The President of the Marseilles Chamber of Commerce begs you to honor him by your presence at the luncheon which will be given to the members of your Commission on
Monday, September 25th 12:30 P. M. at the
Restaurant de la Re'serve.
(31 F Promenade de la Corniche)
At this banquet, on my right sat Maurice Damour, French deputy in charge of the Commission, and on my left Hubert Giraud, vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce. He made a fine address and I asked him for a copy, which he gave me. It is reproduced herewith:
Mr. President— Gentlemen:
I am desired by my President to give you in your own language the welcome of the Chamber of Commerce of Marseilles. You will certainly lose more than gain in hearing me instead of President Artaud, and I must apologize, as my knowledge of English is far from being adequate to my task. Anyhow, it is possible my words may be by a few of our guests more easily translated than if delivered in French.
Gentlemen, the oldest Chamber of Commerce in France, and maybe in the world, is exceedingly proud of entertaining tonight the highly qualified representatives of the American Commerce and Industry. We are most thankful to your party to have agreed to spend some of your valuable time in our city. We are sorry to say that we have not this good fortune as often as we would like, and that your fellow-citizens generally pay very little care to our old harbour and town. They are rather exclusively attracted by our great capital, Paris, and when coming to enjoy the splendid winters of the French Riviera, they reach it direct by rail or by sea, and seem to be quite ignorant of Marseilles, where they could find at least what is our city's glory: LIGHT, LIFE and LABOUR.
I think that Marseilles deserves more attention, and that the old ties between America and Marseilles should be better known. I would recall that our history, especially the history of our Chamber of Commerce, records the old sympathy of Marseilles for America. It is as old as your nation herself. At the end of the eighteenth century, when the stars of young America just appeared on the Atlantic horizon, French warships fought for your fathers' independence. Some ships of Admiral d'Estaing's French squadron bore names such as "LE MARSEILLAIS", "LA PROVENCE". In the year 1782 the French fleet was increased by a new warship of 118 guns, built and armed at the expense of the Chamber of Commerce of Marseilles. Her cost was 1,200,000 francs, a very small sum of money in our days, but rather a large one in those remote times. She was offered to King Louis XVI for the very purpose of helping in the American war, and she was named by the King "Le Commerce de Marseille."
Gentlemen, it is for the successors of the "echevins" of the year 1782 a great joy to meet in Marseilles the sons of the glorious soldiers of the Independence War, sustained so many years ago with the assistance of the warship bearing their own name.