Laprise- Mercier - Trépanier- Louis XIV Living conditions of French sailors and colonists - Recruiting part 1

Living conditions of French

sailors and settlers 

Our ancestors were on

board ships to New France 

  

Recruitment 

In the countryside, captains often enlist on

their parents' land, playing on local loyalty

to a family. In the cities, soliciting is practiced on

market days: around a drink, recruiting sergeants pitch

"lovers of fame and money".

Singles fleeing creditors or an unforeseen paternity,

young naive peasants who came to town were intoxicated

with generous bays of wine until they drank to the health

of the King, which was a sign of their commitment.

The more the needs increase, the more there is abuse:

those who dispute are sequestered in the darkness of a

cabaret cellar, an "oven", until they give in.

Likewise, the vagrants and juvenile delinquents,

handed over by the town watch to recruiters, are enlisted. 

Volunteering or conscription 

It is not enough to have a ship, you also need men to lead them,

to maneuver and to fight.

A large ship of the line occupies at least five hundred men. 

Traditionally, the “seafarers” are called upon for this purpose,

on a voluntary basis.

But the Royal Navy of Louis XIII and Louis XIV

does not attract. For the command of the vessels, a

body of specially trained officers was then created in 1669.

The recruitment of crews is harsher: when the need arises,

the exits of a port are blocked to round up all those who are

there, fishermen, sailors or young passers-by, and they are taken

on board by force. Obviously, this “press” system does

not encourage vocations.

From 1689, it was replaced by a form of conscription.

The men on the rolls are likely to be called at any time.

Thus in 1692, the crews from Newfoundland arriving at

Sables-d'Olonne were immediately mobilized, even before

they could get rid of their cargo. 

In response to the protests, the administration replied that they had

only to make do with the invalids and cripples living in the country

In time of war, we tried to include in this system

all those who have a link with the water, the mariners,

the boatmen and even those who fish in the boat on the rivers. 

  

1. Distribution of the Navy

budget Thebudget between 1715 and 1740 was around 10 million.

This budget implies 2 million for the balances of

permanent personnel, 1.7 million for the colonies

(including naval bases), 1.6 million for the

Corps des Galères then already very contested in its existence,

but with solid support) , 1 million for lighthouses,

coastal and port fortifications, maintenance of arsenals

and that of militias and coastal customs.

For the construction and maintenance of ships,

but also for armament (costs linked to making and

maintaining operational a building held in reserve),

there remains a maximum of 3 to 4 million,

knowing that the maintenance and

the construction (relatively fixed positions

because planned where armament is purely based on needs)

constantly cost around 2.5 million.

The performance of a wooden ship changes a lot over the

course of its life. This lifespan is on average 12 years at least up

to 20 years for the best built, with a possibility of extension

via reconstruction which can add ten years.

The result is that an operational fleet thus has a set

of hulls with very heterogeneous performance.

performances are not necessarily preserved, in

particular in the practice of shooting by broadside which is in

any case impossible after ten years of service,

the structures getting tired quickly under this extreme constraint.

brutal. But reconstruction is a necessity as it costs 20 to 30%

less than new construction.

Sun King's Ship

Costs involving the construction, equipment and armament of

a 1st rank building (over 100 guns, 3 bridges) cost an average

of £ 1 million. A2nd place (74 to 92 guns) costs on

average around 750 000 pounds. A3rd row (around 64 guns)

costs about 540 000 pounds, and4th row around 430,000 pounds.

All ships cost, during their operational life first of 10 to

20 years (excluding reconstruction), almost 150%

of their construction cost for their maintenance

(essentially the 3 major refits that they will undergo on average). 

The discipline 

We must fight against the absenteeism of officers

and teach them to submit to the hierarchy.

By carrying out checks, we also hunt down officers
who cheat 

on the number of their men, which allows them to pocket

unjustified engagement bonuses: during troop reviews,

or "watches", they engage soldiers. extras, nicknamed

"flywheels", to make a number ... 

It is frowned upon to marry under the flag and all

unemployed women caught "brawling" with soldiers are

publicly whipped; then we make gashes on their faces

to deprive them of their charms .... 

  

Military discipline is also severe: slight faults committed

by soldiers by soldiers during service are generally punished

with canes. For more serious faults, there is the whip and the

"military torture" by which the hands are tied behind the

soldier's back and he is enslaved with a rope very high in the air,

and then he is dropped. almost close to the ground,

so that the weight of her body makes her arms dislocate.  

The army's biggest problem is desertion.

It takes on enormous proportions,
especially in times of conflict and

in certain bodies, such as militias.
From 1684, the death penalty for

repeat deserters was replaced by the galleys, after marking

the culprit with a hot iron with a fleur-de-lys

on each cheek and amputating his ears and nose! 

