a small, dull, out-of-the-way garrison town like Louisbourg,
where there was no social life whatever--nothing but
fishermen, smugglers, petty traders, a discontented
garrison, generally half composed of foreigners, and a
band of dishonest, second-rate officials, whose one idea
was how to get rich and get home. The inspectors who were
sent out either failed in their duty and joined the
official gang of thieves, or else resigned in disgust.
Worse still, because this taint was at the very source,
the royal government in France was already beset with
that entanglement of weakness and corruption which lasted
throughout the whole century between the decline of Louis
XIV and the meteoric rise of Napoleon.

The founders of Louisbourg took their time to build it.
It was so very profitable to spin the work out as long
as possible. The plan of the fortress was good. It was
modelled after the plans of Vauban, who had been the
greatest engineer in the greatest European army of the
previous generation. But the actual execution was hampered,
at every turn, by want of firmness at headquarters and
want of honest labour on the spot. Sea sand was plentiful,
worthless, and cheap. So it was used for the mortar, with
most disastrous results. The stone was hewn from a quarry
of porphyritic trap near by and used for the walls in
the rough. Cut stone and good bricks were brought out
from France as ballast by the fishing fleet. Some of
these finer materials were built into the governor's and
the intendant's quarters. Others were sold to New England
traders and replaced by inferior substitutes.