Le Prado is another of the fine streets of Marseilles. It is a majestic boulevard, the continuation of the Rue de Rome, beyond the Place Castellane. Practically it is a great tree-bordered avenue, which is lined with the gardens of handsome villas. It is as attractive as Unter den Linden or the Champs Élysées.
Marseilles has many specialities. Bouillabaisse is one of them; flowers, which you buy at a ridiculous low price at those curious little pulpits which line the Cours St. Louis, are another; and a third are the strawberries, which are here brought to one’s door and sold in all the perfection of fresh picked fruit. They are sold in “pots” of porous stone, covered with a peculiar gray paper, and the size and capacity of the “pots” is regulated by a municipal decree. The “grand pot” must contain four hundred grammes, and the “petit pot” two hundred. All of which is vastly more satisfactory for the purchaser than the false-bottomed box of America or the underweighted scales of the greengrocer in England.
Flower Market, Cours St. Louis
This “pot-à-fraise” of Marseilles is a commodity strictly local, and no fresh fruit is more in demand in season than the strawberries of Roquevaire, Beaudinard, and Aubagne. The season’s consumption of strawberries at Marseilles is 350,000 litres.
The street cries of Marseilles may not be as famous as those of London, but they are many and lively nevertheless. Fish, fruit, and many other things form the burden of the cries one hears at Marseilles in these days; but, like most of the picturesque old customs, this is being crowded out. The itinerant vitrier still makes his round, however, and you may hear him any day:
“Encore un carreau cassé
Voici le vitrier qui passe....”
In this connection it is interesting to recall that all glass made in Provence in the thirteenth century was by authorization of the Bishop of Marseilles, and that the industry was entirely in the hands of the Chartreux monks. Only in the fifteenth century, at the hands of the good King René, did the trade receive any extension.
The fishing industry has ever been prominent in the minor affairs of Marseilles. The ancient Provençal government guaranteed the fishing rights to certain “patrons pêcheurs,” and, when the province was united with the Crown of France, in 1481, the Grand Seneschal confirmed the privileges in the name of Louis XI. They were again confirmed, in 1536, by François I., and in 1557 by Henri II.