  

Galleys 

 

In 1662, Colbert wrote: 

“His Majesty wishing to reestablish the corps of his
galleys and to strengthen the staff by all kinds of means.
Its intention is that we condemn there as many guilty
as possible and that we even convert the death penalty into that of galleys ” 

   

Seducers - murderers - Bohemians -

Protestants - Etc. - all guilty 

Colbert's cynical recommendation was to be zealously applied:
more than thirty-five thousand "35,000" men were sent there in
the following forty "40" years and only 20% of them were murderers. 

Convicted 

jumble Philippe Lorcet, sentenced to life imprisonment for
“theft of honey flies”, ie bees. 

Pierre Bolery, five years old for "seducing a young girl
without a promise of marriage, being married to him,
and therefore this young girl has a child". 

Guillaume Bossery, boy, wigmaker, five years old for "having worn
in the buttonhole without any quality a red
cord almost similar to that of Saint-Louis". 

Alongside these “common rights”, there are also rebellious peasants
and salt workers, who present about a third of those condemned. 

Systematically hunted down from 1682, the Bohemians
"wandering beggars, vagabonds and libertines
who live on theft, skill and trickery", also come to strengthen the chiourme .
just like the Protestants. 

Religious and gentlemen are very rare because most often their
sentence is commuted. The conviction of the banker La Noue to nine years
in April 1702 remains an exception which then made event. 

Pope Innocent X 

  

Moreover, by the great kindness of his Majesty the King,
the galleys accept foreigners. To stock up on men, agreements
were concluded with various States, Savoy, principalities of
Germany and even with the Pope: for them to deliver the
condemned at their expense to Marseilles. 

Protestants 

Archive of death of Catherine Henriette de la Tour on April 4, 1677
Protestant, from Auvergne, Marquise de la Moussaye in Brittany, France 

  

There were only a few Protestant homes, mainly run by a few noble families:
La Moussaye, Gouiquet, Du Rocher and Doudart in the regions of Quintin,
Plénée-Jugon, Moncontour, Plouër-sur-Rance, Perret.
The rest of the community consisted of their servants and settlers. 

  

After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, around 1,500 Protestants were 

sent to the galleys. The condemned in chains are taken to Marseille
by private entrepreneurs, the captains of the chain.
A third of those condemned die either during the journey between the
prison and Marseille, or within three years of arrival. 

After a stay in prison, the condemned to the galleys is sent to Marseille.
The men are chained by the necks two by two, with sledgehammers,
their heads resting on the anvil ... Then they are all linked together by a long
chain which passes between each couple.
We can thus bring together one hundred and fifty convicts in a single shipment. 

There are three main departure centers: Paris, Bordeaux and Rennes 

The convoys are generally formed between April and
September and take about a month to reach their destination, Marseille...
on foot. Weakened by detention, crushed by the weight of several
tens of kilos of chains, the men drag themselves on the roads at
a rate of twenty to twenty-five kilometers a day, "often the rain
on the body, which only dried up with time, not counting lice and scabies ”. 

  

The trip is made even more inhuman by the violence of the "chain captain"
and the escort who tamper with the rations and cause terror to reign in the ranks.
Only those who have the money can eat their fill and escape
the blows of cross-country, jerk nerves, hammers! 

  

The revolts, frequent, are crushed in the blood. Under these conditions,
the losses are enormous and the survivors in a deplorable state.
To ensure a good renewal of the shift, the State is trying to
improve this transport, by associating a rolling kitchen and a surgeon
to each channel,
by limiting the use of violence, by forcing drivers to transport the weakest
and the sickest
in a cart. But the chain remains a terrible ordeal: of the three hundred
and eighty men who left Paris in January 1712, fifty-four died on
the way and one hundred and nineteen arrived in a cart as dying. 

The convicts work 

 First arsenal of galley in France 

  

As soon as he arrives, the convict is assigned to a galley.
He will spend all the time of his sentence there. But this is not just about
rowing in appalling conditions; most of the year, the galleys remain alongside.
The work is compulsory: construction of the arsenal, digging of the port,
manufacture of anchors, sailmaking occupy the greatest number.
Others are employed in town by artisans: the galleys are filled with
"people of all arts and crafts" whose skills are in demand ...
especially as their work is paid four times less than the normal price.
Some are even servants among the bourgeois. 

  

 "Those who do not know other trades than making stockings,
writing, embroidering, painting ..." remain on board, while a few
are allowed to keep a stall on the quays. If the money they earn
in this way improves the ordinary, it is also the source of
countless trafficking because the argousins ​​abuse a share of the income.
The convicts are everywhere recognizable with their chains,
the stockings, the cap and the red helmet,
the shaved head completes the uniform of infamy. 

  

But you don't cut your hair during the winter
and that is when attempts to escape are the most frequent.
Because we do not finally leave the galleys. To be released he does not 

  

It is not enough to have had good use of time. Philippe Chabot,
sentenced to ten years in 1670 for theft of leeks, was not released
until twenty-seven years later! We also sometimes meet old people over eighty ...
For them as for the sick and infirm, there is no question of rowing.
They await death in a galley or in the hospital. 

                                                                              

 Suite Louis XIV Living conditions of French sailors and colonists
Part 2 - The pirates