by Don Aker
For all of my teachers, including every student who spent time in my classroom
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue: July 26, 1758
Chapter 1: June 1, 1758
Chapter 2: June 2, 1758
Chapter 3: June 4, 1758
Chapter 4: June 8, 1758
Chapter 5: June 10, 1758
Chapter 6: June 11, 1758
Chapter 7: June 12, 1758
Chapter 8: June 13, 1758
Interlude: July 26, 1758
Chapter 9: June 15, 1758
Chapter 10: June 18, 1758
Chapter 11: June 19, 1758
Chapter 12: June 25, 1758
Chapter 13: June 26, 1758
Chapter 14: June 28, 1758
Chapter 15: June 30, 1758
Chapter 16: July 6, 1758
Chapter 17: July 9, 1758
Chapter 18: July 16, 1758
Chapter 19: July 17, 1758
Chapter 20: July 21, 1758
Chapter 21: July 22, 1758
Chapter 22: July 25, 1758
Epilogue: July 26, 1758
Historical Note
Images and Documents
Credits
Author’s Note
Other books in the I Am Canada series
Copyright
Prologue
July 26, 1758
9:37 a.m.
The silence unnerves me.
After seven weeks of musket shots and cannon blasts, this ceasefire should be a godsend. After seven weeks of watching fellow soldiers and friends maimed and mutilated before my eyes, the stillness in the air should seem a blessing. But it is far from that. It is only the calm before the real storm. I understand this because I know the contents of the letter that Jean-Chrysostome Loppinot carries so solemnly beside me.
I should be proud that I, Sébastien de l’Espérance, am the soldier chosen from what remains of Louisbourg’s garrison to accompany him as he delivers the letter to the British. But pride is not the emotion I feel. I carry the flag of my homeland high above my head. I march in the manner befitting a member of the Compagnies Franches de la Marine. But my heart is heavy.
Much of Louisbourg now lies in ruin. Many of the buildings I once admired are merely smouldering rubble. There are breaches in the massive stone walls large enough for British infantry to enter en masse if they wish. The last of our great warships, Bienfaisant, has been captured, and enemy vessels now fill the harbour. Governor de Boschenry, Chevalier de Drucour, had no option but to accept defeat. Continued resistance would have been suicide.
But it is neither devastation nor defeat that weighs heaviest on my heart now. It is the single sentence written by Governor Drucour on the paper in Major Loppinot’s hand.
The governor and his war council were horrified by the terms the British invaders have demanded. Although we were ultimately forced to surrender, we fought long and hard against overwhelming odds. We deserve to leave Louisbourg marching under our colours with muskets shouldered, a privilege befitting our bravery and our sacrifice. After all, our enemy received equal respect from my countrymen when the British garrison surrendered at Minorca only two years ago. Yet when Governor Drucour requested these honours of war, the British leaders flatly refused. In the briefest of notes, Major General Jeffery Amherst and Admiral Edward Boscawen wrote that they will agree to no conditions. Clearly, their wish is to humiliate us in our defeat.
In the face of such inflexibility, the war council had no choice. They unanimously agreed to refuse such indignity. In a single sentence, they have declared our willingness to die rather than suffer dishonour. It is this response that Major Loppinot and I must deliver.
I am not afraid to die. Having lived only eighteen years, there is much that I will never experience, but honour is everything. Without honour, what value has life?
But it is not only the lives of Louisbourg’s remaining soldiers that will be lost after the British receive Drucour’s response. The town sheltered within these walls has been home to nearly three thousand civilians who will also pay the price of British inflexibility.
But I am not thinking of those thousands now.
I am thinking of only one.
Chapter 1
June 1, 1758
“I’ve seen death masks that looked more joyous than you,” said Guillaume as he walked beside me. The sounds of our boots against the cobblestones marked our progress along Louisbourg’s Rue de l’Étang.
Guillaume Rousseau was well known among the Compagnies Franches de la Marine for his sense of humour, so I recognized his jibe as an attempt to lighten my mood. I forced a grin, but it no doubt bore closer resemblance to a scowl. “There can be no sterner man than Monsieur Desbarats in all of Île Royale,” I said. “I fear he will refuse my request.”
“But why should he?” asked Guillaume. “During our two years of service here in Louisbourg, you’ve proven yourself a valued soldier. Capitaine Boudier has agreed to vouch for you, has he not? And you aren’t a penniless suitor, Sébastien. The money you’ve saved ensures that you can support a wife.”
He spoke the truth, although many might have doubted my financial means. After all, a private garrisoned at Louisbourg earned a fraction of what an ordinary labourer received. And some of that private’s modest wages were earmarked for his uniform, his rations and other expenses. What remained was hardly enough to provide for a family. But Guillaume and I had been accustomed to hard work in our homeland and we had worked hard here, too, spending much of our off-duty time earning additional money repairing sections of the town’s massive protective walls. While some wasted their extra earnings carousing in the town’s taverns, Guillaume and I did not. Born to poor families in La Rochelle, France, where life had grown increasingly harsh as the threat of war with Britain loomed, we had learned to save every coin we could.
