by Don Aker
Image 1: (left) Soldier of the Compagnies Franches de la Marine of Canada, 1757–1760; (right) Officer of the Compagnies Franches de la Marine of Canada, circa 1750; reconstructions by Eugène Lelièpvre, Parks Canada.
Image 2: Wolfe wading ashore through the surf at Louisbourg, Charles Jefferys, Library and Archives Canada, MIKAN 2835894.
Image 3: A View of Louisbourg in North America…besieged in 1758, Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. R9266-818, Peter Winkworth Collection of Canadiana, MIKAN 3020573.
Image 4: Cannon along quay at Fortress Louisbourg; Dan Roitner/Alamy Images.
Image 5: The Burning of the Prudent and the Taking of the Bienfaisant in Louisbourg (Nova Scotia) Harbour, 1758, Pierre Charles Canot, courtesy of Toronto Public Library, Baldwin Collection.
Image 6: Surrender of Louisbourg to the British under General Jeffery Amherst, French and Indian War, North Wind Picture Archive/Alamy Images.
Images 7 and 8: Maps by Paul Heersink/Paperglyphs.
The publisher wishes to thank Janice Weaver for her detailed checking of the facts; and A.J.B. Johnston, a longtime historian with Parks Canada and author of the highly regarded Endgame 1758: The Promise, the Glory, and the Despair of Louisbourg’s Last Decade and of Grand Pré, Landscape for the World, for his invaluable input on the manuscript.
Author’s Note
I have lived my entire life in Nova Scotia, a province rich in many cultures, and I have always been interested in stories of the early French settlers. No doubt much of this interest arose from my living a short drive from Port Royal, which is considered the oldest French settlement in all of North America. When I was deciding on a focus for this novel, I immediately knew I would choose an event from French history in Atlantic Canada. The fall of Louisbourg seemed a likely subject because the loss of that fortress marked the beginning of the end for New France.
While Brothers in Arms: The Siege of Louisbourg is a novel, the events it describes in 1758 are historical. Sébastien de l’Espérance is fictional and I invented his name. Interestingly, however, after completing the first draft of the novel, I learned that a thirty-three-year-old man named Charles-Gabriel-Sébastien de l’Espérance lived at Louisbourg in 1758, a coincidence I found more than a little surprising. Other fictional characters in the story are Sébastien’s comrades Guillaume, Jacques, Christophe, Édouard, Renard and Marceau; military figures Captain Boudier, Corporal Grimaud, Sergeant Fournier and Sergeant Tremblay; Sébastien’s fiancée, Marie-Claire; and the members of her family. However, every other person included in the novel lived in Louisbourg during the British invasion. I have depicted their roles as accurately as I could.
I have visited the Parks Canada Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site many times, and it was very helpful to return there while I was planning this novel. Moving through its streets and buildings gives visitors an excellent sense of what it was like to live in Louisbourg during that period. Staff members dress in period costumes and perform many of the duties that would have been required of its military and citizens at the time. Animals similar to the livestock raised by those citizens are found within the fortress walls. Garden plots produce some of the herbs and vegetables that would have been grown there, and eating establishments serve food that typically would have been eaten by the people who called Louisbourg their home. In a very real sense, it is a living museum that offers visitors an opportunity to experience eighteenth-century life in one of the most remarkable settings in North America.
During my research for this novel, I read a number of excellent books written about the rise and fall of Louisbourg. The most helpful of all was Endgame 1758: The Promise, the Glory, and the Despair of Louisbourg’s Last Decade, written by A.J.B. Johnston. Besides being a historian and leading expert in his knowledge of the fortress and the military and citizenry who occupied it, Mr. Johnston is also a novelist whose fiction focuses on that same time period. His detailed account of the siege and ultimate surrender described in Endgame 1758 provided much of the framework upon which I constructed the narrative of Brothers in Arms. In addition, he graciously responded to many questions regarding details I needed to ensure that my story accurately portrayed Louisbourg and its fall, details that not only involved the scope and sequence of events, but also elements of language.
For example, while the site is now commonly referred to as Fortress Louisbourg, Mr. Johnston pointed out that the term “fortress” was not used to describe Louisbourg until the twentieth century, which is why I have not used it in the novel itself. He also advised me on the proper spellings of Bastion Dauphin and Porte Dauphine, and concurred regarding use of the historical spelling, Micmac, rather than the contemporary spelling, Mi’kmaq.
Of all the details I learned while researching the siege, the one that resonated most strongly with me was the willingness of Louisbourg’s leaders to sacrifice every man, woman and child in the town when the governor’s war council initially refused to accept the terms of surrender the British had given them. Their determination to fight to the death rather than suffer indignity says so much about the value the French placed on honour. When I learned about the war council’s last-minute change of heart, I thought the events around that moment held the same sense of heightened drama we see so often in contemporary edge-of-your-seat thrillers. The difference, of course, was that this was real life, and these were real people whose lives hung in the balance and were spared only at the last moment. Long before I began writing my first draft, I knew immediately that I wanted to build my entire story around this scene. This is why Brothers in Arms: The Siege of Louisbourg not only begins and ends with it, but also pauses midway to return to Jean-Chrysostome Loppinot as he carries the single-sentence response from Governor Drucour that dooms every person within Louisbourg’s walls. No author, whether writing fiction or fact, could ignore the extraordinary dramatic tension of that experience.
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A former high school teacher and university instructor from Nova Scotia, Don Aker has written twenty books, among them several novels for teenagers. His young adult fiction has earned him numerous awards, including the Ontario Library Association’s White Pine Award for The First Stone, Atlantic Canada’s Ann Connor Brimer Award for The First Stone and Of Things Not Seen, the Canadian Authors Association’s Lilla Stirling Award for Of Things Not Seen and One on One, and an Honour Book citation from the Canadian Library Association for The Space Between.
Other books in the I AM CANADA series
Behind Enemy Lines
World War II
Carol Matas
Blood and Iron
Building the Railway
Paul Yee
A Call to Battle
The War of 1812
Gillian Chan
Deadly Voyage
RMS Titanic
Hugh Brewster
Defend or Die
The Siege of Hong Kong
Gillian Chan
Fire in the Sky
World War I
David Ward
Graves of Ice
The Lost Franklin Expedition
John Wilson
Prisoner of Dieppe
World War II
Hugh Brewster
Shot at Dawn
World War I
John Wilson
Sink and Destroy
The Battle of the Atlantic
Edward Kay
Storm the Fortress
The Siege of Quebec
Maxine Trottier
For more information please see the I AM CANADA website: www.scholastic.ca/iamcanada
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Sébastien de l’Espérance is a fictional character created by the author, and his journal is a work of fiction.
Copyright © 2015 by Don Aker. All rights reserved.
A Dear Canada Book. Published by Scholastic Canada Ltd. SCHOLASTIC and I AM CANADA and logos are trademarks and
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ISBN: 978-1-4431-4675-3
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First eBook edition: September 2015
