At one time the longest building in North America, Louisbourg's barracks measured over ninety metres in length and contained more than 100 rooms. At one end (in the foreground here) was the apartment (pavilion) for the governor. A similar apartment was provided at the opposite end of the building for the colony's civil administrator (commissaire-ordonnateur). This latter official, however, refused to live in the drafty, often leaky building. Instead he built an imposing structure in town and sold it to the king as the official residence for the civil administrator.
As well as housing the governor, the barracks contained rooms for unmarried officers and for soldiers. Most officers, however, elected to lodge in town and escape the discomforts of the building. The military chapel was located to one side of the central passageway which ran through the building; on the other side was Louisbourg's prison. The barracks also served to close the interior of the King's Bastion (illustration 2), thus creating a citadel or point of strength in the fortifications. Access to both the barracks and the bastion could be cut off by raising the drawbridge (seen here on the right). From the third-floor windows of the barracks soldiers with muskets had an unobstructed view towards the outer defenses, as well as towards the town.
