 Old Fort Saint-Jean on Richelieu River, 1911 |
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Entrance of the former Royal Military College of St. Johns |
FROM FORT SAINT-JEAN TO THE COLLÈGE MILITAIRE ROYAL DE SAINT-JEAN
After Québec City, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu is the oldest military site in North America to have been continuously occupied. This presence dates back to 1666.
At that time, the French erected forts along the Richelieu River in order to counter the Iroquois; Fort Saint-Jean, built by the Carignan-Salières regiment, is one of them. Abandoned a few years later, it was rebuilt in 1748 according to the plans of engineer Gaspard-Joseph Chaussegros de Léry. However, in 1760, the French, facing the English invasion, elected to burn down the fortification rather than let it fall into the hands of the enemy.
| Old Fort Saint-Jean on Richelieu River, 1911 |
The fort, which became redoubt under the British, lived its greatest hours of glory when, in the fail of 1775, its occupants sustained a 45-day siege, thus delaying the American soldiers' march toward Québec City. Subsequently, the barracks and the hospital, built in 1839, housed various British and Canadian regiments, namely the Royal Canadian Dragoons as well as its cavalry school. On October 21, 1914, was founded there the Royal 22e Régiment, first French speaking regular regiment in Canada. In 1952, the Collège militaire royal, intended for the training of future officers of the Canadian army, was inaugurated.
On the current site, five buildings erected in 1839 still stand. Along with a more recent building, three of them form the historical square. Positioned at right angle, these elongated monuments indeed delimit a square open at its four corners; they consist of two storeys of ochre brick laid on a freestone base and covered with a gambrel roof with chimneys set in it at regular intervals.
The building overlooking the river, today the officers' mess, is the most imposing. It is distinguished by two lower lateral projections and a central porch. The other constructions resemble it by their size and their materials; however, their composition and the distribution of the three ground floor doors recall their primary function as barracks.
From the onset, the military presence was thus an important element of Saint-Jean's development. Today, it still contributes to the socioeconomic evolution of the city and continues to show itself in events to which the residents are invited.