“Even as stern a man as Monsieur Desbarats will appreciate that you’re no pauper,” Guillaume continued.
I could see the soundness of his argument. But I had also seen the way Monsieur Desbarats glared at me each time I encountered his daughter in his shop.
Despite his dour, dismissive manner, I had spent the past two years working hard to prove myself worthy of Marie-Claire Desbarats, but I was glad Guillaume had agreed to accompany me as far as Monsieur Desbarats’s door. I was fearless in my duties as a soldier, but I might have turned tail and run had Guillaume not been standing beside me.
I glanced at him for reassurance and he clapped a sturdy hand on my shoulder. I reached for the knocker, a round iron ring with the letter D at its centre, and drew a deep breath, then another. Guillaume gave me a nudge. I rapped the knocker twice.
In moments the door swung open and Monsieur Desbarats stood in the opening. “Bonsoir,” he grunted. “What brings you to my door this evening?” His gruff voice and abrupt manner were well known, and the frown he wore suggested he was particularly aggravated by my presence before him.
I froze. My hesitation was, of course, ridiculous. As custom demanded, I had asked for and received his permission to court Marie-Claire, and our marriage was but a natural conclusion of that courtship. Yet I could not make my mouth form the words I had rehearsed for days. In fact, I could say nothing at all. My face burned like coals in an evening hearth.
“Bonsoir, Monsieur Desbarats,” said Guillaume, taking charge of the awkward moment. “If it is convenient, sir, my good friend and brother in arms would like a
moment of your time.”
Monsieur Desbarats’s gaze drifted from Guillaume to me. And then the impossible happened. He smiled.
* * *
Standing on the quay a short time later, I held Marie-Claire’s hand in mine, her smooth palm soft against my calloused one. “Why did you not tell me your father could be so pleasant?” I asked.
She lowered her eyes and I recognized a conspiracy afoot. “He enjoys playing the ogre,” she confessed. “He feels it benefits him in business. People are less likely to try to take advantage.”
I smiled broadly. “Yet it is I who have taken advantage of him.”
“How so?”
I brought her hand to my lips and kissed it. “I’m about to steal from his household the most beautiful woman in Île Royale.”
She returned my smile with one that made my heart stumble and my mind whirl, and I had to force myself to think of the practical matters we now needed to address. After all, both our lives would change dramatically following our wedding. Before granting permission to marry his daughter, Monsieur Desbarats had insisted that I agree to leave the military as soon as my service was completed and assume a role in his business, a prospect I found daunting. But I would do anything for Marie-Claire. “Tomorrow I shall ask the priest to announce the banns of marriage during Mass,” I said.
She nodded, her eyes shining. “Sébastien —” she began, but she was interrupted by someone shouting my name. We turned to see Guillaume running toward us, his boots flying over the cobblestones.
At first, I assumed he had learned of Monsieur Desbarats’s response to my request and was hurrying to congratulate us. But as he drew nearer, I saw the expression on his face. Something was very wrong.
“The British!” he exclaimed when he reached us, his breathing ragged from his run. “Scores of their sails have been sighted — this time off Baie Gabarus. The British are preparing to come ashore!”
Chapter 2
June 2, 1758
Captain Boudier surveyed the soldiers of the Compagnies Franches de la Marine standing at attention. His eyes reflected approval at our readiness, which was to be expected. Each of the fifty men standing before him worked hard for that approval.
Louisbourg’s garrison included more than three thousand soldiers, among them the Volontaires Étrangers, Artois and Bourgogne regiments as well as twenty-three other Compagnies Franches. My comrades and I were fortunate to be in the command of Captain Étienne Boudier. Soon after Guillaume and I arrived in Île Royale, we learned that, unlike Boudier, many of Louisbourg’s commissioned officers were greedy and dishonest. And those vices were not the only ones shared by some of the officers. A few, such as Lieutenant Colonel Jean Mascle de Saint-Julhien, commander of the second battalion of the Artois and Bourgogne regiments, seemed incapable of providing strong leadership. Saint-Julhien’s superior attitude offended everyone, even his fellow officers. While working on a section of the east wall one day, I’d overheard two of them talking. “Saint-Julhien!” one of them spat. “That man is incapable of desiring any good that does not originate with himself.” Fortunately, Captain Boudier’s only concern seemed to be Louisbourg’s defence. He routinely pushed us to our very limits to ensure we were equal to the task, yet every man in his company respected him. We knew he valued our service. More important, we knew he would ask of us nothing he would not first demand of himself.
“Compagnie,” he began, his face a grim mask in the early morning light, “the forces amassing against us are daunting.”
No one in our company registered surprise. King George II had declared war on France weeks after Guillaume and I arrived in Île Royale. Since then the British had made no secret of their intent to capture our walled town, which in British eyes was a menace that needed to be eliminated. Their vessels had been sighted in increasing numbers off Île Royale’s coast, and since early May a squadron of nine enemy ships had sailed back and forth across the entrance to our harbour, preventing French warships and cargo vessels from entering. Only the French privateers with their smaller vessels could outmaneuvre the lumbering square-riggers.
