, evacuated it of all effects and livestock, and the [Indigenous people] in May of that year set it on fire in such a way that all the houses and stables were burned.”
Louis Franquet visited Fort Beauséjour during the first summer of its construction and was able to complete a detailed plan—evidence that the work was progressing rapidly. The Fort was completed in 1753 and was strategically important in protecting the flow of supplies to the Acadian communities from Île Saint-Jean and Louisbourg. By 1755, tensions between the French and British reached a point where a skirmish was impossible to avoid. In June 1755, Beauséjour was taken by the British and re-named Fort Cumberland. The month after, the British government ordered the deportation of the Acadians.
After further exploratory visits to Quebec in 1752-1753, Franquet returned to Louisbourg, where he was charged with its defense from 1754 to 1758. It was finally taken by the British in autumn 1758, and Franquet, having stayed in North America 8 years longer than anticipated, returned to France.
References:
- Plan, "Fort de Beausejour Seitue sur le Continent du Canada dans the fond de la Baye francoise" | Louis Franquet Collection 1900.262-FRA/3i
- Excerpt from a transcription of "Voyage du Sieur Franquet, 1751 au Port La Joye, au Havre de St-Pierre, au Port des Trois-Rivières de l'Isle St-Jean, à la Baie Verte, à Beauséjour, au fort de Gaspareau sur le continent du Canada et au Port Toulouze de l'Isle Royale." | Louis Franquet Collection 1900.262-FRA/1