The Citadelle of Quebec (), also known as La Citadelle, is an active military installation and the secondary official residence of both the Canadian monarch and the governor general of Canada. It is located atop Cap Diamant, adjoining the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City, Quebec. The citadel contains the oldest military building in Canada and forms part of the fortifications of Quebec City, which is one of only two cities in North America still surrounded by fortifications, the other being Campeche, Mexico.
The strategic importance of Cap Diamant was recognized by the French as early as 1608. Several defensive fortifications were built on the site first by the French and then by the British after their conquest of New France. The modern citadel was built from 1820 to 1850, in an effort to secure Quebec City against a potential American attack. The British used the citadel until 1871, when they formally handed the property over to the Canadian government. Following the handover, the citadel was used as a military installation by the Canadian Armed Forces and as a royal and vice-regal residence.
The Citadelle is a National Historic Site of Canada and forms part of the Fortifications of Québec National Historic Site of Canada. The fortress is located within the Historic District of Old Québec, which was designated a World Heritage Site in 1985. The site receives some 200,000 visitors annually.
History
Cap Diamant's strategic value was identified by Samuel de Champlain in 1608 and led him to found Quebec City at the base of the escarpment. The promontory was practically insurmountable and thus the only side of the settlement ever to be heavily fortified was the west, the only one not naturally protected by the hill.
Early fortifications
French-rule
The first protective wall (enceinte)—Major Provost's palisade—was built by command of Governor General of New France Louis de Buade, sieur de Frontenac and completed just in time for the Battle of Quebec in 1690. Three years later, a plan by engineer Josué Boisberthelot de Beaucours for new, wide enceinte was developed by the French military engineer Jacques Levasseur de Néré and approved in 1701 by King Louis XIV's Commissary General of Fortifications, Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban.
The proposal to build a full fort was deemed by the government in France to be too costly, despite both the importance and vulnerability of Quebec City. After the fall of Louisbourg in 1745, considerable work on the battlements took place under the direction of military engineer Gaspard-Joseph Chaussegros de Léry.
British-rule
The first British lieutenant governor of Quebec, General James Murray, saw the weakness of Quebec City's defences (indeed, Murray's post existed precisely because the British had conquered Quebec City four years before Murray's appointment as governor in 1763). He urged the construction of a citadel, but the imperial government at Westminster, like the French before, deemed a large fort to be of little value; a smaller, wooden citadel was built.
During the American Revolutionary War, after seizing Montreal in the autumn of 1775, American rebels, led by General Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold, attempted to take Quebec on 31 December. There, Montgomery was killed and Arnold wounded and forced to retreat. The Americans attempted to keep Quebec under siege, but withdrew after the arrival of British reinforcements in the spring of 1776.
Present fortification
As tensions between the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as fears of further rebellion in British North America, grew in the late 18th century, the British reinforced the defences of their colonies according to a plan drawn up in the 1790s by Gother Mann. The ramparts around the Upper Town cliff and four martello towers (still extant) on the Plains of Abraham were completed before 1812. A citadel was a key part of Mann's design, but no fort was built because the cost was deemed prohibitive.