The blockade was of great concern to everyone because Louisbourg could not provide all the provisions that the colony needed to survive, relying as it did on supplies imported from many other places. With tensions rising in the face of those enemy ships, Governor Drucour had dispatched letters to the Minister of the Marine in France, outlining the growing threat and explaining Louisbourg’s need for more ships and more troops. He had also sent a message to the Compagnies Franches officer Charles Deschamps de Boishébert, in Quebec, urging him to come to our aid. Boishébert was well known for his ability to assemble large numbers of irregular forces, among them native warriors who hated the British as much as we did.
We had all been hopeful that help would soon come. But now there was this news of the armada gathering at Baie Gabarus. Would aid arrive before the attack began?
“By our count,” said Boudier, “the British ships outnumber ours eight to one.”
Guillaume glanced at me. The astonishment on his face mirrored my own. Those numbers surely explained why our fourteen warships remained at anchor in the harbour.
“Gouverneur Drucour believes that retaliation by sea would be foolhardy,” Boudier continued. “Our ships would first have to engage the squadron blockading us, and the sounds of their guns would alert the enemy at Baie Gabarus. More important, if our ships were disabled or captured, nothing would prevent the British from sailing unhindered into our harbour. Our fortifications are strong, but even they would not withstand unchecked bombardment from so many vessels.”
A low muttering floated through the company as several of my comrades wondered aloud the question in my own mind — could we expect reinforcements?
Boudier began to speak again, and the muttering ceased. “Gouverneur Drucour has received word that five ships carrying six hundred eighty soldiers of the Cambis Regiment have arrived from France. With the British blockading the seaward approach, the ships have been forced to moor at a harbour a few days’ march from here. The Cambis will complete their journey by land.”
Several of my fellow soldiers voiced their relief while others thumped the backs of their comrades. In light of that armada at Baie Gabarus, this was welcome news.
“Are we to do nothing until the Cambis arrive?” murmured a soldier to my left. I turned to see Jacques Legrand’s face lined with confusion, his expression making him appear even younger than usual. When the sixteen-year-old had arrived from France, Guillaume had wryly commented that the boy’s family name seemed particularly unfitting. Legrand was a head shorter than most of his comrades, and many of us good-naturedly called him l’Enfant.
The boy had much to learn. Doing nothing would surely serve no purpose — something which Boudier made clear as he resumed his briefing. “The British know they cannot hope to defeat us by attacking from the sea. It is surely by land that they will make their approach.”
He was right. Not only was the harbour entrance so narrow it could be easily defended, no other fortifications in North America were as imposing as Louisbourg’s. More than a league of massive walls surrounded the town, the western wall as high as five men, and even wider across. Six pentagonal bastions located along these walls provided excellent vantage points from which artillerymen could fire their cannons. And Louisbourg’s defences extended even beyond its walls. A small island in the harbour had a battery fortified with walls half as high as Louisbourg’s itself; thirty-one guns stood at the ready there. Yes, my comrades could easily drive back a naval assault, which was why the British would surely approach by land. Louisbourg was overlooked by nearby hills. If the British were to mount an attack from that elevation, the outcome might not go in our favour. It was essential that our forces keep the enemy from making landfall.
And it was this mission that Boudier announced now. “Gouverneur Drucour has ordered reinforcements be sent to all possible landing sites to drive the enemy back. Seve
ral companies will march to Anse de la Cormorandière, Pointe Platte and Pointe Blanche,” he said, referring to beaches west and southwest of us. “Others will head north to Anse à Gauthier. Our company will proceed to the seaward side of the town, where we will join armed civilians taking up positions. In the face of such a threat, every able-bodied man is needed.” He scanned the company. “Any questions?”
There were none. Boudier nodded, then proceeded to give us our orders.
Moments later, our muskets shouldered, we marched through the town toward Bastion Maurepas and Bastion Brouillan, which overlooked the sea. The expressions on the faces of our older, experienced comrades were grave, unlike those of us younger soldiers. Guillaume’s ruddy face bore an especially wide grin. He was as eager as I to put our training to use against the British. After all, we had known this day would come. Since the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle had reverted ownership of Louisbourg to our motherland, its people had known it was only a matter of time before the British tried to reclaim the prize they had lost. But we were ready for them.
We had to be.
Chapter 3
June 4, 1758
The rising sun revealed lines on the faces of the soldiers standing guard with me in the Bastion Brouillan. The evening before, the distant sound of an explosion had drawn every man’s eyes toward the west. Even now, many of my comrades continued to gaze in that direction.
“Surely that was more than cannon fire, Sébastien,” Guillaume said. For nearly two days now, we had listened to the periodic discharge of heavy guns in the distance, but none had been as thunderous as the one the previous evening.
I shrugged, staring out at the waves that broke against the rocks beyond. The ocean had been rough for days, yet the sound of that explosion had carried clearly above the unending roll and crash of the sea. I was at a loss to explain it. Fortunately, I did not have to.
“Compagnie!”
Corporal Pierre Grimaud came striding toward us along the massive wall. We lurched to attention, awaiting whatever news he might have for us.