Nautical Research Journal


to move forward with plans for their improvements. Having succeeded Clerville in January 1678 as commissioner general of fortifi cations, he gained legitimacy in terms of port developments.


Toulon


T e expansion of the Toulon dockyard was carried out around a new dock, west of Henri IV’s dock, to be able to support a fl eet of fi ſt y to sixty vessels. T e port entered an era of major works that lasted fi ſt een years. T e rope factory marked the boundary between the enlarged city and the dockyard. Vauban’s way of defi ning it—in the functional sense of the term— was a model of the genre: “All the buildings that serve similar functions will be located close to each other as follows; the hemp store with the combers above, from whose hands the ready-prepared hemp will pass into the rope factory where it will be spun along the way, part as tarred line, part as ropes of lesser strength, aſt er which...it will leave again to be made into cables and, from there, transported to the drying oven or to the store of tarred ropes, and the


other ropes in the store of untarred ropes which is right next to the oven.” (SHD Vincennes 1V H 1831 n° 8) T e expansion of the Toulon dockyard was, at


the time, the only development operation that


benefi ted from a space without any real constraints. T e rope works there were designed to fully meet the needs of the Navy. It had a main gallery 170 toises (1,200 feet) long, on two levels surmounted by a roof. Its width was set to house three spinning or fi nishing workshops. Two end pavilions framed it symmetrically, topped with an attic. T e length of


the whole stretched to 200 toises (1,400 feet).


Construction began in 1686, under the direction of engineer François Gombert, deputy to Antoine Niquet. (A native of Toulon, François Gombert came from to a family of entrepreneurs. He was works inspector in 1672, received his appointment as a naval engineer on January 1, 1673, and authored plans to expand the dockyard before Vauban came to Toulon. He also was the designer of Fort de l’Eguillette in La Seyne.) T e mediocre quality of the Toulon subsoil led to adapting the foundations of the building to suit. Most of it was based on a network similar to that of the Rochefort rope factory. T e eastern quarter


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7. Choquet le Lindu: plan drawn up in 1746 for the two rope factories in Brest. © SHD.


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