the vieux carré a tight little palisadoed wall, fifteen feet high, with a fosse in front seven feet deep and forty feet wide. On the corners, fronting the river, were two forts, St. Louis (Canal street) and St. Charles (Esplanade street), pentagon shaped, with a parapet coated with brick, eighteen feet high, armed with a dozen twelve and eighteen pounders. Before the centre of the city was a great battery, which crossed its
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fire with the forts, and commanded the river. The rear also was protected with three forts, Forts Burgundy (Esplanade street), St. Joseph, and St. Ferdinand (Canal street). The batteries on the river were strengthened, and a fort was built on Bayou St. John.
A distinguished French general, Victor Collot, who visited the province in 1796, studying its military resources, gives, in his written report of his observations, an elaborate and rather amusing description of the baron's fortifications.
