Ile Saint-Jean When France decided to colonise Ile Saint-Jean in 1720 settlers from France and parts of Acadia came and established the various towns built on the Island. It was intended that forts in the style of Vauban should be built in key locations and I will discuss those in a future post. Suffice it to say that by the 1730s a four-pointed star fort was in the process of being built at Port la Joye, the capital of Ile Saint-Jean. An image of it – reality or wishful thinking – has survived in this splendid 1734 watercolour of the settlement with accompanying plans.   CARTE DU PORT LA JOYE…

This post is the first in several about French and Acadian houses in the Maritime Region during the years of the Eighteenth Century that ended in the deportations of 1755 and ’58. In Part I of this post, I will focus on the evidence from Louisbourg. But first it is necessary to provide a brief historical note on France of the Rococo period and of the nature of French interests in New France. First, I begin with a quick overview of the Enlightenment, born in the salons of France and spreading to other European countries. The developments that took place in all the arts, architecture, painting, sculpture, music, literature, philosophy,…