Villars's memoirs show us a fanfaron plein d'honneur, as Voltaire calls him.

Land reclamations carried out over time to develop the Trou Fanfaron harbor have rendered the historic wharf unusable.

Jones quotes Walpole as saying, "The French have tied up the hands of an excellent fanfaron, a Major Washington, whom they took and engaged to serve for a year."

The area where the building complex is situated, Trou Fanfaron, was the landing point for the French East India Company, which took possession of Mauritius in 1721.

The Immigration Depot was built on the east side of the bay of Trou Fanfaron, a locality within the Mauritian capital city of Port Louis.

In 1849, a building dating back to the French administration in the Trou Fanfaron area was chosen as the core of a planned structural complex that would become the permanent depot for immigration.

Immigrants arriving via the "coolie ships" on the wharf of Trou Fanfaron were led to the Immigration Depot via a series of 14 stone steps, which are presently intact.

And these all appeared, also with paper soldier hats upon their heads, and girt in some very spontaneous costume, and so the whole troop proceeded with loud fanfaron and drumbeat to mamma's door and knocked for admission, and heard her cheery "Come in."