But, after all, it was not so much the defective works
that really mattered as the defective garrison behind
them. English-speaking civilians who have written about
Louisbourg have sometimes taken partial account of the
ordinary Frenchman's repugnance to oversea duty in time
of peace and of the little worth of hireling foreigners
in time of war. But they have always ignored that steady
drip, drip, drip of deterioration which reduces the
efficiency of every garrison condemned to service in
remote and thoroughly uncongenial countries. Louisbourg
was remote, weeks away from exchanges with Quebec, months
from exchanges with any part of France or Switzerland.
And what other foreign station could have been more
thoroughly uncongenial, except, perhaps, a convict station
in the tropics? Bad quarters were endurable in Paris or
even in the provinces, where five minutes' walk would
take one into something pleasanter. Bad fortifications
would inspire less apprehension anywhere in France, where
there was at least an army always ready to take the field.
But cold, cramped quarters in foggy little Louisbourg,
between the estranging sea and an uncouth land of rock,
bog, sand, and scrubby vegetation, made all the world of
difference in the soldier's eyes. Add to this his want
of faith in works which he saw being scamped by rascally
contractors, and we can begin to understand why the
general attitude of town and garrison alike was one of
'Here to-day and gone to-morrow.'