And now I am in Marseilles, a clean, handsome, flourishing city, with an enormous population and an enormous trade; and naturally I think of the time—now more than a century ago—when the Marseillais set out for Paris. ‘The notablest of all the moving phenomena of that time,’ writes Carlyle, ‘is that of Barbaroux’s “six hundred Marseillais who know how to die.” A black-browed mass, full of grim fire,’ got together no one knows how—from the forçats, say some. As they march through Lyons, the people shut their shops in fear. ‘The Thought which works voiceless in this black-browed mass, an inspired Tyrtæus, Colonel Rouget de Lille, has translated into grim melody and rhythm; into his Hymn or March of the Marseillaise: luckiest musical-competition ever promulgated. The sound of which will make the blood tingle in men’s veins; and whole Armies and Assemblages will sing it, with eyes weeping and burning, with hearts defiant of Death, Despot, and Devil.’
Marseilles is a far nobler city than it appears to the tourist as he rushes from the train to catch the steamer waiting to bear him far away. High above the city, on a precipitous rock, from which you have a grand view of the place, and the harbour, and the far-off Mediterranean, stands the old Cathedral of Marseilles—Notre Dame de la Garde—a noble Romanesque
It has a very ancient history, this noble city of Marseilles. It owes its origin to a tribe of Ionian Greeks, who, about 600 b.c., there founded a town that ultimately became the head of a Roman province. In the contest between Pompey and Cæsar, the town wished to remain neutral, but Cæsar had need of gold, vessels, and harbours, and scrupled not for a moment to lay siege to it, which was maintained against him during the whole of his long and severe warfare with Afranius and Petreius in Spain, and was not taken till after the capture or dispersion of their legions. The treatment of the town was so merciless, that from thenceforward, by Strabo’s account, it only preserved vestiges of its former prosperity and wealth. However, Marseilles in time recovered from the blow, and chiefly by means of the book trade. It seems to have become a miniature Athens. France was especially distinguished by its aptitude and zeal for Roman learning. At Marseilles there was an institution for Greek education and literature, which was visited, even in preference to Athens, by men of the highest rank. A large institution of the same kind existed at Autun, and Tacitus calls that city the principal seat of Latin culture. With respect to the book trade of Lyons, we have the testimony of the younger Pliny, when he states that he learned, with some surprise, from a friend that his own discourses and writings were publicly sold there.
In the time of the Crusades Marseilles became a busy place. It is now wholly given up to trade, and flourishes accordingly. Since 1850 it has become the head packet-station on the Mediterranean, and more and more frequented by English passengers, who can stay at gorgeous hotels, or more economical ones, according to the state of their finances. If they only stop the day, they cannot do better than dine at the buffet attached to the railway-station, unless they wish to partake of the famous bouillabaisse of which Thackeray sung, and to which my friend—my lamented friend—George Augustus Sala, devoted many a learned paragraph in his ‘Table Talk’ in the Illustrated London News and elsewhere. Woe is me! I quite forgot all about it till just as I had to take the train to carry me away. I shall never cease to regret that forgetfulness on my part. It may be that I may live to repair it!
There was a time when this delicious delicacy could be had in Paris. Some of us can still remember Thackeray’s beautiful ballad:
‘A street there is in Paris famous,
For which no rhyme our language yields;
Rue Neuve des Petits Champs its name is,
The New Street of the Little Fields.‘And here’s our wish, not rich and splendid,
But still in comfortable ease,
The which in youth I oft attended
To eat a bowl of bouillabaise.’
But Marseilles lives on other things than its bouillabaisse—a rich soup or stew of all sorts of fish—not to be flippantly eaten, not to be lightly forgotten. Some 2,000 vessels fill its capacious harbour. In its lofty bonded warehouses are stored away the merchandise of many climes, and its soap-works and sugar-refineries are on an extensive scale. In short, it is the Liverpool of France; but, alas for the pride of the Mersey, how much cleaner, brighter, grander! how much purer the smokeless atmosphere! how much lovelier the outlook over sea and land! It was there that in 1797 that great French statesman, M. Adolphe Thiers, was born. That acute judge of men and books, Abraham Hayward, who was at Paris before Thiers had risen, as he did at a later time, describes him, in 1844, as ‘a little, insignificant man, till he gets animated, but wonderfully clever.’
The one drawback to Marseilles, the only cloud in its blue sky, is the drink; and I am glad to find that there is a good man there, Pastor Lenoir, who has taken up temperance work, and has carried it on very successfully. Last year, for a novelty, in Marseilles he got up a temperance fête, which was a great success. During the last twenty years drinking has greatly increased, and the drink-shops as well. In 1876 there were in Marseilles 2,460 drink-shops; now there are 4,205—far too many, when we remember that the town has only 600 bakers’ shops and only 500 schools. As a consequence, Dr. Rey shows that insanity has greatly increased, and that in the hospital of St. Pierre the proportion of insane patients whose disease can be traced to alcohol has increased from 15 per cent. to 31 per cent. of the patients admitted. ‘The chief factor,’ he writes, ‘of these mental diseases is alcohol, and especially when to its intoxicating effects is added that of absinthe, and other vegetable substances which produce epilepsy and other similar evils.’ In this respect, Marseilles teaches us a lesson which it is well to remember at home.
In another way Marseilles is a lesson in favour of temperance work. In the district of Villette the drinking classes chiefly dwell. It is a narrow, dirty court, opening on a series of alleys; in the centre runs an open gutter—the only drainage of the place—while on either side are small one-storied houses, called cabanons, let for about eight shillings a month. They are let to the poorest of the poor, and abound with dirt and large families and drunkenness; the three in France, as in England, generally go hand in hand. The air is stifling, the odours insupportable; and when the sun pours down in the middle of summer, and the hot sirocco-like wind blows, the condition of matters is unbearable. As I write I see the people of Marseilles, in fear of the plague, will not permit travellers from the East, under any pretence whatever, to land there. They had much better look at home, and reform their own sanitary arrangements in such districts as Villette. It is there the good Protestant pastor, connected, I believe, with the McAll Mission in Paris, labours unweariedly with a band of fellow labourers as devoted as himself. I give the story of one of his rescued men, as an illustration of labour-life in the fair city of Marseilles: