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The first house you approach on the quay was one of the most admired in the town. Its owner, a Gascon named Joseph Lartigue (c1683-1743), came to Louisbourg with the first settlers from Placentia, Newfoundland. He had been a fisherman and trader, but here he accepted public office, becoming a member of the Superior Council and serving as town magistrate. Business sense, family alliances and official favour raised him to prominence in the town. Lartigue had the original of this house built here in 1734.

The house, a timberframe structure with rubblestone fill, is soundly built and attractive. The house is not large and part of it was used as a courtroom, yet Lartigue and his wife Jeanne lived here with several servants and many of their twelve children. Lartigue was prosperous when he built this house and thought himself well favoured by it. Acknowledging his satisfaction, we begin to see that ideals of space and privacy change, and that the Lartigues accepted different standards than we might.

Except for four years of exile in France, Mme. Lartigue lived here through the whole existence of French Louisbourg, one of a few colonists to see both its foundation and its fall. Exiled again, she died in 1763.

Today the Lartigue home serves as a boutique, operated by the Fortress Louisbourg Association, offering reproductions of eighteenth products and souvenirs for sale.